Exfoliation 



the plan is committed to paper, models are made, 

 etc. ; and finally the actual work is begun and 

 completed. The process appears as a movement 

 from within outwards — the earliest and most 

 authentic discernible source of the movement 

 being a feeling — (though there may lie something 

 behind that). Even in ordinary action the same 

 order is manifest ; for, though of course every 

 action is not preceded by desire — since we know 

 that actions soon become habitual and more or 

 less unconscious — still a vast number of them are 

 immediately so preceded ; and in the case of any 

 action that is nevo^ either to the individual or to 

 the race, its inception is generally accompanied 

 by effort so painful that it would not be exerted 

 unless the desire were very strong. The difficulty 

 which a man experiences in learning any new art, 

 and the records of the many failures, struggles, 

 oppositions, persecutions, etc., which have at- 

 tended every new invention or innovation of 

 any kind in human history, afford plenty of evi- 

 dence of this last point. Certainly the effort that 

 accompanies a new action is not always faced so 

 much from sheer desire of the new thing itself 

 as from fear perhaps of something else — as it 

 may be contended that monkeys did not take 

 to climbing trees because they loved trees, but 

 because they feared the beasts below, or that the 

 giraffe did not stretch its neck because it particu- 

 larly desired to feed on leaves, as because it could 

 not get food any other way — but still, even in 

 these cases the desire may be said to exist, though 



187 



