Organic Nature s Riddle 355 



ditions which correspond with our subjective conceptions, is 

 perfectly true ; but when once the profound difference 

 between mere organic habit and intellectual memory is 

 apprehended, there will be little difficulty in recognising the 

 yet greater diiference between ' organic correspondence ' and 

 the faithfulness of inorganic matter to the laws of its being. 



That the absence of consciousness in actions which are 

 perfectly performed does not make such actions into acts 

 of ' perfect knowledge ' is demonstrated by every calculating 

 machine.^ No sane person can say that such a machine 

 * possesses ' knowledge, though it is true that it ' exhibits ' 

 it. Similarly we must refuse to apply the terms ' memory ' 

 and ' intelligence ' to the merely organic activity of animals 

 and plants. 



The assertion that in the vegetal and lowest animal forms 

 of life there is an innate but unconscious intelhgence, is an 

 assertion which contains an inherent contradiction, and is 

 therefore fundamentally irrational.. Any one who says that 

 blind actions (in which no end is perceived or intended) are 

 truly intelligent ones, abuses language. The meaning of 

 words is due to convention, and any one who calls such 

 actions truly intelligent divides himself from the rest of 

 mankind by refusing to speak their language. 



What experience have we which can justify such a 

 conception as that of ' unconscious intelligence ' ? We are 

 indeed aware of a multitude of actions which are evidently 

 the outcome of intelligence, but which (like the analogous 

 action of a calculating machine) are performed by creatures 

 really unconscious, though they may possess consentience. 

 But consciousness is the accompaniment of all those actions 

 which we know to be intellectual and rational. Our experi- 

 ence then contradicts the hjrpothesis of the existence of any 

 such thing as * unconscious intelligence.' Such a thing is 



^ See ante, p. 98. 



I 



