From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



progressive enrichment of the subconscious has come 

 about, and how the inspiration of genius, with its higher 

 intuition and creative faculty, is visible and already 

 outlined, in the animal instincts. 



It will be difficult for M. Bergson's partisans to 

 revolt against this law, since they admit that intuition 

 is essentially instinctive. Intuition can be very much 

 better understood as an expansion and enrichment of 

 instinct, than by considering it as a residue of an animal 

 faculty. 



c THE DEGREE OF CONSCIOUS REALISATION IN THE 

 ANIMAL AND IN MAN, AND FROM THE ANIMAL TO 

 MAN, IS PURELY AND SIMPLY A FUNCTION OF THE 

 EVOLUTIONARY LEVEL ATTAINED 



The demonstration of this law also is deferred to 

 Book II., but the importance of this demonstration is 

 lessened by reason of the fact that the major portion 

 of psychology, whether animal or human, is subconscious 

 and essentially the same in both. From this it follows 

 that the capital distinction between animal instinct and 

 human intelligence which M. Bergson labours to 

 establish loses all importance. 



Considering only the evolution of consciousness 

 (taken separately), it obviously is merely a function of 

 the evolutionary level, and equally obviously there is no 

 impassable abyss between animal and human intelligence. 

 It appears profoundly illogical and erroneous to say 

 that there are in the animal only * fringes of intelligence.' 



From the lowest to the highest evolutionary types 

 the conscious intelligence is observable as a develop- 

 ment by stages. It is potential only in plants and in 

 very inferior animals; sketched out in higher species; 

 distinctly active in the highest animals, in which it 

 begins to play an important part; still more distinct 



186 



