THE RELIGION OF NATURE 



mcnt of personal failure or success ; but it is close 

 enough to illustrate the difference in the working 

 between an animal mind which is actuated solely 

 by a code of instincts, some simple and some com- 

 plicated, and a human mind of which a self-con- 

 scious personality sits in charge, controlling the 

 routine of his instincts and feeling the con. se- 

 quences. 



It is almost entirely owing to the difficulty of 

 putting new thoughts into old words that I can- 

 not make plain in fewer sentences this difference 

 between the unconscious suffering of animals and 

 the unhappiness of man. To feel pain is a bodily 

 sensation: to dislike the feeling of pain is a con- 

 scious thought ; and this " consciousness " which 

 distinguishes in the human mind between pleasure 

 and pain, as things desirable or otherwise, is only 

 another phase, in fact as in word, of the " con- 

 science " which distinguishes between good and 

 evil. 



And it may be similarly perverted. Most of us 

 are apt to think that the conscious feeling of 

 pain by a human being and the dislike of it can- 

 not be separated; but there is abundance of evi- 

 dence to show that they can be, and very often 

 are, entirely separated. 



It is well known to medical science that the 

 human conscience governs one's notions of pain, 

 [12] 



