1 8 LIFE AND HABIT. 



process, but we know there must have been a time 

 in every case when even the desire for information or 

 action had not been kindled ; the forgetfulness of 

 effort on the part of those with exceptional genius for 

 a special subject is due to the smallness of the effort 

 necessary, so that it makes no impression upon the 

 individual himself, rather than to the absence of any 

 effort at all 1 



It would, therefore, appear as though perfect know- 

 ledge and perfect ignorance were extremes which meet 

 and become indistinguishable from one another; so 

 also perfect volition and perfect absence of volition, 

 perfect memory and utter forgetfulness ; for we are 

 unconscious of knowing, willing, or remembering, either 

 from not yet having known or willed, or from knowing 

 and willing so well and so intensely as to be no longer 

 conscious of either. Conscious knowledge and volition 

 are of attention ; attention is of suspense ; suspense is 

 of doubt ; doubt is of uncertainty ; uncertainty is of 

 ignorance ; so that the mere fact of conscious knowing 

 or willing implies the presence of more or less novelty 

 and doubt. 



It would also appear as a general principle on a 

 superficial view of the foregoing instances (and the 

 reader may readily supply himself with others which 

 are perhaps more to the purpose), that unconscious 

 knowledge and unconscious volition are never acquired 

 otherwise than as the result of experience, familiarity, 

 or habit; so that whenever we observe a person able 

 to do any complicated action unconsciously, we may 

 assume both that he must have done it very often 



1 See Appendix. 



