(2 9 4) 



CHAPTER XV. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



HERE, then, I leave my case, though well aware that I 

 have crossed the threshold only of my subject. My 

 work is of a tentative character, put before the public 

 as a sketch or design for a, possibly, further endeavour, 

 in which I hope to derive assistance from the criticisms 

 which this present volume may elicit. Such as it is, 

 however, for the present I must leave it. 



We have seen that we cannot do anything thoroughly 

 till we can do it unconsciously, and that we cannot do 

 anything unconsciously till we can do it thoroughly; 

 this at first seems illogical ; but logic and consistency 

 are luxuries for the gods, and the lower animals, only. 

 Thus a boy cannot really know how to swim till he can 

 swim, but he cannot swim till he knows how to swim. 

 Conscious effort is but the process of rubbing off the 

 rough corners from these two contradictory statements, 

 till they eventually fit into one another so closely that 

 it is impossible to disjoin them. 



Whenever, therefore, we see any creature able to go 

 through any complicated and difficult process with little 

 or no effort whether it be a bird building her nest, or 

 a hen's egg making itself into a chicken, or an ovum 



