FAMILIAR AND SURPRISING THINGS 415 



are not such close copies of reflex actions as certain other actions 

 are of instinctive doings. While we are learning to perform them 

 they engage our attention and will strongly. But as they become 

 habitual and are performed with increasing ease, we are able to 

 distract more and more of the attention and the will to less 

 habitual actions; but never the whole attention and will. The 

 will does not fall into abeyance as we become dexterous, it merely 

 works very smoothly and easily so that little mental effort is 

 required. As already noted, it is one of the main businesses of our 

 lives to acquire the power of performing frequently recurring 

 actions automatically, and so set free the concentrated part of the 

 attention and the will the fovea centralis of our attention and 

 will for other objects. 



684. It is said sometimes that lower animals differ so much 

 from us in brain and mind that we can form no conception of their 

 mental states. Doubtless this is true in a great measure. The 

 senses and, therefore, the outlook on the world as well as the 

 instincts of many animals differ greatly from ours. Moreover, no 

 other animal possesses such an enormous memory as man ; none, 

 therefore, learns so much about the world or is so preoccupied 

 with the past and the future. On the other hand, since most of 

 our instincts and those of lower animals are derived from progeni- 

 tors that were common ancestors, our innate emotional impulses 

 cannot be very different ; and, though our powers of thought are 

 transcendently great, yet all that is conferred by our unconscious 

 memories, our ' physical ' dexterities and mental attitudes, includ- 

 ing many of our prepossessions and prejudices, tend to become 

 close copies of instincts and instinctive activities. It is possible to 

 imagine a state of mind in which experiences are not recognised as 

 old acquaintances a state of mind in which nothing appears 

 familiar or unfamiliar ; in which everything is taken as a matter 

 of course and nothing causes surprise ; in which there is no idea 

 of the past or of the future but only a consciousness of the 

 immediate present ; in which, while most sights, sounds, tastes, 

 tactile sensations, and the like leave us unmoved, some of these con- 

 centrate our attention and will and incite more or less vehemently to 

 definite actions the aims and ends of which are unthought of. Such 

 a state of mind should be very like that of purely instinctive 

 animals. Things are familiar or unfamiliar only because memory 

 differentiates between the two, and surprising things are surprising 

 only because they run counter to our previous experiences. 1 



1 See 561. 



