CHAP. XI. UNCONSCIOUS COGNITION. 165 



that each new acquirement renders possible other and 

 more refined discriminations. But there is reason to 

 believe that, even without conscious voluntary efforts, the 

 same kind of progress (though more slowly) is capable of 

 being brought about by the action upon the organism ot 

 all the varying influences by which it is surrounded. 



The mode by which mere ' organic discriminations ' are 

 rendered possible may be, in part, illustrated by reference 

 to the building up of the links between conscious dis- 

 criminations and actions in higher organisms such as 

 Cephalopods and Fishes. 



Particular attention must be called to the fact that 

 each new impression which becomes registered is not 

 something wholly different from what has gone before. It 

 is rather some slight modification or refinement upon 

 impressions which have preceded it, and just as it takes 

 its origin in similar parts of the body, so would it naturally 

 proceed to those same regions in the central nervous 

 system to which preceding impressions of like kind 

 had been transmitted. The determining conditions and 

 route by which the impression travels could scarcely be 

 different in the case of some new visual impressions, for 

 instance, from what they had been in regard to all previous 

 visual impressions. Thus the physical counterparts of 

 like kinds of old and new impressions are almost neces- 

 sarily brought into close relation with one another, and 

 with the same sets of outgoing nerve fibres, however 

 these latter may from time to time be supplemented and 

 modified in their combinations. An organic continuity, 

 in fact, is supposed to lie at the root of impressions new 

 and old, whereby they are classed at the same time that 

 they become organized. Intelligence would thus be sub- 

 ject to actual ' growth ' in more senses than one. The 

 process is of course notably more complex than it is here 



