THE RABBIT. 95 



even the advantage of understanding our own consciousness 

 with any completeness. But we know that a very large 

 part of the activity of oyr own nervous system is carried 

 on without the production of consciousness at all, or 

 at least without any that enters into the course of 

 that continuous consciousness which gives us our indi- 

 viduality. If even such elaborate and painfully learned 

 actions as walking and writing can be carried on without 

 consciousness entering into the details of them, we may well 

 doubt the existence of any clear consciousness in animals 

 with much simpler nervous systems. Without association 

 of ideas consciousness can at best be but a series of imme- 

 diately forgotten dreams ; and we shall see that even among 

 vertebrata association of ideas is not a universal possession, 

 while in still lower animals we can hardly find a trace of it. 



