392 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION". 



no generality is anticipated, and its existence is unlcnown, it often 

 happens that such generalization becomes known or rises into con- 

 sciousness, without the bestowal of effort in classification of the 

 objects to which it refers. The impressions consciously received 

 have been arranged out of consciousness, and when revived into 

 consciousness display an order which was not previously known 

 to exist. It is in the latter way that the "practical man " "finds 

 out " the rules by which, as by an instinct, he regulates his inter- 

 course with the world. He often can not explain the reasons of 

 their truth, nor does he know how he came by them, being gen- 

 erally content to call them the results of " experience." In some 

 persons they are so feebly expressed in consciousness as to be called 

 "feelings" ; and many experiences or repetitions are sometimes 

 necessary to impress on us the importance of these mental prod- 

 ucts before we are willing to follow them in action. " Strength 

 of mind " is an expression applied to a high degree of this uncon- 

 scious reasoning ; expressing the extent of ground the process 

 covers continuously, as well as the exactitude of its results. The 

 experimental investigator, on the other hand, performs this work 

 deliberately, and is acquainted with the processes ; he is, there- 

 fore, at first more confident of his results. And we observe here, 

 in passing, that a rule once discovered is as readily retained in 

 the cells of the unconscious as is the memory of a simple object 

 or event. 



Another form of unconscious cerebration is seen in deductive 

 reasoning, which employs rules already discovered in application 

 to new cases. Calculating prodigies are a case in point. It is 

 well known that those persons who have from time to time ap- 

 peared possessed of the power of calculating with enormous num- 

 bers with marvelous rapidity, have never been able to explain the 

 process by which they reach their conclusion, nor are they con- 

 scious of going through the steps involved in the calculation they 

 perform ; and it has been said that great calculators have rarely 

 been great mathematicians. 



The explanation of these phenomena is not far to seek. In 

 simpler forms it is presented to us every day. Thus it is an easy 

 matter to read with but little consciousness of the process, and no 

 recollection of the subject-matter of what is read. Most manual 

 operations can be performed while the consciousness is occupied 

 with other objects. 



If these be facts of human experience, how much more likely 



