144 Habit and Instinct. 



CHAPTER VII. 



INTELLIGENCE AND THE ACQUISITION OF HABITS. 



When a drill-sergeant takes in hand a number of raw 

 recruits, he has to keep a vigilant eye on the actions 

 of each, checking useless, misguided, or mistaken activity 

 in this direction, eliciting more prompt and vigorous 

 response to his commands in that direction, making the 

 men act, not as isolated units, but as constituent members 

 of a corporate body, and aiming throughout at that 

 co-ordinated action on which their future efficiency will 

 depend ; so that, when they take their places in the ranks, 

 each may be ready to perform his own part in due sub- 

 ordination to the combined action of the whole, without 

 faltering and without hesitation. The men are duly 

 organized into squads, companies, battalions, and so on ; 

 and thus we have a disciplined army with its brigades, 

 divisions, and army corps ; with its artillery, engineers, 

 cavalry, and infantry ; with its intelligence, commissariat, 

 and medical departments, each with distinctive responsi- 

 bilities, and under its own especial officers ; the whole 

 capable of the most varied and yet most orderly evolutions 

 at the will of the commander-in-chief. 



It is the function of consciousness, represented in the 

 flesh by the cerebral cortex, to drill and organize the active 

 forces of the animal body in a somewhat analogous manner. 

 But when it enters upon its duties, consciousness finds 

 that a considerable amount of the drilling has already been 



