iv] Some Implications of the Incarnation 143 



adaptation. Only that which is of use is perceived. We 

 see many things which we do not perceive at all, because 

 they are of no practical importance to us at the mo- 

 ment 1 . All the past also exists, in memory; but we are 

 only conscious of that fragment of it which will be of 

 practical use to us at a given instant^ We call up into 

 the present again into the moment of action what 

 will be of value. The brain is the mechanism by which 

 perceptions and memories can be brought to bear on 

 actuality; its complexity enables the organism to have 

 a choice in the mode of its response. 



Now we saw in Evolution and Spiritual Life (pp. 182- 

 185), that memory cannot exist in transcendence, be- 

 cause it moves in the past, and is related to limitation. 

 But we have accepted the idea that Christ suffered 

 human limitation, and so being removed from the 

 simultaneity of transcendence to the time-series of a 

 human state, there would seem at first sight to be no 

 reason for denying that He had memory of the experi- 

 ence of transcendent unity. And this conception of a 

 memory of transcendent experience in Jesus is borne 

 out by many phrases of St John, such as those we have 



1 Anyone who has practical acquaintance with psycho-analytic 

 work, or who is even fairly familiar with the literature of the 

 subject, will realise how many things occur in memory that have 

 never been perceived in the strict sense. In illustration of this I 

 may further quote the experience of a friend who dreamed one 



night that the ss. was wrecked and her captain drowned. 



(I forget the names, but they were clearly present in the mind of 

 the dreamer.) On opening the paper, the first thing that caught 

 her eye was an account of the wreck. She was horrified, believing 

 herself to be afflicted with second sight. It afterwards transpired 

 that an account of the wreck was given in the Stop Press column 

 of the previous night's paper, which she had not read, but which 

 was lying on a chest in such a position that her eyes roust have 

 rested on the paper as she passed through the hall, though she had 

 not consciously perceived it. 



