124 Unconscious Memory 



inside her, and that it is thus her egg comes to assume 

 the colour of the others ; but this explanation will not 

 hold good for nests that are made in the holes of trees, as 

 that of Sylvia plicenicurits, or which are oven-shaped with 

 a narrow entrance, as \\ith sylvia nija. In these cases 

 the cuckoo can neither slip in nor look in, and must there- 

 fore lay her egg outside the nest and push it inside with 

 her beak ; she can therefore have no means of perceiving 

 through her senses what the eggs already in the nest are 

 like. If, then, in spite of all this, her egg closely resembles 

 the others, this can only have come about through an un- 

 conscious clairvoyance which directs the process that goes 

 on within the ovary in respect of colour and marking. 



An important argument in support of the existence of 

 a clairvoyance in the instincts of animals is to be found 

 in the series of facts which testify to the existence of a 

 like clairvoyance, under certain circumstances, even among 

 human beings, while the self-curative instincts of children 

 and of pregnant women have been already mentioned. 

 Here, however,^ in correspondence with the higher stage 

 of development which human consciousness has attained, 

 a stronger echo of the unconscious clairvoyance commonly 

 resounds within consciousness itself, and this is represented 

 by a more or less definite presentiment of the consequences 

 that will ensue. It is also in accord with the greater in- 

 dependence of the human intellect that this kind of pre- 

 sentiment is not felt exclusively immediately before the 



^ " Meistentlieils tritt aber hier der lioheren Bewusstseinstufe der 

 Menschen entsprechend eine starkere Resonanz des Bewusstseins 

 mit dem bewussten Hellsehen hervor, die sich also mehr oder 

 minder deutliche Ahnung darslellt. Ausserdem entspricht es der 

 grosseren Selbststandigkeit des menschlichen Intellects, dass diese 

 Ahnung nicht ausschliesslich Behufs der unmittelbaren Ausfiihrung 

 einer Handlung eintritt, sondern bisweilen audi unabhangig von 

 der Bedingung einer momentan zu leistenden That als blosse 

 Vorstellung ohne bewussten Willen sich zeigte, wenn nur die 

 Bedingung erfiillt ist, dass der Gegenstand dieses Ahnens den Willen 

 des Ahncnden ini Allgemeinen in hohem Grade interessirt." — 

 Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 94. 



