Notes on Foregoing Chapter 141 



of instinctive in deliberative actions because the two 

 classes of action are now in many respects different. His 

 philosophy of the unconscious fails to consider what is the 

 normal process by means of which such common actions 

 as we can watch, and whose history we can follow, have 

 come to be done unconsciously. 



He says,^ " How inconceivable is the supposition of a 

 mechanism, &c., &c. ; how clear and simple, on the other 

 hand, is the view that there is an unconscious purpose 

 constraining the volition of the bird to the use of the 

 fitting means." Does he mean that there is an actual 

 thing — an unconscious purpose — something outside the 

 bird, as it were a man, which lays hold of the bird and 

 makes it do this or that, as a master makes a servant do 

 his bidding ? If so, he again personifies the purpose itself, 

 and must therefore embody it, or be talking in a manner 

 which plain people cannot understand. If, on the other 

 hand, he means " how simple is the view that the bird 

 acts unconsciously," this is not more simple than sup- 

 posing it to act consciously ; and what ground has he for 

 supposing that the bird is unconscious ? It is as simple, 

 and as much in accordance with the facts, to suppose that 

 the bird feels the air to be colder, and knows that she 

 must warm her eggs if she is to hatch them, as consciously 

 as a mother knows that she must not expose her new- 

 born infant to the cold. 



On page 99 of this book we find Von Hartmann saying 

 that if it is once granted that the normal and abnormal 

 manifestations of instinct spring from a single source, then 

 the objection that the modification is due to conscious 

 knowledge will be found to be a suicidal one later on, in 

 so far as it is directed against instinct generally. I under- 

 stand him to mean that if we admit instinctive action, 



^ Page 99 of this vol. 



