112 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



hensions of physical truths, entering and occupy- 

 ing the foreground of consciousness suddenly and 

 without warning. The more valuable and strik- 

 ing instances of this sort are, in modern parlance, 

 described as cases of inspiration, though by this 

 phrase no more is now meant than to designate 

 some rare or admirable kind of normal mental ac- 

 tion. The modern student has learned that con- 

 sciousness has a background as well as a fore- 

 ground, that a number of mental processes go 

 on within us, of which we cannot always render 

 a full and satisfactory account. Many a link of 

 association is buried beneath the surface, and the 

 coveted flash of memory, of judgment, or of fancy 

 does not always come at our bidding. To account 

 for this group of phenomena, modern psycholo- 

 gists have propounded various theories of " latent 

 mental action " or " unconscious cerebration ; " 

 but no one now resorts to the hypothesis that 

 such phenomena are due to the operation of some 

 outside spirit or intelligence acting upon the 

 mind. Hypotheses of this sort do not harmonize 

 with the accumulated experience of modern times, 

 and they have become utterly and hopelessly dis- 

 credited. 



In ancient times, however, the case was entirely 

 different. In one of the most enlightened and 



