COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



experience theory to the entire race, we see " in- 

 dissolubly connected psychical states existing 

 where there are perpetually repeated experiences 

 of the external relations to which they answer." 

 Though the higher kinds of instinct, in which 

 the supreme ganglia cooperate, are probably ac- 

 companied by a vague consciousness, yet in the 

 main the processes which we have just described 

 must be regarded as automatic. Let us now 

 notice what must occur when the correspondence 

 between inner and outer relations has become 

 quite complex and special. As Mr. Spencer has 

 pointed out, " phenomena become less frequent 

 in proportion as they become more complex ; 

 and hence the experiences of them can never be 

 so numerous as are the experiences of" simple 

 phenomena. The relation between a passing 

 obscuration and a living body recurs oftener 

 than the relation between a certain degree of 

 obscuration and danger, or than the relation be- 

 tween a certain other degree of obscuration and 

 food. Again, each of these relations is more 

 general than the relation between a particular 

 size and form of visual impression and an ob- 

 ject of a particular class. And again, this rela- 

 tion is more general than that between a particu- 

 lar size, form, and colour of visual impression, 

 and a certain species of that class." ^ From this 



1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology y vol. i. p. 441. [Part 

 IV. chapter v. § 197.] 



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