124 THE KIDDLE OP THE UNIVERSE. 



them, in walking, speaking, writing, eating, and so 

 forth. 



IV. — Conscious memory, which is the work of 

 certain brain-cells in man and the higher animals, is 

 an " internal mirroring " of very late development, 

 the highest outcome of the same psychic reproduction 

 of presentations which were mere unconscious processes 

 in the ganglionic cells of our lower animal ancestors. 



The concatenation of presentations — usually called 

 the association of ideas — also runs through a long 

 scale, from the lowest to the highest stages. This, 

 too, is originally and predominantly unconscious 

 (" instinct ") ; only in the higher classes of animals 

 does it gradually become conscious (" reason "). The 

 psychic results of this " association of ideas " are 

 extremely varied ; still, a very long, unbroken line of 

 gradual development connects the simplest unconscious 

 association of the lowest protist with the elaborate 

 conscious chain of ideas of the civilised man. The 

 unity of consciousness in man is given as its highest 

 outcome (Hume, Condillac). All higher mental 

 activity becomes more perfect in proportion as the 

 normal association extends to more numerous presen- 

 tations, and in proportion to the order which is 

 imposed on them by the " criticism of pure reason." 

 In dreams, where this criticism is absent, the associa- 

 tion of the reproduced impressions often takes the 

 wildest forms. Even in the work of the poetic imagina- 

 tion, which constructs new groups of images by varying 

 the association of the impressions received, and in 

 hallucinations, etc., they are often most unnaturally 

 arranged, and seem to the prosaic observer to be per- 

 fectly irrational. This is especially true of super- 

 natural " forms of belief," the apparitions of spiritism, 



