Chap. X.] THE SCOPE OF MIND. 145 



that they are not even momentarily felt ; the chain of 

 causation being continued only jphysically, by one organic 

 state of the nerves succeeding another so rapidly that the 

 state of mental consciousness appropriate to each is not 

 produced.''^ 



It is, indeed, certain that multitudes of nerve actions 

 having no subjective side (that is, which are unaccom- 

 panied by phases of consciousness), form links or integral 

 parts of our momentarily occurring mental states, and 

 that such mere objective phenomena powerfully assist in 

 determining our so-called mental acts. Nay, more, it 

 seems almost certain that the greater part of our Intel- 

 lectual Action proper (that is Cognition and Thought as 

 opposed to Sensation) consists of mere nerve actions with 

 which no conscious states are associated. And, lastly, 

 each one of us may have had frequent occasion to notice 

 that states of Feeling which at first accompany unfamiliar 

 Muscular Movements, after a time no longer reveal them- 

 selves in Consciousness, that is, when such movements 

 have by dint of frequent repetition become easy of per- 

 formance. Thus, rapid and unconscious Automatic Actions 

 are constantly tending, in our own experience, to take the 

 place of slower and more consciously executed Yolitional 

 Movements. 



From this, as well as much more which might be said, 

 it would appear that those nerve actions attended by 

 conscious states (to which latter correlatives philosophers 

 have been accustomed to restrict the words ' Mind ' 

 and ' mental phenomena ' ) constitute, in reality, only a 

 very small fraction of the sum total of nervous states or 

 actions which are now known to be comprisad among 

 {a) the initial nervous phenomena leading to Sensation 

 and Emotion, among {b) the intermediate links of 

 Thought and Imagination, among (c) the beginniugs of 



