52 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



probably at birth like a new machine which needs to be 

 worked two or three times before it is thoroughly in order. 

 In the machine the thousand strains and stresses upon 

 different parts have to adjust themselves to one another 

 in actual working before the running is really smooth 

 and easy. We may readily suppose an even greater 

 degree of self-adjustment in the living organism, the 

 result of which is merely to smooth and facilitate the 

 working of a structure which is already there in all its 

 essential parts. 



Such a structure, we have seen, is conceived by evolu- 

 tionists as growing up under the influence of natural 

 selection. 1 Among the higher animals, and not least 

 in man, the reflex structure also grows more rapidly 

 under another influence. We have all experienced 

 the growth through practice of true reflexes. If we 

 have forgotten our experience in learning to walk, 

 we remember learning to shave, skate, swim, or ride a 

 bicycle. We remember learning, though we might have a 

 good deal of difficulty in explaining how we learnt. In 

 general what we know is that we attempt to follow certain 

 instructions and in so doing flounder about, making random 

 shots which go on all sides of the mark, and every now and 

 then hit it. The cyclist as he learns is always falling, and 

 his attempt to save himself from a tumble on one side 

 merely lands him in danger of a fall on the other. As our 

 training advances, there are some things which we are 

 definitely conscious of finding out. We see how the thing 

 is done by doing it, though the most careful explanation 

 on the part of our teacher could not show us the way. 

 But having done it once, we know how to do it again. 

 There are other things, and perhaps they are more numer- 

 ous, in which consciousness does not seem to play by any 

 means so important a part. We learn to do them uncon- 

 sciously. Each time that we succeed we find it becomes 

 easier to repeat them. Success in these cases plays the part 

 which conscious intelligence plays in the former class. 



1 Whatever difficulties there are in such a conception are those that 

 beset the whole problem of variation. There is at least no reason to 

 doubt that the conditions of existence determine which of several 

 variations survive. 



