130 CONSCIOUSNESS 



committed by practice to the ideo-motor mach- 

 inery, and not infrequently fails in executing 

 them. A fit of consciousness may unnerve the 

 fingers ot a skilled pianist, and make an orator 

 forget his sentences. But however deeply we 

 may probe it, however minutely we may analyse 

 it, consciousness remains an insoluble enigma. 

 We speak of it as an instrument. But does it not 

 appear to be ourselves ? It is from one point of 

 view the microscope, from another the micro- 

 scopist. It is aware of itself. To materialistic 

 philosophers it may appear to have sprung from 

 some strange fermentation in the vessel of Life ; 

 but it soars aloft, like the genius of the Arabian 

 tale, overshadows its vessel and critically examines 

 it. By many it has been identified with the 

 human soul. But the genius may be reimprisoned 

 by sleep, by intoxication or by a fit of passion : 

 it will vanish before a slight concussion of the 

 brain : hypnotic influence affects it strangely. It 

 has the powers of a magician ; but it is as unstable 

 as a dream. 







If we can believe that each nerve-cell may 

 develop a rudimentary feeling or consciousness 

 of its own, we may arrive at some ^explanation, 

 indefinite though it be, of the power of the brain 

 to apprehend the memories and thoughts which 

 stream through it. How are these intangible 

 shadows brought within the grasp of conscious- 

 ness ? By, we may suppose, sympathetic and 

 reciprocal action of the " awareness " of the 

 nerve-cells, which communicates to one cell the 

 happenings in another without need of any special 

 transmitting machinery. And if nerve-cells, in 

 virtue of their inherent "awareness," can com- 

 municate with one another they can communicate 

 across space ; for within the cavity of the skull 



