108 A. T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., ON 
and a “life” are, at any rate, forces that act unconsciously, 
and, as we shall point out, that “discipline” does the same ; 
indeed, it is automatic in its action. 
We have, as we have seen, to educate the infant, to form 
its character, to mould its disposition, to develop its brain, 
and instruct its senses, until the results emerge into full 
consciousness, the infant’s mind and brain being already 
filled with hereditary tendencies and paths. 
“The enormous practical importance of directing the pre- 
conscious activity through the physical nature may be 
admitted and systematically acted on; especially in that 
very earliest stage of infant education, which lays the foun- 
dation and moral habits of conscious life.* 
“ Darwin considered the influence of education as compared 
with that of heredity as infinitesimal.”t 
Herbert Spencer, on the other hand, and far more truly, 
regarded it as almost all-powerful; but then, when he said 
« A man resembles far more the company he keeps than that 
from which he descended,” he was bringing in the forces of 
unconscious education, whereas Darwin speaks, I think, only 
of conscious education. 
It is true that the latter, consisting of direct precepts, etc., 
is uot so powerful as the forces of heredity. When we 
consider that these have their home in the unconscious mind, 
it is obvious that an education that will drive them out or 
overcome them must be addressed to unconsciousness. 
Even when we consider that the physical structure of the 
brain is laid down according to inherited tendencies, we still 
say education is stronger; for we well know the educaticn 
of the unconscious mind we advocate is all-powerful to 
change, and modify this very structure in the direction 
wished for. 
Curiously enough, Sir Michael Foster, with a poesy that is 
somewhat out of. place in dealing with physiology, in his 
address to the British Medical Association,t attributes all 
these mental powers to physiology herself, who here obyi- 
ously stands for “ the Unconscious Mind.” ‘When physio- 
logy is dealing with those parts of the body which we call 
muscular, vascular, glandular tissues, and the like, rightly 
handled, she (sic) points out the way, not only to mend that 
* W. B. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 4th edit., p. 353. 
+ W. Preyer, Mental Education of Childhood, p. 164. 
{ Sir Michael Foster, Drittsh Medical Journal, Aug. 21, 1897. 
