THE SPKINGS OV CHARACTER. 39 



distinction that separates matter from mind; to open the dcor 

 to the false theory of materialistic evolution in asserting, as is 

 done by Spencer, that all things have come about by mechanical 

 force acting upon mere matter. 



What Dr. Schofield said about tendencies is to my mind of 

 very great value. Any system of education is bound to take 

 account of tendencies ; to cultivate, or repress or check them ; 

 and we should be alwa;ys keeping before us when we can the 

 Eontgen screen, to which the Doctor so beautifully alluded, 

 and a high Christian ideal. 



Mr. Martin Rouse, B.L. — I understood Dr. Schofield, when he 

 used the terra " imconscious mind," not to mean that mind was like 

 matter, or was like forces inter-acting mechanically, like a set of 

 wheels started in a factory by an engine, and doing a great deal 

 of work in spinning bobbins and so forth without their own will ; 

 not exactly that, but that we were not aware of the opei-ations of 

 this unconscious part of our brain, and that in being aware 

 of the operations of what he would call "the conscious pai't," we 

 knew that we willed to do a certain thing, and we did it. (Hear ! 

 hear!) Further, that when he said that will was one of the 

 springs of character, and that character found its home in the 

 unconscious mind, he did not mean to say that will was an un- 

 conscious thing, but that will, together with heredity and habit, 

 built up a character which then worked unconsciously ; that a 

 man told the truth without effbit or determination to tell the truth, 

 but simply because it was perfecily natuial to him. In the same 

 way, an Englishman who has lived iu France or Germany for 

 some little time will quite unconsciously speak French or German, 

 instead of first speaking English in his mind and then turning it 

 into Fx'ench or German. The phrase comes to the mind without 

 effort — without saying, " I want to express that iilea in German," but 

 it is used as naturally as the English phrase would be. I know this 

 through having spent a year and a half in Switzerland as a boy ; the 

 latter part of the time I dreamt in French and, as a habit, I prayed 

 in French. It did not seem to be a strained effort, or unnatural, 

 but it came quite naturally. In the same way we have been told by 

 Professor Orchard that we are always conscious, that he has been 

 conscious all his life, and that we are so in putting one foot before 

 another, which we aro taught as school boys. But, I maintain, 

 that is not the case. He used his will, at tlie beginning, at the 



