4 - HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE. [chap. 



of tlie scale is perfect unconsciousness; at the other is 

 perfect consciousness. The muscular actions at the uncon- 

 scious end of the scale are manifestly determined by the 

 same organizing intelligence that fits the muscles each for 

 its special work ; the iris is determined to contract, not by 

 any conscious intelligence, but by the same unconscious 

 intelligence that formed it for contracting. The muscular 

 actions at the other end of the scale, on the contrary — the 

 motions of the artist's hand, for instance — are directed by 

 conscious mental intelligence. But though there is con- 

 sciousness at only one end of the scale, there is intelligence 

 All motor throughout. All motor actions are directed by an intel- 

 iutelS^enT ligencc that adapts means to ends ; but it is only in the 

 whether ' case of the voluntary muscles that the intelligence is con- 

 or"not!"^^ scions. The unconscious closing of the iris and of the 

 eyelids against light, and the unconscious motions of the 

 throat and the stomach, are as truly adapted to a special 

 purpose, and therefore (according to any possible defini- 

 tion of intelligence) as truly intelligent, as the most con- 

 sciously determined motions of the artist's hand ; and, as 

 I have already insisted, the formative principle to which 

 the structure of the eye is due is as truly intelligent 

 as either. 

 Intelli- For these reasons I conclude that vital intelligence is 



^"^nscious" ^^^ same throughout. I believe the unconscious intel- 

 and con- ligence that directs the formation of the bodily structures 

 foiToative is the same intelligence that becomes conscious in the 

 ^"'^ mind. The two are generally believed to be fundamentally 



mental, is . ° t-.tt -tt t , ■, 



funda- distmct : conscious mental mtelugence is believed to be 

 mentally j^^-m^^^n, and formative intelligence is believed to be Divine. 



the same. ' ° 



This view This view, making the two to be totally unlike, leaves no 

 includes room for the middle region of instinct ; and hence the 

 marvellous character with which instinct is generally 

 invested. But if we admit that aU the intelligence 

 manifested in the organic creation is fundamentally the 

 same, it wiU. appear natural, and what might be expected, 

 that there should be such a gradation as we actually 

 find from perfectly unconscious to perfectly conscious in- 

 telligence ; the intermediate region being occupied by 



