VII.]' What is Inspiration? hi 



melodious themes of Beethoven, or even the wonder- 

 ful flashes of insight of Newton or Faraday, we have 

 instances of visual or auditory images, or apprehen- 

 sions of physical truths, entering and occupying the 

 foreground of consciousness suddenly and without 

 warning. The more valuable and striking instances 

 of this sort are, in modern parlance, described as cases 

 of inspiration, though by this phrase no more is now 

 meant than to designate some rare or admirable kind 

 of normal mental action. The modern student has 

 learned that consciousness has a background as well 

 as a foreground — that a number of mental processes 

 go on within us, of which we cannot always render a 

 full and satisfactory account. Many a link of asso- 

 ciation is buried beneath the surface, and the coveted 

 flash of memory, of judgment, or of fancy, does not 

 always come at our bidding. To account for this 

 group of phenomena, modern psychologists have 

 propounded various theories of " latent mental ac- 

 tion " or " unconscious cerebration ; " but no one now 

 resorts to the hypothesis that such phenomena are 

 due to the operation of some outside spirit or intelli- 

 gence acting upon the mind. Hypotheses of this sort 

 do not harmonise with the accumulated experience of 

 modern times, and they have become utterly and 

 hopelessly discredited. 



