INSPIRATION 205 



Possessed of a reasoning mind over and 

 above his subconsciousness, man has acquired 

 a certain stock of knowledge ; but this 

 acquired knowledge is superficial compared 

 with subconscious intelligence. Thus, what- 

 ever man learns or whatsoever he achieves, is 

 the product of his mental labour ; for, unlike 

 the birds, he has no accessible spontaneous 

 knowledge — except, in the rare cases of 

 inspiration, which is, in effect, upspringing 

 intelligence of subconscious mind. Whether 

 this be latent or results from extraneous in- 

 fluence, need not here be discussed. Under 

 normal conditions all knowledge must be 

 acquired, either by self-instruction or learned 

 from another. 



Example : Notwithstanding that the action 

 of swimming is entirely different to that of 

 land progression, a dog swims naturally (sub- 

 consciously) at the first attempt ; but man, 

 who has had every opportunity for observing 

 the actions of animals in the water, is, never- 

 theless, some time in acquiring the art — ^to 

 him it is art. 



The reason for this is, of course, that the 

 man's self-conscious reasoning mind, deficient 

 in these matters, overrules the other, the mind 

 that knows, with the result that he has to 

 learn to overcome fear conjured up by his 



