$6 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



performance abortive, is any argument against that 

 action having been an achievement of design and 

 reason in respect of each one of the steps that have led 

 to it ; and if in respect of each one of the steps then 

 as regards the entire action ; for we see our own most 

 reasoned actions become no less easy, unerring, auto- 

 matic, and unconscious, than the actions which we 

 call instinctive when they have been repeated a suffi- 

 cient number of times. 



This has been often pointed out, but I insisted upon 

 it and developed it in ' Life and Habit,' more I believe 

 than has been done hitherto, at the same time making 

 it the key to many phenomena of growth and heredity 

 which without such key seem explained by words rather 

 than by any corresponding peace of mind in our ideas 

 concierniii^ them. Seeing that I dwelt much 'on the 

 importance of bearing in mind the vanishing ten- 

 dency of consciousness, volition, and memory upon 

 their becoming intense, a tendency which no one after 

 five minutes' reflection will venture to deny, some re- 

 viewers have imagined that I am advocating the same 

 views as have been put forward by Von Hartmann 

 under the title of ' the Philosophy of the Unconscious.' 

 Unless, however, I am much mistaken, their opinion 

 is without foundation. For so far as I can gather. Von 

 Hartmann personifies the unconscious and makes it act 

 and think — in fact deifies it — whereas I only infer a 

 sertain history for certain of our growths and actions in 

 consequence of observing that often repeated actions 

 come in time to be performed unconsciously. I cannot 

 think I have done more than note a fact which all must 

 acknowledge, and drawn from it an inference which mav 



