MR. HERBERT SPENCER. 43 



himself driven to unconscious memory after all, and 

 says that " conscious memory passes into unconscious 

 or organic memory." Having admitted unconscious 

 memory, he declares (vol. i. p. 450) that "as fast as 

 those connections among psychical states, which we 

 form in memory, grow by constant repetition automatic 

 — they cease to be part of memory" or, in other words, 

 he again denies that there can be an unconscious 

 memory. 



Mr. Spencer doubtless saw that he was involved in 

 contradiction in terms, and having. always understood 

 that contradictions in terms were very dreadful things 

 — which, of course, under some circumstances they are 

 — thought it well so to express himself that his readers 

 should be more likely to push on than dwell on what 

 was before them at the moment. I should be the last 

 to complain of him merely on the ground that he could 

 not escape contradiction in terms : who can ? When 

 facts conflict, contradict one another, melt into one 

 another as the colours of the spectrum so insensibly 

 that none can say where one begins and the other ends, 

 contradictions in terms become first fruits of thought 

 and speech. They are the basis of intellectual con- 

 sciousness, in the same way that a physical obstacle 

 is the basis of physical sensation. No opposition, no 

 sensation, applies as much to the psychical as to the 

 physical kingdom, as soon as these two have got well 

 above the horizon of our thoughts and can be seen as 

 two. No contradiction, no consciousness ; no cross, no 

 crown ; contradictions are the small deadlocks without 

 which there is no going ; going is our sense of a sue- 



