146 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

was justified. We may thus see that we had experienced

sensations, grouped together into a mental image, but which,

so far as we can perceive, never rose into consciousness.

Again, we may set out to visit a friend at a residence well

known to us, and our consciousness, absorbed as in the

former case, may not serve to make us recognize the familiar

spot we were seeking, and we may only be woke up to the

fact that we have passed it by, through a check to our

career given by some passing vehicle. But while we have

thus been walking in reverie, our senses, though not our

intellect, have been awake to all the conditions which were

necessary to enable us to walk without accident through

peopled streets, with repeated steppings down and up kerb-

stones, and other similar movements. Each turning, each

crossing, may have been accurately effected, and though \vc

had no consciousness of the several objects which passed

before our eyes, yet we must have felt them and had an

unconscious sensuous cognition of them, or they never could

have served to guide us safely along our path.

Once more, let us suppose the case of a young lady

playing with perfect facility on the piano a difficult but

well-practised piece of music. While she is playing it, she

talks to a gentleman she thinks likely to " propose " to

her.

Her consciousness is absorbed in attending to his words,

his tone and manner, with mental side-glances as to fortune,

temper, and other matters. Yet she need never stumble

in her performance, or fail in exactitude as to the force

of stroke or prolongation of pressure to be applied to the

different keys ; indeed, were she to direct her attention

thereto, the perfection of her execution might be thereby

impaired just as (once more) running up and down stairs

may be impeded by the express direction of attention to

the movements necessary to effect it. Most persons who

was justified. We may thus see that we had experienced

sensations, grouped together into a mental image, but which,

so far as we can perceive, never rose into consciousness.

Again, we may set out to visit a friend at a residence well

known to us, and our consciousness, absorbed as in the

former case, may not serve to make us recognize the familiar

spot we were seeking, and we may only be woke up to the

fact that we have passed it by, through a check to our

career given by some passing vehicle. But while we have

thus been walking in reverie, our senses, though not our

intellect, have been awake to all the conditions which were

necessary to enable us to walk without accident through

peopled streets, with repeated steppings down and up kerb-

stones, and other similar movements. Each turning, each

crossing, may have been accurately effected, and though \vc

had no consciousness of the several objects which passed

before our eyes, yet we must have felt them and had an

unconscious sensuous cognition of them, or they never could

have served to guide us safely along our path.

Once more, let us suppose the case of a young lady

playing with perfect facility on the piano a difficult but

well-practised piece of music. While she is playing it, she

talks to a gentleman she thinks likely to " propose " to

her.

Her consciousness is absorbed in attending to his words,

his tone and manner, with mental side-glances as to fortune,

temper, and other matters. Yet she need never stumble

in her performance, or fail in exactitude as to the force

of stroke or prolongation of pressure to be applied to the

different keys ; indeed, were she to direct her attention

thereto, the perfection of her execution might be thereby

impaired just as (once more) running up and down stairs

may be impeded by the express direction of attention to

the movements necessary to effect it. Most persons who