The
familiar, whether sight or sound, very commonly escapes us.
Take again the processes of digestion, the action of the heart, and the
oxygenisation of the blood--processes of extreme intricacy, done almost
entirely unconsciously, and quite beyond the control of our volition.
Is it possible that our unconsciousness concerning our own performance of
all these processes arises from over-experience?
Is there anything in digestion or the oxygenisation of the blood
different in kind to the rapid unconscious action of a man playing a
difficult piece of music on the piano? There may be in degree, but as a
man who sits down to play what he well knows, plays on when once started,
almost, as we say, mechanically, so, having eaten his dinner, he digests
it as a matter of course, unless it has been in some way unfamiliar to
him or he to it, owing to some derangement or occurrence with which he is
unfamiliar, and under which therefore he is at a loss how to comport
himself, as a player would be at a loss how to play with gloves on, or
with gout in his fingers, or if set to play music upside down.
Can we show that all the acquired actions of childhood and after-life,
which we now do unconsciously, or without conscious exercise of the will,
are familiar acts--acts which we have already done a very great number of
times?
Can we also show that there are no acquired actions which we can perform
in this automatic manner which were not at one time difficult, requiring
attention, and liable to repeated failure, our volition failing to
command obedience from the members which should carry its purposes into
execution?
If so, analogy will point in the direction of thinking that other acts
which we do even more unconsciously may only escape our power of self-
examination and control because they are even more familiar--because we
have done them oftener; and we may imagine that if there were a
microscope which could show us the minutest atoms of consciousness and
volition, we should find that even the apparently most automatic actions
were yet done in due course, upon a balance of considerations, and under
the deliberate exercise of the will.
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