CONCLUDING REMARKS. (FROM CHAPTER XV. OF LIFE AND HABIT.)
Here, then, I leave my case, though well aware that I have crossed the
threshold only of my subject. My work is of a tentative character, put
before the public as a sketch or design for a, possibly, further
endeavour, in which I hope to derive assistance from the criticisms which
this present volume may elicit. {125} Such as it is, however, for the
present I must leave it.
We have seen that we cannot do anything thoroughly till we can do it
unconsciously, and that we cannot do anything unconsciously till we can
do it thoroughly; this at first seems illogical; but logic and
consistency are luxuries for the gods, and the lower animals, only. Thus
a boy cannot really know how to swim till he can swim, but he cannot swim
till he knows how to swim. Conscious effort is but the process of
rubbing off the rough corners from these two contradictory statements,
till they eventually fit into one another so closely that it is
impossible to disjoin them.
Whenever we see any creature able to go through any complicated and
difficult process with little or no effort--whether it be a bird building
her nest, or a hen's egg making itself into a chicken, or an ovum turning
itself into a baby--we may conclude that the creature has done the same
thing on a very great number of past occasions.
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