Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/60

 44 HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL : in extreme cases to become entirely disconnected in their action from the active working consciousness. The pianist when he begins to learn to play upon his instrument finds his practice accompanied by laborious conscious effort, but when he becomes a virtuoso, the technique becomes less and less prominent in his thought, and finally w r e find him thinking solely of the expression, considering at most only the effect upon his audience of the emotional trains that arise in his mind and which he interprets by means of his instrument. In such cases evidently individually acquired habits gain almost completely the character of instincts. It becomes evident then that the very processes which in the racial life of the past have tended to make instincts less and less conscious do in our individual lives tend to produce unconsciousness of the acquired activities which originally result from ratiocination entirely within con- sciousness. Hence individually acquired habits which are clearly conscious in their inception, may become all but pure reflexes ; and their psychic effects throughout this movement towards unconsciousness are so closely allied to the psychic effects produced by instincts that we are very liable to confound the true instinct with the acquired habit. I think the reader will agree with me, then, that in our complex life we should expect it often to be very easy to mistake the leadings of the individual habit reflexes above spoken of, for true instinctive leadings : and yet it is clearly most important that we should learn to dis- tinguish between the true instincts and these individual habit reflexes which grow upon us all ; for evidently in- dividual habit may lead to distinct racial loss. The habits of the musical virtuoso for instance could not but be of distinct disadvantage if adopted by the average man. It is needless to speak of the acquired habits of alcoholic drinkers and opium smokers to emphasise what I mean. It is apparent then that this tendency to fail in dis- tinguishing the habits acquired by deliberate action of the individual, from the instincts proper which belong to his race, will lead to a distinct danger of over-emphasis of the individual variant influence where it may come in con- flict with the higher racial influence. 5. Another important source of the over-emphasis of individualistic impulses is to be found in the fact that in not a few cases, success in life, as success is usually gauged, is attained by those who fail to appreciate the importance of the higher racial instincts.