Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/90

 74 SOPHIE BRYANT. Strangely like them are their sworn foes, in whose souls the prevalent instincts of conservation or of master}- rally desperate!} 7, but blindly, round some formula, though sup- porting it often enough with arguments no whit more relevant. The mark of both is combination of the form of rational conscientiousness with strange irrationality of content. More wholesome is that much slighter degree of self- consciousness which, to all intents and purposes, is uncon- sciousness of instinct except as expressed. In such case there is no conscious attempt to combine reason with instinct in the guidance of life, except, indeed, to use reason for estimating the means to instinct's ends. The rationality of conduct is then only understood in this secondary sense, and for good or evil living all depends on the beneficent or male- ficent balance of instinct. There is much to be said in appreciation of this type when the balance is beneficent. The sudden blaze of instinct warms more genially than the steady beam of reason, and so the unconsciousness of good instinct is lovable pre-eminently. Nevertheless, it is in natures moved peaceably, because powerfully, by a balance of fairly reasonable instinct that we find certain characteristic and ineradicable faults resting in the main on a fine and permanent inaccessibility to ideas. Such inaccessibility is an obvious characteristic of those whose life is rooted mainly in an unshakeable unconscious- ness. Instincts that cannot be expressed as principles can- not be dealt with as entering into the ideal of conduct and cannot therefore be in themselves modified by or incorpo- rated with reason. And so, as we know, the silent uncon- scious people, whose uumeditative goodness delights the heart and whose stability of conduct gives rest to the soul, afflict us by their entire unmanageability on occasions demanding any readjustment of the instinctive current of ideas or conduct. In fact, new ideas are naturally excluded, not intellectually of necessity, though there will be a bias of attention against them, but at least as practical i.e., influencing conduct because in such cases no ideas as such influence conduct very much. When instinct dominates conduct the peace may be kept between instinct and reason in several ways. The most typical way for the unconscious man is not to hear " the voice of reason " as a practical voice at all. That many persons live for the most part outside reason (i.e., without much attention to and action on ideas of conduct except as means to ends) is apparent from the small regard