Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/29

 GENERAL CONTROLS OF CONDUCT II

ing being can survive and find satisfaction in a larger world is in correspondence with a wider, more varied and variable environment, and can develop itself indefinitely in such an environment. It is life become luminous and, as it becomes luminous, dominating and controlling its environ ment. Consciousness marks the shifting of supremacy from the environment to the living being. Life below the con scious level is subject to external conditions; can only adapt itself to those conditions; and that only within nar row limits. As it rises to the level of consciousness it in creases its power to adapt itself to those conditions ; but its increased adaptability to environment is less signficant than the fact that as it becomes conscious it acquires the power to adapt the environment to itself and make external conditions and forces promote its ends. Increasing con sciousness is an increasing conquest of environment. Its advent means the increased adaptability of the organism; but it means also that the adaptability has become creative. This interpretation of the advent of consciousness in the scheme of life is manifestly correct from the point of view of science, and is of the utmost significance for phi losophy. But into that we may not go.

V. In connection with the meaning and function of consciousness it is important to consider habit. When an act has once been performed it is easier to do a second time, and with each repetition is easier still. The ease with which it is done does not increase uniformly; there is a certain rhythm, or tendency to rhythm, in the. formation of a habit. But the general trend is toward increasing ease. As, with repetition, the ease increases the act requires less conscious ness in its performance. Gradually the performance drops below the level of clear consciousness and finally, perhaps, below the level of consciousness altogether. It becomes automatic, in a sense ; &quot; it does itself.&quot; The explanation usually given is the formation of neural pathways through which the impulse discharges i.e., the impulse as it passes through a series of nerve cells tends to form connections be-

�� �