As has been said, this Common-sense Biology partakes of the nature of an
art. Now it is characteristic of any art that, for its satisfactory
exercise, it demands not only knowledge, but also intuition;--not only
conscious volition, reflection, and endeavour, but also subconscious
nervous and muscular activity, and, together with that, a certain
emotional state--a trend, tendency, disposition of the whole being,
which likewise is chiefly subconscious.
Without such a disposition to begin with you cannot have an artist.
Neither will you get an artist, if, on the other hand, this disposition
is never given an opportunity for displaying itself and developing its
capacities. You cannot play an instrument properly if you have no music
in you, and the music in you will never come forth if you have no
instrument to play upon. When disposition and opportunity are happily
met, and the true artist arises, it is in the subconscious that the
chief riches, gained by her work and experience, are stored, and from
the subconscious that she draws her skill; while in the subconscious,
again, lie the mysterious sources of original inspiration. We all know
well how over-consciousness spoils art, as it spoils most kinds of
action. The happiest effects, the loveliest deeds spring, as it were,
spontaneously.
What is true of such arts as music and poetry is at least equally true
of the art of living. The rich and well-harmonised subconsciousness is
the proximate source whence all that is strongest and most beautiful in
human activity is derived. The domestic arts, conversation, power of
rapid judgment at a crisis, the care of the sick, the care of children,
tactful daily dealing with one's fellows, all these, and so much else,
we recognise to be dependent for perfection upon practice; and that is
only another way of saying that they depend on the efficiency and the
character of the subconscious. But the character and efficiency of each
person's subconscious being depend in their turn--not solely, yet
principally--first, upon the knowledge she has acquired, and secondly,
upon the actions she has habitually performed. Action and being, as we
all know full well, are for ever acting and reacting upon one another.
Action is a more potent influence upon the subconscious even than
knowledge; and when to mere activity there is added emotion--such
emotion, for instance, as pleasure or love, or solicitude, or desire for
truth--we may feel assured we have brought into play the most powerful
of all the forces which, in an ordinary way, go to vivify and to form
human character.
The subconscious is even more important for women than for men, because
women have more calls upon their emotions, and more need for intuition,
and also more need for general resourcefulness and skill. It is because
the Common-sense Biology whose claims we are urging involves so much
activity, such care, quickness of observation, patience and ready wit,
that it makes a better preparation for life than the more highly
specialized work in the Biology of the laboratory alone could be.