when it is
prophetic of its own better fulfilments, which is the case whenever
forces are being turned to good uses, whenever an organism is exploring
its relations and putting forth new tentacles with which to grasp the
world.

[Sidenote: Consciousness expresses vital equilibrium and docility.]

We saw in the beginning that the exigences of bodily life gave
consciousness its first articulation. A bodily feat, like nutrition or
reproduction, is celebrated by a festival in the mind, and consciousness
is a sort of ritual solemnising by prayer, jubilation, or mourning, the
chief episodes in the body's fortunes. The organs, by their structure,
select the impressions possible to them from the divers influences
abroad in the world, all of which, if animal organisms had learned to
feed upon them, might plausibly have offered a basis for sensation.
Every instinct or habitual impulse further selects from the passing
bodily affections those that are pertinent to its own operation and
which consequently adhere to it and modify its reactive machinery.
Prevalent and notable sensations are therefore signs, presumably marking
the presence of objects important for the body's welfare or for the
execution of its predestined offices. So that not only are the soul's
aims transcripts of the body's tendencies, but all ideas are grafted
upon the interplay of these tendencies with environing forces. Early
images hover about primary wants as highest conceptions do about
ultimate achievements.

[Sidenote: Its worthlessness as a cause and value as an expression]

Thought is essentially practical in the sense that but for thought no
motion would be an action, no change a progress; but thought is in no
way instrumental or servile; it is an experience realised, not a force
to be used. That same spontaneity in nature which has suggested a good
must be trusted to fulfil it. If we look fairly at the actual resources
of our minds we perceive that we are as little informed concerning the
means and processes of action as concerning the reason why our motives
move us. To execute the simplest intention we must rely on fate: our own
acts are mysteries to us. Do I know how I open my eyes or how I walk
down stairs? Is it the supervising wisdom of consciousness that guides
me in these acts? Is it the mind that controls the bewildered body and
points out the way to physical habits uncertain of their affinities? Or
is it not much rather automatic inward machi