a variation of the activity of the All-One Unconscious. directed to it. These differences are added to that already conditioned by the diversity of the material substratum, and together form that total of differences which secures to every individual his peculiar oneness.

XII.

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE UNCONSCIOUS AND THE

PERFECTION OF THE WORLD.

AT all times, and among all peoples, the wisdom of the Creator, World-orderer, or World-governor has been the theme of admiration and of praise. None of all the peoples who in the course of history have attained even a moderate degree of civilisation, whatever may have been their other opinions in religion and philosophy, has been so barbarous as not to have attained this perception, and to have given it more or less rapturous expression. Although this expression must, in part, be laid to the account of a flattery of the gods with self-interested objects, yet at all events the greater part of it remains the announcement of a genuine conviction. This conviction thrusts itself already on the mind of the child as soon as it begins to comprehend the remarkable combination of means and ends in Nature. He only who denies natural ends can close his mind against this conviction; such a view can, however, only be evolved from systematically ordered philosophical abstractions, since it runs counter to the first natural apprehension of the phenomena of Nature. Before men form abstractions, they are most strongly moved by the power of the concrete case, and the deeper heads of a childlike nation may be lost in astonishment and reverence at the perception of a striking natural purpose even in a single case. Thus it is related of an ancient Brahmin that he was so affected with astonishment at the sight of an insect-capturing plant, that, forgetful of meat and drink, he remained seated before it till the end of his life.-Then

when man arrives at inductions from the concrete instances, it is such propositions as "Nature does nothing in vain," Nature does everything for the best," "Nature employs for its ends the simplest means and ways," in which he already early acknowledges the wisdom ruling in Nature. This conviction finds its strongest rational expression in the period of Leibniz and Wolf. Although Leibniz, in his denial of evil in the world, overshot the mark, although a great part of the extravagant laudations. of the iterators of the "best world" was only hollow bombastic declamation, which merely injured their case in the eyes of posterity, yet a core of truth still remains.

If we consider the matter in connection with our former conclusions, it will take somewhat the following shape :According to C. Chap. i., the Unconscious can never err, nay, not even doubt or hesitate, but when the entrance of an unconscious idea is wanted, it follows instantaneously, implicity enclosing the process of reflection occupying time in consciousness in the one moment of its occurrence, and undoubtedly correctly, since all the data that can in any way be taken account of stand at the command of the Unconscious in virtue of its absolute clairvoyance, and indeed always and momentarily stand at command, not as the data in conscious reflection that have first to be dragged out by severe meditation from memory one after the other, and still oftener are entirely wanting. All future ends, the nearest as the most distant, and all considerations of the possibility of intervention in this or that wise, act together in this manner at the moment of origin of the required idea, and thus it happens that every interposition of the Unconscious occurs precisely at the most suitable moment, when the whole purpose-frame of the world requires it, and that the unconscious idea which determines the manner of the interposition is the most suitable of all possible ones for this whole machinery of ends. Such an interposition of the Unconscious in a manner adapted to the peculiarity of the case according to

our investigations takes place at every moment in the department of organic life; both the preservation consisting in a replacement of the used-up material by nutrition and in a ceaseless struggle against invading disturbances, as well as the plastic energy manifesting itself partly in a re-creation of accidentally destroyed parts, partly in an enhancement of the individual form of life, and also the plastic energy becoming reproduction through the settingup of fresh individuals; they all three are only conceivable as a ceaseless ever-renewed interposition of the Unconscious at every single point of the organism at once; each of these interpositions being modified according to the particular circumstances to which it refers, and each uniformly keeping in view the important ends which they all subserve in common.

Every natural cause shows itself accordingly as means for the great ends of Providence; every natural cause in the organic realm presents itself as including a direct participation of the Unconscious. But these continual interpositions of Providence are themselves natural, i.e., not arbitrary, but according to law, namely, determined with logical necessity by the main design fixed once for all, and the circumstances of the moment in which the interposition takes places.

When the Christian theory emphatically declares that God's action is not merely a guidance on the large scale, but that his immeasurable greatness is most remarkably displayed in this, that it is everywhere active in the smallest detail, this view is only confirmed by our researches in regard to organic life.

The fitness of the activity of the Unconscious is not however herewith exhausted, but as the cleverness of a person is much more to be commended, who relieves himself of an ever-recurring work by the construction of an ingenious machine, than that of one who himself performs the same in each single case with the utmost skill, so must we also far more admire the wisdom of the Unconscious, when it

saves itself a part of its interposition by mechanical arrangements contrived for the purpose or even by a clever use of external circumstances (e.g., of the struggle for existence, or of the existing atomic forces), than when it solves its problems by continuous direct interposition in the most excellent fashion. Examples of this we have already found in such numbers in the course of our inquiries that I consider a special reference, to say nothing of enumeration, to be scarcely necessary here. The most comprehensive and important of all these mechanisms, however, is the system of the physico-chemical laws of Nature.

But however many mechanical contrivances the Unconscious may employ to facilitate its labour, these can never dispense with the continual direct interposition, for they fall according to their very nature into a class of homogeneous cases, whilst in reality each case is distinct from the other; the best-contrived mechanism thus always leaves over a remnant of work, which falls afterwards as before to the direct activity of the Unconscious, and which consists in the complete adaptation to the peculiar nature of the case. As soon as the expenditure of force needed for the setting-up of a machine would become greater than the saving of force attained by the mechanism (which is the case in all combinations of circumstances which by their nature occur but seldom, or where for other reasons a mechanism can only be constructed with difficulty), there of course the direct activity of the Unconscious must display itself without hesitation. Of such a kind. are, e.g., the incursions of the Unconscious in human' brains, which determine and guide the course of history in all departments of civilisation in the direction of the goal intended by the Unconscious.

If, now, according to all this, we cannot avoid ascribing to the Unconscious, first, absolute clairvoyance (which answers to the theological notion of omniscience); secondly, an infallible and indubitable logical concate