2. Whatever we do in this way is all one and the same in kind--the
difference being only in degree. Playing [almost?] unconsciously--
writing, more unconsciously (as to each letter)--reading, very
unconsciously--talking, still more unconsciously (it is almost
impossible for us to notice the action of our tongue in every
letter)--walking, much the same--breathing, still to a certain extent
within our own control--heart's beating, perceivable but beyond our
control--digestion, unperceivable and beyond our control, digestion
being the oldest of the . . . habits.
3. A baby, therefore, has known how to grow itself in the womb and
has only done it because it wanted to, on a balance of
considerations, in the same way as a man who goes into the City to
buy Great Northern A Shares . . . It is only unconscious of these
operations because it has done them a very large number of times
already. A man may do a thing by a fluke once, but to say that a
foetus can perform so difficult an operation as the growth of a pair
of eyes out of pure protoplasm without knowing how to do it, and
without ever having done it before, is to contradict all human
experience. Ipso facto that it does it, it knows how to do it, and
ipso facto that it knows how to do it, it has done it before. Its
unconsciousness (or speedy loss of memory) is simply the result of
over-knowledge, not of under-knowledge.
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