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decision as to some important change either in my own life, or in the life of members of my family, which involved a great many of what we are accustomed to cal pros and cons—that is, there was a great deal to be said on both sides. I heard the expression once used by a naturalist, with regard to difficulties in classification—"It is very easy to deal with the white and the black; but the difficulty is to deal with the gray." And so it is in life. It is perfectly easy to deal with the white and the black there are things which are clearly right, and things which are clearly wrong; there are things which are clearly prudent, and things which are clearly imprudent; but a great many cases arise in which even right and wrong may seem balanced, or the motives may be so balanced that it is difficult to say what is right; and again, there are cases in which it is difficult to say what is prudent; and I believe, in these cases where we are not hurried and pressed for a decision, the best plan is to do exactly that which I spoke of in the earlier part of the lecture—to set before us as much as possible every thing that is to be said on both sides. Let us consider this well; let us go to our friends; let us ask what they think about it. They will suggest considerations which may not occur to ourselves. It has happened to me within the last three or four months to have to make a very important decision of this kind for myself; and I took this method—I heard every thing that was to be said on both sides, I considered it well, and then I determined to put it aside as completely as possible for a month, or longer, if time should be given, and then to take it up again, and simply just to see how my mind gravitated—how the balance then turned. And I assure you that I believe that in those who have disciplined their minds in the manner I have mentioned, that act of "Unconscious Cerebration," for so I call it, this unconscious operation of the brain in balancing for itself all these considerations, in putting all in order, so to speak, in working out the result—I believe that process is far more likely to lead us to good and true results than any continual discussion and argumentation, in which one thing is pressed with undue force, and then that leads us to bring up something on the other side, so that we are just driven into antagonism, so to speak, by the undue pressure of the force which we think is being exerted. I believe that to hear every thing that is to be said, and then not to ruminate upon it too long, not to be continually thinking about it, but to put it aside entirely from our minds as far as we possibly can, is the very best mode of arriving at a correct conclusion. And this conclusion will be the resultant of the whole previous training and discipline of our minds. If that training and discipline has all been in the direction of the true and the good, I believe that we are more likely to obtain a valuable result from such a process than from any conscious discussion of it in our minds, any thing like continually bringing it up and thinking of it, and going over the whole subject again in our thought. The unconscious settling down, as it were, of all these respective motives will,