Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/211

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VOLUNTARY ACTION 193

dynamic forward trend, its self -projection into the future, increases in energy.

What is of even greater importance is that the onward movement of life not only increases in energy as it attains to higher levels, but is more and more consciously directed towards ends. It is telic from the beginning in the sense that it is moving towards ends ; but on the lower levels the striving, so far as individual organisms are concerned, seems to be blind. The ends are not anticipated, not fore casted ; the goal toward which the energies are directed is not present in the form of an idea in consciousness. In deed, as we have already pointed out, consciousness does not seem to exist in the sub-animal forms of life, and pos sibly not in the very lowest of the animal forms ; and in the higher of them it is certainly vague and nebulous. The illumination of consciousness in the sphere of the inverte brates may be likened to that of a starless night, and in the higher beasts probably never rises above the relative inten sity of starlight. In a consciousness so highly developed as that of a dog, " coming events may cast their shadows be fore," provided they are quite near in time, but then in all probability only as dim apprehensions, vague fore-feelings. How different with man ! Probably in no respect is the nor mal human consciousness more sharply differentiated from the indefinite psychic life of the lower creatures. Man looks ahead. He forms a quite definite mental picture of the future. He sets ends for his activity ; he constructs ideals. True, his ideals are not always sufficiently in har mony with reality to be practicable ; and when his ideals are practicable, his power of accomplishment often falls far short of their realization. His forecasts may be cruelly mocked by events which he could neither foresee nor con trol. Disappointment which often amounts to tragedy is an inevitable incident of this incessant forecasting and planning, and the tension of anxiety often drains off into useless channels the energy which should be devoted to

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