rtists' work, which
in a superficial sense might be called unconscious, but which in a
deeper sense is profoundly conscious. It seems as though, in great
works of art, a certain superficial reasoning is sacrificed to
instinct, but in that very sacrifice a deeper level of reason is
reached between which and instinct there is no longer anything
but complete understanding.

To intellectualize instinct is one of the profoundest secrets of the
art of life; and it is only when instinct is thus intellectualized, or
brought into focus with the other aspects of the soul, that it is able
to play its proper rhythmic part in the musical synthesis of the
complex vision. But although we cannot allow to instinct the
all-absorbing part in the world-play which Bergson claims for it, it
remains that we have to regard it as one of the most mysterious and
incalculable of the energies of the soul. It is instinct which brings
all living entities into relation with something sub-conscious in their
own nature.

Under the pressure of instinct man recognizes the animal in himself,
the plant in himself, and even a strange affinity with the inorganic
and the inanimate. It is instinct in us which attracts us so strangely
to the earth under our feet. It is instinct which attracts certain
individual souls to certain particular natural elements, such as air,
fire, sand, mould, rain, wind, water, and the like; a kind of remote
atavistic reciprocity in us stretching out towards that particular
element. It is by means of instinct that we are able to sink into that
mysterious sub-conscious world which underlies the conscious
levels of every soul-monad. Under the groping and fumbling
guidance of this strange power we seem to come into touch with the
profoundest reservoirs of our personal identity.

Considering what fantastic and cruel tricks the lonely thinking
power, the abstract reason, has been allowed to play us it is no
wonder that this French philosopher has been tempted to turn away
from reason and find in instinct the ultimate solution. Instinct, as we
give ourselves up to it, seems to carry us into the very nerves and
tissues and veins and pulses of life. Its verdicts seem to reach us
with an absolute and unquestionable authority. They seem to bear
upon them an "imprimatur" more powerful than any moral sanction.
Potent and terrible, direct and final, instinct seems to rise up out of
the depths and break every law.

It leaps forth from our in