stinct notice. It not only notices each letter, but the position of
each in reference to the other letters in the line, and even those nice
diacritical points by which one letter is distinguished from another, as
_c_ from _e_, _u_ from _n_, _b_ from _d_, _p_ from _q_. This notice,
however, is so slight, the transition is so rapid, that we have no
recollection of it afterwards, and we can hardly persuade ourselves that
such has been the sober and yet most wonderful fact.

Take another instance. If, on the occasion of an evening assemblage, by
a sudden movement of the gas-pipe, any one should instantly extinguish
all the lights in the room and leave the building for a time in total
darkness, and if, by an equally sudden movement, he should then restore
the light to its previous condition, every one present would notice the
change and have a distinct recollection of it afterwards. Yet, every
time we close our eyes in winking, that is, several times in every
minute of our waking hours, we experience precisely this change from
full and perfect vision to total darkness. But no one ever notices or
remembers the fact of his winking, unless he stops to make it the
subject of special attention.

Sight however is not the only means of illustrating this point. We are
drawn to a similar conclusion by observing the workings of the mind
itself, in the act of volition. Whenever we make any single volition an
object of special attention, we are conscious of that volition, and we
have a distinct recollection of it afterwards. Yet probably not one out
of ten thousand, possibly not one out of a million, of our simple
volitions, is ever known to us after the moment of its occurrence. In
voluntary muscular action, every distinct movement requires a distinct
volition. And how innumerable are the movements necessary to the
accomplishment of any one of the ordinary purposes of life! We sit down
for example to write a letter to a friend. The nimble pen dances from
point to point over the darkening page, and when we reach the bottom, we
have not the least recollection of having willed any one of those
countless muscular movements which have been necessary to what, but for
its every-day occurrence, would be accounted the greatest feat of
legerdemain ever performed by man!

Take for example the act of reading aloud. Every letter requires for its
utterance at least one distinct muscular contraction. Some letters
require several. Now it has been fo