superintend all the work consciously. How shall I hold my pen in the
best possible manner? How shape this letter so that each of its curves
gets its exact bulge? How give the correct slant to what is above or
below the line? I will not ask how long a time a letter prepared in
this fashion would require, or whether when written it would be fit to
read, for I wish to fix attention on the exhaustion of the writer. He
certainly could endure such fatigue for no more than a single epistle.
The schoolboy, when forced to it, seldom holds out for more than half
a page, though he employs every contortion of shoulder, tongue, and
leg to ease and diversify the struggle.

A dozen years ago some nonsense verses were running through the
papers,--verses pointing out with humorous precision the very
infelicities of conscious control to which I am now directing
attention. They put the case thus:--

"The centipede was happy, quite,
Until the toad for fun
Said, 'Pray which leg comes after which?'
This worked her mind to such a pitch
She lay distracted in a ditch,
Considering how to run."

And no wonder! Problems so complex as this should be left to the
disposal of nature, and not be drawn over into the region of spiritual
guidance. But the complexities of the centipede are simple matters
when compared with the elaborate machinery of man. The human mind
offers more alternatives in a minute than does the centipede in a
lifetime. If spiritual guidance is inadequate to the latter, and is
found merely to hinder action, why is not the blind control of nature