Now the peculiarity of self-consciousness is that it hinders all this and makes action inaccurate, slow, and fatiguing. Inaccuracy is almost certain. When we study how something is to be done, we are apt to lay stress on certain features of the situation, and not to bring others into due prominence. It is difficult separately to correlate the many elements which go to make up a desired result. Sometimes we become altogether puzzled and for the moment the action ceases. When I have had occasion to drive a screw in some unusual and inconvenient place, after setting the blade of the screw-driver into the slot I have asked myself, "In which direction does this screw turn?" But the longer I ask, the more uncertain I am. My only solution lies in trusting my hand, which knows a great deal more about the matter than I. When we once begin to meditate how a word is spelled, how helpless we are! It is better to drop the question, and pick up the dictionary. In all such cases consideration tends to confuse. It tends to delay, too, as everybody knows. To survey all the relations in which a given act may stand, to balance their relative gains and losses, and with full sight to decide on the course which offers the greatest profit, would require the years of Methuselah. But at what point shall we cut the process short? To obtain full knowledge, we should pass in review all that relates to the act we propose; should inquire what its remoter consequences will be, and how it will affect not merely myself, my cousin, my great-grandchild, but the man in the next street, city, or state. There is no stopping. To carry conscious verification over a moderate range is slow business. If on the impulse of occasion we dash off an action unreflectingly, life will be swift and simple. If we try to anticipate all consequences of our task it will be slow and endless.