We are able to analyse our body, and by doing so we get the same idea of it as of the stellar system, and the differences between organic and inorganic lapses. Formerly the movements of the stars were explained as the effects of beings consciously pursuing a purpose: this is no longer required, and even in regard to the movements of the body and its changes, the belief has long since been abandoned that they can be explained by an appeal to a consciousness which has a determined purpose. By far the greater number of movements have nothing to do with consciousness at all: _neither have they anything to do with sensation._ Sensations and thoughts are extremely _rare_ and _insignificant_ things compared with the innumerable phenomena occurring every second. On the other hand, we believe that a certain conformity of means to ends rules over the very smallest phenomenon, which it is quite beyond our deepest science to understand; a sort of cautiousness, selectiveness, co-ordination, and repairing process, etc. In short, we are in the presence of an _activity_ to which it would be necessary to ascribe an _incalculably higher and more extensive intellect_ than the one we are acquainted with. We learn to _think less of_ all that is conscious: we unlearn the habit of making ourselves responsible for ourselves, because, as conscious beings fixing purposes, we are but the smallest part of ourselves. Of the numerous influences taking effect every second, for instance, air, electricity, we feel scarcely anything at all. There might be a number of forces, which, though they never make themselves felt by us, yet influence us continually. Pleasure and pain are very rare and scanty phenomena, compared with the countless stimuli with which a cell or an organ operates upon another cell or organ. It is the phase of the _modesty of consciousness._ Finally, we can grasp the conscious ego itself, merely as an instrument in the service of that higher and more extensive intellect: and then we may ask whether all conscious _willing,_ all conscious _purposes,_ all _valuations,_ are not perhaps only means by virtue of which something essentially _different is attained,_ from that which consciousness supposes. We _mean_: it is a question of our _pleasure_ and _pain_ but pleasure and pain might be the means whereby we _had something to do_ which lies outside our consciousness.