Talking--especially in one's mother tongue--may serve as a last
example. We find it impossible to follow the muscular action of the
mouth and tongue in framing every letter or syllable we utter. We
have probably spoken for years and years before we became aware that
the letter h is a labial sound, and until we have to utter a word
which is difficult from its unfamiliarity we speak "trippingly on the
tongue" with no attention except to the substance of what we wish to
say. Yet talking was not always the easy matter to us which it is at
present--as we perceive more readily when we are learning a new
language which it may take us months to master. Nevertheless, when
we have once mastered it we speak it without further consciousness of
knowledge or memory, as regards the more common words, and without
even noticing our consciousness. Here, as in the other instances
already given, as long as we did not know perfectly, we were
conscious of our acts of perception, volition, and reflection, but
when our knowledge has become perfect we no longer notice our
consciousness, nor our volition; nor can we awaken a second
artificial consciousness without some effort, and disturbance of the
process of which we are endeavouring to become conscious. We are no
longer, so to speak, under the law, but under grace.

An ascending scale may be perceived in the above instances.

In playing, we have an action acquired long after birth, difficult of
acquisition, and never thoroughly familiarised to the power of
absolutely unconscious performance, except in the case of those who
have either an exceptional genius for music, or who have devoted the
greater part of their time to practising. Except in the case of
these persons it is generally found easy to become more or less