conscious of any passage without disturbing the performance, and our
action remains so completely within our control that we can stop
playing at any moment we please.

In writing, we have an action generally acquired earlier, done for
the most part with great unconsciousness of detail, fairly well
within our control to stop at any moment; though not so completely as
would be imagined by those who have not made the experiment of trying
to stop in the middle of a given character when writing at fit speed.
Also, we can notice our formation of any individual character without
our writing being materially hindered.

Reading is usually acquired earlier still. We read with more
unconsciousness of attention than we write. We find it more
difficult to become conscious of any character without discomfiture,
and we cannot arrest ourselves in the middle of a word, for example,
and hardly before the end of a sentence; nevertheless it is on the
whole well within our control.

Walking is so early an acquisition that we cannot remember having
acquired it. In running fast over average ground we find it very
difficult to become conscious of each individual step, and should
possibly find it more difficult still, if the inequalities and
roughness of uncultured land had not perhaps caused the development
of a power to create a second consciousness of our steps without
hindrance to our running or walking. Pursuit and flight, whether in
the chase or in war, must for many generations have played a much
more prominent part in the lives of our ancestors than they do in our
own. If the ground over which they had to travel had been generally
as free from obstruction as our modern cultivated lands, it is