No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels. Broadly, we can afford to sink those sorts of knowledge which continue to be true regardless of changes in the environment, but we must maintain in an accessible place all those controls of behavior which must be modified for every instance. The economics of the system, in fact, pushes organisms toward sinking into the unconscious those generalities of relationship which remain permanently true and toward keeping within the conscious the pragmatic of particular instances.

p. 143, as cited in: Lawrence S. Bale (1992) "Gregory Bateson's Theory of Mind: Practical Applications to Pedagogy". November 1992. p. 20 - Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972)