{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6138/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6138","id":"gutenberg_6138","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6138","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Evolution","Habit","Life (Biology)"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1910 Jonathan Cape edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.lorg\n\n\n\n\n\n Life and Habit\n\n\n _By_\n Samuel Butler\n\n [Picture: Decorative graphic]\n\n * * * * *\n\n Jonathan Cape\n Eleven Gower Street, London\n\n * * * * *\n\n FIRST PUBLISHED 1878\n\n SECOND EDITION 1878\n\n NEW EDITION WITH ADDENDA AND\n PREFACE BY R. A. STREATFEILD 1910\n\n REPRINTED 1924\n\n * * * * *\n\n PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER AND TANNER LTD., FROME AND LONDON\n\n * * * * *\n\n THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED\n TO\n CHARLES PAINE PAULI, Esq.\n BARRISTER-AT-LAW\n IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HIS INVALUABLE\n CRITICISM OF THE PROOF-SHEETS OF THIS AND\n OF MY PREVIOUS BOOKS\n AND IN RECOGNITION OF AN OLD AND\n WELL-TRIED-FRIENDSHIP\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nSINCE Samuel Butler published \u201cLife and Habit\u201d thirty-three {vii} years\nhave elapsed\u2014years fruitful in change and discovery, during which many of\nthe mighty have been put down from their seat and many of the humble have\nbeen exalted. I do not know that Butler can truthfully be called humble,\nindeed, I think he had very few misgivings as to his ultimate triumph,\nbut he has certainly been exalted with a rapidity that he himself can\nscarcely have foreseen. During his lifetime he was a literary pariah,\nthe victim of an organized conspiracy of silence. He is now, I think it\nmay be said without exaggeration, universally accepted as one of the most\nremarkable English writers of the latter part of the nineteenth century.\nI will not weary my readers by quoting the numerous tributes paid by\ndistinguished contemporary writers to Butler\u2019s originality and force of\nmind, but I cannot refrain from illustrating the changed attitude of the\nscientific world to Butler and his theories by a reference to \u201cDarwin and\nModern Science,\u201d the collection of essays published in 1909 by the\nUniversity of Cambridge, in commemoration of the Darwin centenary. In\nthat work Professor Bateson, while referring repeatedly to Butler\u2019s\nbiological works, speaks of him as \u201cthe most brilliant and by far the\nmost interesting of Darwin\u2019s opponents, whose works are at length\nemerging from oblivion.\u201d With the growth of Butler\u2019s reputation \u201cLife\nand Habit\u201d has had much to do. It was the first and is undoubtedly the\nmost important of his writings on evolution. From its loins, as it were,\nsprang his three later books, \u201cEvolution Old and New,\u201d \u201cUnconscious\nMemory,\u201d and \u201cLuck or Cunning\u201d, which carried its arguments further\nafield. It will perhaps interest Butler\u2019s readers if I here quote a\npassage from his note-books, lately published in the \u201cNew Quarterly\nReview\u201d (Vol. III. No. 9), in which he summarizes his work in biology:\n\n\u201cTo me it seems that my contributions to the theory of evolution have\nbeen mainly these:\n\n\u201c1. The identification of heredity and memory, and the corollaries\nrelating to sports, the reversion to remote ancestors, the phenomena of\nold age, the causes of the sterility of hybrids, and the principles\nunderlying longevity\u2014all of which follow as a matter of course. This was\n\u2018Life and Habit\u2019 [1877].\n\n\u201c2. The re-introduction of teleology into organic life, which to me\nseems hardly, if at all, less important than the \u2018Life and Habit\u2019 theory.\nThis was \u2018Evolution Old and New\u2019 [1879].\n\n\u201c3. An attempt to suggest an explanation of the physics of memory. This\nwas Unconscious Memory\u2019 [1880]. I was alarmed by the suggestion and\nfathered it upon Professor Hering, who never, that I can see, meant to\nsay anything of the kind, but I forced my view upon him, as it were, by\ntaking hold of a sentence or two in his lecture, \u2018On Memory as a\nUniversal Function of Organised Matter,\u2019 and thus connected memory with\nvibrations.\n\n\u201cWhat I want to do now (1885) is to connect vibrations not only with\nmemory but with the physical constitution of that body in which the\nmemory resides, thus adopting Newland\u2019s law (sometimes called\nMendelejeff\u2019s law) that there is only one substance, and that the\ncharacteristics of the vibrations going on within it at any given time\nwill determine whether it will appear to us as, we will say, hydrogen, or\nsodium, or chicken doing this, or chicken doing the other.\u201d [This is\ntouched upon in the concluding chapter of \u201cLuck or Cunning?\u201d 1887].\n\nThe present edition of \u201cLife and Habit\u201d is practically a re-issue of that\nof 1878. I find that about the year 1890, although the original edition\nwas far from being exhausted, Butler began to make corrections of the\ntext of \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d presumably with the intention of publishing a\nrevised edition. The copy of the book so corrected is now in my\npossession. In the first five chapters there are numerous emendations,\nvery few of which, however, affect the meaning to any appreciable extent,\nbeing mainly concerned with the excision of redundancies and the\nsimplification of style. I imagine that by the time he had reached the\nend of the fifth chapter Butler realised that the corrections he had made\nwere not of sufficient importance to warrant a new edition, and\ndetermined to let the book stand as it was. I believe, therefore, that I\nam carrying out his wishes in reprinting the present edition from the\noriginal plates. I have found, however, among his papers three entirely\nnew passages, which he probably wrote during the period of correction and\nno doubt intended to incorporate into the revised edition. Mr. Henry\nFesting Jones has also given me a copy of a passage which Butler wrote\nand gummed into Mr. Jones\u2019s copy of \u201cLife and Habit.\u201d These four\npassages I have printed as an appendix at the end of the present volume.\n\nOne more point deserves notice. Butler often refers in \u201cLife and Habit\u201d\nto Darwin\u2019s \u201cVariations of Animals and Plants under Domestication.\u201d When\nhe does so it is always under the name \u201cPlants and Animals.\u201d More often\nstill he refers to Darwin\u2019s \u201cOrigin of Species by means Natural\nSelection,\u201d terming it at one time \u201cOrigin of Species\u201d and at another\n\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d sometimes, as on p. 278, using both names within a\nfew lines of each other. Butler was as a rule scrupulously careful about\nquotations, and I can offer no explanation of this curious confusion of\ntitles.\n\n R. A. STREATFEILD.\n\n_November_, 1910.\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR\u2019S PREFACE.\n\n\nTHE Italics in the passages quoted in this book are generally mine, but I\nfound it almost impossible to call the reader\u2019s attention to this upon\nevery occasion. I have done so once or twice, as thinking it necessary\nin these cases that there should be no mistake; on the whole, however, I\nthought it better to content myself with calling attention in a preface\nto the fact that the author quoted is not, as a general rule, responsible\nfor the Italics.\n\n S. BUTLER.\n\n_November_ 13, 1877.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n PAGE\n PREFACE BY R. A. STREATFEILD vii\n AUTHOR\u2019S ORIGINAL PREFACE x\n CHAPTER\n I. ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS 1\n II. CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS\u2014THE LAW AND 20\n GRACE\n III. APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS TO CERTAIN 43\n HABITS ACQUIRED AFTER BIRTH WHICH ARE COMMONLY\n CONSIDERED INSTINCTIVE\n IV. APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES TO 59\n ACTIONS AND HABITS ACQUIRED BEFORE BIRTH\n V. PERSONAL IDENTITY 78\n VI. PERSONAL IDENTITY\u2014(_continued_) 91\n VII. OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES 104\n VIII. APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS\u2014THE 125\n ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER\n IX. ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY 150\n X. WHAT WE SHOULD EXPECT TO FIND IF 166\n DIFFERENTIATIONS OF STRUCTURE AND INSTINCT ARE\n MAINLY DUE TO MEMORY\n XI. INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY 198\n XII. INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS 220\n XIII. LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN 252\n XIV. MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN 273\n XV. CONCLUDING REMARKS 294\n APPENDIX AUTHOR\u2019S ADDENDA 308\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\nON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS.\n\n\nIT will be our business in the following chapters to consider whether the\nunconsciousness, or quasi-unconsciousness, with which we perform certain\nacquired actions, would seem to throw any light upon Embryology and\ninherited instincts, and otherwise to follow the train of thought which\nthe class of actions above-mentioned would suggest; more especially in so\nfar as they appear to bear upon the origin of species and the\ncontinuation of life by successive generations, whether in the animal or\nvegetable kingdoms.\n\nIn the outset, however, I would wish most distinctly to disclaim for\nthese pages the smallest pretension to scientific value, originality, or\neven to accuracy of more than a very rough and ready kind\u2014for unless a\nmatter be true enough to stand a good deal of misrepresentation, its\ntruth is not of a very robust order, and the blame will rather lie with\nits own delicacy if it be crushed, than with the carelessness of the\ncrusher. I have no wish to instruct, and not much to be instructed; my\naim is simply to entertain and interest the numerous class of people who,\nlike myself, know nothing of science, but who enjoy speculating and\nreflecting (not too deeply) upon the phenomena around them. I have\ntherefore allowed myself a loose rein, to run on with whatever came\nuppermost, without regard to whether it was new or old; feeling sure that\nif true, it must be very old or it never could have occurred to one so\nlittle versed in science as myself; and knowing that it is sometimes\npleasanter to meet the old under slightly changed conditions, than to go\nthrough the formalities and uncertainties of making new acquaintance. At\nthe same time, I should say that whatever I have knowingly taken from any\none else, I have always acknowledged.\n\nIt is plain, therefore, that my book cannot be intended for the perusal\nof scientific people; it is intended for the general public only, with\nwhom I believe myself to be in harmony, as knowing neither much more nor\nmuch less than they do.\n\nTaking then, the art of playing the piano as an example of the kind of\naction we are in search of, we observe that a practised player will\nperform very difficult pieces apparently without effort, often, indeed,\nwhile thinking and talking of something quite other than his music; yet\nhe will play accurately and, possibly, with much expression. If he has\nbeen playing a fugue, say in four parts, he will have kept each part well\ndistinct, in such a manner as to prove that his mind was not prevented,\nby its other occupations, from consciously or unconsciously following\nfour distinct trains of musical thought at the same time, nor from making\nhis fingers act in exactly the required manner as regards each note of\neach part.\n\nIt commonly happens that in the course of four or five minutes a player\nmay have struck four or five thousand notes. If we take into\nconsideration the rests, dotted notes, accidentals, variations of time,\n&c., we shall find his attention must have been exercised on many more\noccasions than when he was actually striking notes: so that it may not be\ntoo much to say that the attention of a first-rate player may have been\nexercised\u2014to an infinitesimally small extent\u2014but still truly exercised\u2014on\nas many as ten thousand occasions within the space of five minutes, for\nno note can be struck nor point attended to without a certain amount of\nattention, no matter how rapidly or unconsciously given.\n\nMoreover, each act of attention has been followed by an act of volition,\nand each act of volition by a muscular action, which is composed of many\nminor actions; some so small that we can no more follow them than the\nplayer himself can perceive them; nevertheless, it may have been\nperfectly plain that the player was not attending to what he was doing,\nbut was listening to conversation on some other subject, not to say\njoining in it himself. If he has been playing the violin, he may have\ndone all the above, and may also have been walking about. Herr Joachim\nwould unquestionably be able to do all that has here been described.\n\nSo complete would the player\u2019s unconsciousness of the attention he is\ngiving, and the brain power he is exerting appear to be, that we shall\nfind it difficult to awaken his attention to any particular part of his\nperformance without putting him out. Indeed we cannot do so. We shall\nobserve that he finds it hardly less difficult to compass a voluntary\nconsciousness of what he has once learnt so thoroughly that it has\npassed, so to speak, into the domain of unconsciousness, than he found it\nto learn the note or passage in the first instance. The effort after a\nsecond consciousness of detail baffles him\u2014compels him to turn to his\nmusic or play slowly. In fact it seems as though he knew the piece too\nwell to be able to know that he knows it, and is only conscious of\nknowing those passages which he does not know so thoroughly.\n\nAt the end of his performance, his memory would appear to be no less\nannihilated than was his consciousness of attention and volition. For of\nthe thousands of acts requiring the exercise of both the one and the\nother, which he has done during the five minutes, we will say, of his\nperformance, he will remember hardly one when it is over. If he calls to\nmind anything beyond the main fact that he has played such and such a\npiece, it will probably be some passage which he has found more difficult\nthan the others, and with the like of which he has not been so long\nfamiliar. All the rest he will forget as completely as the breath which\nhe has drawn while playing.\n\nHe finds it difficult to remember even the difficulties he experienced in\nlearning to play. A few may have so impressed him that they remain with\nhim, but the greater part will have escaped him as completely as the\nremembrance of what he ate, or how he put on his clothes, this day ten\nyears ago; nevertheless, it is plain he remembers more than he remembers\nremembering, for he avoids mistakes which he made at one time, and his\nperformance proves that all the notes are in his memory, though if called\nupon to play such and such a bar at random from the middle of the piece,\nand neither more nor less, he will probably say that he cannot remember\nit unless he begins from the beginning of the phrase which leads to it.\nVery commonly he will be obliged to begin from the beginning of the\nmovement itself, and be unable to start at any other point unless he have\nthe music before him; and if disturbed, as we have seen above, he will\nhave to start _de novo_ from an accustomed starting-point.\n\nYet nothing can be more obvious than that there must have been a time\nwhen what is now so easy as to be done without conscious effort of the\nbrain was only done by means of brain work which was very keenly\nperceived, even to fatigue and positive distress. Even now, if the\nplayer is playing something the like of which he has not met before, we\nobserve he pauses and becomes immediately conscious of attention.\n\nWe draw the inference, therefore, as regards pianoforte or violin\nplaying, that the more the familiarity or knowledge of the art, the less\nis there consciousness of such knowledge; even so far as that there\nshould seem to be almost as much difficulty in awakening consciousness\nwhich has become, so to speak, latent,\u2014a consciousness of that which is\nknown too well to admit of recognised self-analysis while the knowledge\nis being exercised\u2014as in creating a consciousness of that which is not\nyet well enough known to be properly designated as known at all. On the\nother hand, we observe that the less the familiarly or knowledge, the\ngreater the consciousness of whatever knowledge there is.\n\nConsidering other like instances of the habitual exercise of intelligence\nand volition, which, from long familiarity with the method of procedure,\nescape the notice of the person exercising them, we naturally think of\nwriting. The formation of each letter requires attention and volition,\nyet in a few minutes a practised writer will form several hundred\nletters, and be able to think and talk of something else all the time he\nis doing so. It will not probably remember the formation of a single\ncharacter in any page that he has written; nor will he be able to give\nmore than the substance of his writing if asked to do so. He knows how\nto form each letter so well, and he knows so well each word that he is\nabout to write, that he has ceased to be conscious of his knowledge or to\nnotice his acts of volition, each one of which is, nevertheless, followed\nby a corresponding muscular action. Yet the uniformity of our\nhandwriting, and the manner in which we almost invariably adhere to one\nmethod of forming the same character, would seem to suggest that during\nthe momentary formation of each letter our memories must revert (with an\nintensity too rapid for our perception) to many if not to all the\noccasions on which we have ever written the same letter previously\u2014the\nmemory of these occasions dwelling in our minds as what has been called a\nresiduum\u2014an unconsciously struck balance or average of them all\u2014a fused\nmass of individual reminiscences of which no trace can be found in our\nconsciousness, and of which the only effect would seem to lie in the\ngradual changes of handwriting which are perceptible in most people till\nthey have reached middle-age, and sometimes even later. So far are we\nfrom consciously remembering any one of the occasions on which we have\nwritten such and such a letter, that we are not even conscious of\nexercising our memory at all, any more than we are in health conscious of\nthe action of our heart. But, if we are writing in some unfamiliar way,\nas when printing our letters instead of writing them in our usual running\nhand, our memory is so far awakened that we become conscious of every\ncharacter we form; sometimes it is even perceptible as memory to\nourselves, as when we try to remember how to print some letter, for\nexample a g, and cannot call to mind on which side of the upper half of\nthe letter we ought to put the link which connects it with the lower, and\nare successful in remembering; but if we become very conscious of\nremembering, it shows that we are on the brink of only trying to\nremember,\u2014that is to say, of not remembering at all.\n\nAs a general rule, we remember for a time the substance of what we have\nwritten, for the subject is generally new to us; but if we are writing\nwhat we have often written before, we lose consciousness of this too, as\nfully as we do of the characters necessary to convey the substance to\nanother person, and we shall find ourselves writing on as it were\nmechanically while thinking and talking of something else. So a paid\ncopyist, to whom the subject of what he is writing is of no importance,\ndoes not even notice it. He deals only with familiar words and familiar\ncharacters without caring to go behind them, and thereupon writes on in a\nquasi-unconscious manner; but if he comes to a word or to characters with\nwhich he is but little acquainted, he becomes immediately awakened to the\nconsciousness of either remembering or trying to remember. His\nconsciousness of his own knowledge or memory would seem to belong to a\nperiod, so to speak, of twilight between the thick darkness of ignorance\nand the brilliancy of perfect knowledge; as colour which vanishes with\nextremes of light or of shade. Perfect ignorance and perfect knowledge\nare alike unselfconscious.\n\nThe above holds good even more noticeably in respect of reading. How\nmany thousands of individual letters do our eyes run over every morning\nin the \u201cTimes\u201d newspaper, how few of them do we notice, or remember\nhaving noticed? Yet there was a time when we had such difficulty in\nreading even the simplest words, that we had to take great pains to\nimpress them upon our memory so as to know them when we came to then\nagain. Now, not even a single word of all we have seen will remain with\nus, unless it is a new one, or an old one used in an unfamiliar sense, in\nwhich case we notice, and may very likely remember it. Our memory\nretains the substance only, the substance only being unfamiliar.\nNevertheless, although we do not perceive more than the general result of\nour perception, there can be no doubt of our having perceived every\nletter in every word that we have read at all, for if we come upon a word\nmisspelt our attention is at once aroused; unless, indeed, we have\nactually corrected the misspelling, as well as noticed it, unconsciously,\nthrough exceeding familiarity with the way in which it ought to be spelt.\nNot only do we perceive the letters we have seen without noticing that we\nhave perceived them, but we find it almost impossible to notice that we\nnotice them when we have once learnt to read fluently. To try to do so\nputs us out, and prevents our being able to read. We may even go so far\nas to say that if a man can attend to the individual characters, it is a\nsign that he cannot yet read fluently. If we know how to read well, we\nare as unconscious of the means and processes whereby we attain the\ndesired result as we are about the growth of our hair or the circulation\nof our blood. So that here again it would seem that we only know what we\nknow still to some extent imperfectly, and that what we know thoroughly\nescapes our conscious perception though none the less actually perceived.\nOur perception in fact passes into a latent stage, as also our memory and\nvolition.\n\nWalking is another example of the rapid exercise of volition with but\nlittle perception of each individual act of exercise. We notice any\nobstacle in our path, but it is plain we do not notice that we perceive\nmuch that we have nevertheless been perceiving; for if a man goes down a\nlane by night he will stumble over many things which he would have\navoided by day, although he would not have noticed them. Yet time was\nwhen walking was to each one of us a new and arduous task\u2014as arduous as\nwe should now find it to wheel a wheelbarrow on a tight-rope; whereas, at\npresent, though we can think of our steps to a certain extent without\nchecking our power to walk, we certainly cannot consider our muscular\naction in detail without having to come to a dead stop.\n\nTalking\u2014especially in one\u2019s mother tongue\u2014may serve as a last example.\nWe find it impossible to follow the muscular action of the mouth and\ntongue in framing every letter or syllable we utter. We have probably\nspoken for years and years before we became aware that the letter h is a\nlabial sound, and until we have to utter a word which is difficult from\nits unfamiliarity we speak \u201ctrippingly on the tongue\u201d with no attention\nexcept to the substance of what we wish to say. Yet talking was not\nalways the easy matter to us which it is at present\u2014as we perceive more\nreadily when we are learning a new language which it may take us months\nto master. Nevertheless, when we have once mastered it we speak it\nwithout further consciousness of knowledge or memory, as regards the more\ncommon words, and without even noticing our consciousness. Here, as in\nthe other instances already given, as long as we did not know perfectly,\nwe were conscious of our acts of perception, volition, and reflection,\nbut when our knowledge has become perfect we no longer notice our\nconsciousness, nor our volition; nor can we awaken a second artificial\nconsciousness without some effort, and disturbance of the process of\nwhich we are endeavouring to become conscious. We are no longer, so to\nspeak, under the law, but under grace.\n\nAn ascending scale may be perceived in the above instances.\n\nIn playing, we have an action acquired long after birth, difficult of\nacquisition, and never thoroughly familiarised to the power of absolutely\nunconscious performance, except in the case of those who have either an\nexceptional genius for music, or who have devoted the greater part of\ntheir time to practising. Except in the case of these persons it is\ngenerally found easy to become more or less conscious of any passage\nwithout disturbing the performance, and our action remains so completely\nwithin our control that we can stop playing at any moment we please.\n\nIn writing, we have an action generally acquired earlier, done for the\nmost part with great unconsciousness of detail, fairly well within our\ncontrol to stop at any moment; though not so completely as would be\nimagined by those who have not made the experiment of trying to stop in\nthe middle of a given character when writing at fit speed. Also, we can\nnotice our formation of any individual character without our writing\nbeing materially hindered.\n\nReading is usually acquired earlier still. We read with more\nunconsciousness of attention than we write. We find it more difficult to\nbecome conscious of any character without discomfiture, and we cannot\narrest ourselves in the middle of a word, for example, and hardly before\nthe end of a sentence; nevertheless it is on the whole well within our\ncontrol.\n\nWalking is so early an acquisition that we cannot remember having\nacquired it. In running fast over average ground we find it very\ndifficult to become conscious of each individual step, and should\npossibly find it more difficult still, if the inequalities and roughness\nof uncultured land had not perhaps caused the development of a power to\ncreate a second consciousness of our steps without hindrance to our\nrunning or walking. Pursuit and flight, whether in the chase or in war,\nmust for many generations have played a much more prominent part in the\nlives of our ancestors than they do in our own. If the ground over which\nthey had to travel had been generally as free from obstruction as our\nmodern cultivated lands, it is possible that we might not find it as easy\nto notice our several steps as we do at present. Even as it is, if while\nwe are running we would consider the action of our muscles, we come to a\ndead stop, and should probably fall if we tried to observe too suddenly;\nfor we must stop to do this, and running, when we have once committed\nourselves to it beyond a certain point, is not controllable to a step or\ntwo without loss of equilibrium.\n\nWe learn to talk, much about the same time that we learn to walk, but\ntalking requires less muscular effort than walking, and makes generally\nless demand upon our powers. A man may talk a long while before he has\ndone the equivalent of a five-mile walk; it is natural, therefore, that\nwe should have had more practice in talking than in walking, and hence\nthat we should find it harder to pay attention to our words than to our\nsteps. Certainly it is very hard to become conscious of every syllable\nor indeed of every word we say; the attempt to do so will often bring us\nto a check at once; nevertheless we can generally stop talking if we wish\nto do so, unless the crying of infants be considered as a kind of\n_quasi_-speech: this comes earlier, and is often quite uncontrollable, or\nmore truly perhaps is done with such complete control over the muscles by\nthe will, and with such absolute certainty of his own purpose on the part\nof the wilier, that there is no longer any more doubt, uncertainty, or\nsuspense, and hence no power of perceiving any of the processes whereby\nthe result is attained\u2014as a wheel which may look fast fixed because it is\nso fast revolving. {13}\n\nWe may observe therefore in this ascending scale, imperfect as it is,\nthat the older the habit the longer the practice, the longer the\npractice, the more knowledge\u2014or, the less uncertainty; the less\nuncertainty the less power of conscious self-analysis and control.\n\nIt will occur to the reader that in all the instances given above,\ndifferent individuals attain the unconscious stage of perfect knowledge\nwith very different degrees of facility. Some have to attain it with a\ngreat sum; others are free born. Some learn to play, to read, write, and\ntalk, with hardly an effort\u2014some show such an instinctive aptitude for\narithmetic that, like Zerah Colburn, at eight years old, they achieve\nresults without instruction, which in the case of most people would\nrequire a long education. The account of Zerah Colburn, as quoted from\nMr. Baily in Dr. Carpenter\u2019s \u201cMental Physiology,\u201d may perhaps be given\nhere.\n\n\u201cHe raised any number consisting of _one_ figure progressively to the\ntenth power, giving the results (by actual multiplication and not by\nmemory) _faster than they could be set down in figures_ by the person\nappointed to record them. He raised the number 8 progressively to the\n_sixteenth_ power, and in naming the last result, which consisted of 15\nfigures, he was right in every one. Some numbers consisting of _two_\nfigures he raised as high as the eighth power, though he found a\ndifficulty in proceeding when the products became very large.\n\n\u201cOn being asked the _square root_ of 106,929, he answered 327 before the\noriginal number could be written down. He was then required to find the\ncube root of 268,336,125, and with equal facility and promptness he\nreplied 645.\n\n\u201cHe was asked how many minutes there are in 48 years, and before the\nquestion could be taken down he replied 25,228,800, and immediately\nafterwards he gave the correct number of seconds.\n\n\u201cOn being requested to give the factors which would produce the number\n247,483, he immediately named 941 and 263, which are the only two numbers\nfrom the multiplication of which it would result. On 171,395 being\nproposed, he named 5 \u00d7 34,279, 7 \u00d7 24,485, 59 \u00d7 2905, 83 \u00d7 2065, 35 \u00d7\n4897, 295 \u00d7 581, and 413 \u00d7 415.\n\n\u201cHe was then asked to give the factors of 36,083, but he immediately\nreplied that it had none, which was really the case, this being a prime\nnumber. Other numbers being proposed to him indiscriminately, he always\nsucceeded in giving the correct factors except in the case of prime\nnumbers, which he generally discovered almost as soon as they were\nproposed to him. The number 4,294,967,297, which is 232 + 1, having been\ngiven him, he discovered, as Euler had previously done, that it was not\nthe prime number which Fermat had supposed it to be, but that it is the\nproduct of the factors 6,700,417 \u00d7 641. The solution of this problem was\nonly given after the lapse of some weeks, but the method he took to\nobtain it clearly showed that he had not derived his information from any\nextraneous source.\n\n\u201cWhen he was asked to multiply together numbers both consisting of more\nthan these figures, he seemed to decompose one or both of them into its\nfactors, and to work with them separately. Thus, on being asked to give\nthe square of 4395, he multiplied 293 by itself, and then twice\nmultiplied the product by 15. And on being asked to tell the square of\n999,999 he obtained the correct result, 999,998,000,001, by twice\nmultiplying the square of 37,037 by 27. He then of his own accord\nmultiplied that product by 49, and said that the result (viz.,\n48,999,902,000,049) was equal to the square of 6,999,993. He afterwards\nmultiplied this product by 49, and observed that the result (viz.,\n2,400,995,198,002,401) was equal to the square of 48,999,951. He was\nagain asked to multiply the product by 25, and in naming the result\n(viz., 60,024,879,950,060,025) he said it was equal to the square of\n244,999,755.\n\n\u201cOn being interrogated as to the manner in which he obtained these\nresults, the boy constantly said he did not know _how_ the answers came\ninto his mind. In the act of multiplying two numbers together, and in\nthe raising of powers, it was evident (alike from the facts just stated\nand from the motion of his lips) that _some_ operation was going forward\nin his mind; yet that operation could not (from the readiness with which\nhis answers were furnished) have been at all allied to the usual modes of\nprocedure, of which, indeed, he was entirely ignorant, not being able to\nperform on paper a simple sum in multiplication or division. But in the\nextraction of roots, and in the discovery of the factors of large\nnumbers, it did not appear that any operation _could_ take place, since\nhe gave answers _immediately_, or in a very few seconds, which, according\nto the ordinary methods, would have required very difficult and laborious\ncalculations, and prime numbers cannot be recognised as such by any known\nrule.\u201d\n\nI should hope that many of the above figures are wrong. I have verified\nthem carefully with Dr. Carpenter\u2019s quotation, but further than this I\ncannot and will not go. Also I am happy to find that in the end the boy\novercame the mathematics, and turned out a useful but by no means\nparticularly calculating member of society.\n\nThe case, however, is typical of others in which persons have been found\nable to do without apparent effort what in the great majority of cases\nrequires a long apprenticeship. It is needless to multiply instances;\nthe point that concerns us is, that knowledge under such circumstances\nbeing very intense, and the ease with which the result is produced\nextreme, it eludes the conscious apprehension of the performer himself,\nwho only becomes conscious when a difficulty arises which taxes even his\nabnormal power. Such a case, therefore, confirms rather than militates\nagainst our opinion that consciousness of knowledge vanishes on the\nknowledge becoming perfect\u2014the only difference between those possessed of\nany such remarkable special power and the general run of people being,\nthat the first are born with such an unusual aptitude for their\nparticular specialty that they are able to dispense with all or nearly\nall the preliminary exercise of their faculty, while the latter must\nexercise it for a considerable time before they can get it to work\nsmoothly and easily; but in either case when once the knowledge is\nintense it is unconscious.\n\nNor again would such an instance as that of Zerah Colburn warrant us in\nbelieving that this white heat, as it were, of unconscious knowledge can\nbe attained by any one without his ever having been originally cold.\nYoung Colburn, for example, could not extract roots when he was an embryo\nof three weeks\u2019 standing. It is true we can seldom follow the process,\nbut we know there must have been a time in every case when even the\ndesire for information or action had not been kindled; the forgetfulness\nof effort on the part of those with exceptional genius for a special\nsubject is due to the smallness of the effort necessary, so that it makes\nno impression upon the individual himself, rather than to the absence of\nany effort at all. {18}\n\nIt would, therefore, appear as though perfect knowledge and perfect\nignorance were extremes which meet and become indistinguishable from one\nanother; so also perfect volition and perfect absence of volition,\nperfect memory and utter forgetfulness; for we are unconscious of\nknowing, willing, or remembering, either from not yet having known or\nwilled, or from knowing and willing so well and so intensely as to be no\nlonger conscious of either. Conscious knowledge and volition are of\nattention; attention is of suspense; suspense is of doubt; doubt is of\nuncertainty; uncertainty is of ignorance; so that the mere fact of\nconscious knowing or willing implies the presence of more or less novelty\nand doubt.\n\nIt would also appear as a general principle on a superficial view of the\nforegoing instances (and the reader may readily supply himself with\nothers which are perhaps more to the purpose), that unconscious knowledge\nand unconscious volition are never acquired otherwise than as the result\nof experience, familiarity, or habit; so that whenever we observe a\nperson able to do any complicated action unconsciously, we may assume\nboth that he must have done it very often before he could acquire so\ngreat proficiency, and also that there must have been a time when he did\nnot know how to do it at all.\n\nWe may assume that there was a time when he was yet so nearly on the\npoint of neither knowing nor willing perfectly, that he was quite alive\nto whatever knowledge or volition he could exert; going further back, we\nshall find him still more keenly alive to a less perfect knowledge;\nearlier still, we find him well aware that he does not know nor will\ncorrectly, but trying hard to do both the one and the other; and so on,\nback and back, till both difficulty and consciousness become little more\nthan a sound of going in the brain, a flitting to and fro of something\nbarely recognisable as the desire to will or know at all\u2014much less as the\ndesire to know or will definitely this or that. Finally, they retreat\nbeyond our ken into the repose\u2014the inorganic kingdom\u2014of as yet unawakened\ninterest.\n\nIn either case,\u2014the repose of perfect ignorance or of perfect\nknowledge\u2014disturbance is troublesome. When first starting on an Atlantic\nsteamer, our rest is hindered by the screw; after a short time, it is\nhindered if the screw stops. A uniform impression is practically no\nimpression. One cannot either learn or unlearn without pains or pain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\nCONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS\u2014THE LAW AND GRACE.\n\n\nIN this chapter we shall show that the law, which we have observed to\nhold as to the vanishing tendency of knowledge upon becoming perfect,\nholds good not only concerning acquired actions or habits of body, but\nconcerning opinions, modes of thought, and mental habits generally, which\nare no more recognised as soon as firmly fixed, than are the steps with\nwhich we go about our daily avocations. I am aware that I may appear in\nthe latter part of the chapter to have wandered somewhat beyond the\nlimits of my subject, but, on the whole, decide upon leaving what I have\nwritten, inasmuch as it serves to show how far-reaching is the principle\non which I am insisting. Having said so much, I shall during the\nremainder of the book keep more closely to the point.\n\nCertain it is that we know best what we are least conscious of knowing,\nor at any rate least able to prove, as, for example, our own existence,\nor that there is a country England. If any one asks us for proof on\nmatters of this sort, we have none ready, and are justly annoyed at being\ncalled to consider what we regard as settled questions. Again, there is\nhardly anything which so much affects our actions as the centre of the\nearth (unless, perhaps, it be that still hotter and more unprofitable\nspot the centre of the universe), for we are incessantly trying to get as\nnear it as circumstances will allow, or to avoid getting nearer than is\nfor the time being convenient. Walking, running, standing, sitting,\nlying, waking, or sleeping, from birth till death it is a paramount\nobject with us; even after death\u2014if it be not fanciful to say so\u2014it is\none of the few things of which what is left of us can still feel the\ninfluence; yet what can engross less of our attention than this dark and\ndistant spot so many thousands of miles away?\n\nThe air we breathe, so long as it is neither too hot nor cold, nor rough,\nnor full of smoke\u2014that is to say, so long as it is in that state within\nwhich we are best acquainted\u2014seldom enters into our thoughts; yet there\nis hardly anything with which we are more incessantly occupied night and\nday.\n\nIndeed, it is not too much to say that we have no really profound\nknowledge upon any subject\u2014no knowledge on the strength of which we are\nready to act at all moments unhesitatingly without either preparation or\nafter-thought\u2014till we have left off feeling conscious of the possession\nof such knowledge, and of the grounds on which it rests. A lesson\nthoroughly learned must be like the air which feels so light, though\npressing so heavily against us, because every pore of our skin is\nsaturated, so to speak, with it on all sides equally. This perfection of\nknowledge sometimes extends to positive disbelief in the thing known, so\nthat the most thorough knower shall believe himself altogether ignorant.\nNo thief, for example, is such an utter thief\u2014so _good_ a thief\u2014as the\nkleptomaniac. Until he has become a kleptomaniac, and can steal a horse\nas it were by a reflex action, he is still but half a thief, with many\nunthievish notions still clinging to him. Yet the kleptomaniac is\nprobably unaware that he can steal at all, much less that he can steal so\nwell. He would be shocked if he were to know the truth. So again, no\nman is a great hypocrite until he has left off knowing that he is a\nhypocrite. The great hypocrites of the world are almost invariably under\nthe impression that they are among the very few really honest people to\nbe found and, as we must all have observed, it is rare to find any one\nstrongly under this impression without ourselves having good reason to\ndiffer from him.\n\nOur own existence is another case in point. When we have once become\narticulately conscious of existing, it is an easy matter to begin\ndoubting whether we exist at all. As long as man was too unreflecting a\ncreature to articulate in words his consciousness of his own existence,\nhe knew very well that he existed, but he did not know that he knew it.\nWith introspection, and the perception recognised, for better or worse,\nthat he was a fact, came also the perception that he had no solid ground\nfor believing that he was a fact at all. That nice, sensible,\nunintrospective people who were too busy trying to exist pleasantly to\ntrouble their heads as to whether they existed or no\u2014that this best part\nof mankind should have gratefully caught at such a straw as \u201c_cogito ergo\nsum_,\u201d is intelligible enough. They felt the futility of the whole\nquestion, and were thankful to one who seemed to clench the matter with a\ncant catchword, especially with a catchword in a foreign language; but\nhow one, who was so far gone as to recognise that he could not prove his\nown existence, should be able to comfort himself with such a begging of\nthe question, would seem unintelligible except upon the ground of sheer\nexhaustion.\n\nAt the risk of appearing to wander too far from the matter in hand, a few\nfurther examples may perhaps be given of that irony of nature, by which\nit comes about that we so often most know and are, what we least think\nourselves to know and be\u2014and on the other hand hold most strongly what we\nare least capable of demonstrating.\n\nTake the existence of a Personal God,\u2014one of the most profoundly-received\nand widely-spread ideas that have ever prevailed among mankind. Has\nthere ever been a _demonstration_ of the existence of such a God as has\nsatisfied any considerable section of thinkers for long together? Hardly\nhas what has been conceived to be a demonstration made its appearance and\nreceived a certain acceptance as though it were actual proof, when it has\nbeen impugned with sufficient success to show that, however true the fact\nitself, the demonstration is naught. I do not say that this is an\nargument against the personality of God; the drift, indeed, of the\npresent reasoning would be towards an opposite conclusion, inasmuch as it\ninsists upon the fact that what is most true and best known is often\nleast susceptible of demonstration owing to the very perfectness with\nwhich it is known; nevertheless, the fact remains that many men in many\nages and countries\u2014the subtlest thinkers over the whole world for some\nfifteen hundred years\u2014have hunted for a demonstration of God\u2019s personal\nexistence; yet though so many have sought,\u2014so many, and so able, and for\nso long a time\u2014none have found. There is no demonstration which can be\npointed to with any unanimity as settling the matter beyond power of\nreasonable cavil. On the contrary, it may be observed that from the\nattempt to prove the existence of a personal God to the denial of that\nexistence altogether, the path is easy. As in the case of our own\nexistence, it will be found that they alone are perfect believers in a\npersonal Deity and in the Christian religion who have not yet begun to\nfeel that either stands in need of demonstration. We observe that most\npeople, whether Christians, or Jews, or Mohammedans, are unable to give\ntheir reasons for the faith that is in them with any readiness or\ncompleteness; and this is sure proof that they really hold it so utterly\nas to have no further sense that it either can be demonstrated or ought\nto be so, but feel towards it as towards the air which they breathe but\ndo not notice. On the other hand, a living prelate was reported in the\n\u201cTimes\u201d to have said in one of his latest charges: \u201cMy belief is that a\nwidely extended good practice must be founded upon Christian doctrine.\u201d\nThe fact of the Archbishop\u2019s recognising this as among the number of his\nbeliefs is conclusive evidence with those who have devoted attention to\nthe laws of thought, that his mind is not yet clear as to whether or no\nthere is any connection at all between Christian doctrine and widely\nextended good practice. {25}\n\nAgain, it has been often and very truly said that it is not the conscious\nand self-styled sceptic, as Shelley for example, who is the true\nunbeliever. Such a man as Shelley will, as indeed his life abundantly\nproves, have more in common than not with the true unselfconscious\nbeliever. Gallio again, whose indifference to religious animosities has\nwon him the cheapest immortality which, so far as I can remember, was\never yet won, was probably if the truth were known, a person of the\nsincerest piety. It is the unconscious unbeliever who is the true\ninfidel, however greatly he would be surprised to know the truth. Mr.\nSpurgeon was reported as having recently asked the Almighty to \u201cchange\nour rulers _as soon as possible_.\u201d There lurks a more profound distrust\nof God\u2019s power in these words than in almost any open denial of His\nexistence.\n\nSo it rather shocks us to find Mr. Darwin writing (\u201cPlants and Animals\nunder Domestication,\u201d vol. ii., p. 275): \u201cNo doubt, in every case there\nmust have been some exciting cause.\u201d And again, six or seven pages\nlater: \u201cNo doubt, each slight variation must have its efficient cause.\u201d\nThe repetition within so short a space of this expression of confidence\nin the impossibility of causeless effects would suggest that Mr. Darwin\u2019s\nmind at the time of writing was, unconsciously to himself, in a state of\nmore or less uneasiness as to whether effects could not occasionally come\nabout of themselves, and without cause of any sort,\u2014that he may have been\nstanding, in fact, for a short time upon the brink of a denial of the\nindestructibility of force and matter.\n\nIn like manner, the most perfect humour and irony is generally quite\nunconscious. Examples of both are frequently given by men whom the world\nconsiders as deficient in humour; it is more probably true that these\npersons are unconscious of their own delightful power through the very\nmastery and perfection with which they hold it. There is a play, for\ninstance, of genuine fun in some of the more serious scientific and\ntheological journals which for some time past we have looked for in vain\nin \u201c\u2014.\u201d\n\nThe following extract, from a journal which I will not advertise, may\nserve as an example:\n\n\u201cLycurgus, when they had abandoned to his revenge him who had put out his\neyes, took him home, and the punishment he inflicted upon him was\nsedulous instructions to virtue.\u201d Yet this truly comic paper does not\nprobably know that it is comic, any more than the kleptomaniac knows that\nhe steals, or than John Milton knew he was a humorist when he wrote a\nhymn upon the circumcision, and spent his honeymoon in composing a\ntreatise on divorce. No more again did Goethe know how exquisitely\nhumorous he was when he wrote, in his Wilhelm Meister, that a beautiful\ntear glistened in Theresa\u2019s right eye, and then went on to explain that\nit glistened in her right eye and not in her left, because she had had a\nwart on her left which had been removed\u2014and successfully. Goethe\nprobably wrote this without a chuckle; he believed what a good many\npeople who have never read Wilhelm Meister believe still, namely, that it\nwas a work full of pathos, of fine and tender feeling; yet a less\nconsummate humorist must have felt that there was scarcely a paragraph in\nit from first to last the chief merit of which did not lie in its\nabsurdity.\n\nAnother example may be taken from Bacon of the manner in which sayings\nwhich drop from men unconsciously, give the key of their inner thoughts\nto another person, though they themselves know not that they have such\nthoughts at all; much less that these thoughts are their only true\nconvictions. In his Essay on Friendship the great philosopher writes:\n\u201cReading good books on morality is a little flat and dead.\u201d Innocent,\nnot to say pathetic, as this passage may sound it is pregnant with\npainful inferences concerning Bacon\u2019s moral character. For if he knew\nthat he found reading good books of morality a little flat and dead, it\nfollows he must have tried to read them; nor is he saved by the fact that\nhe found them a little flat and dead; for though this does indeed show\nthat he had begun to be so familiar with a few first principles as to\nfind it more or less exhausting to have his attention directed to them\nfurther\u2014yet his words prove that they were not so incorporate with him\nthat he should feel the loathing for further discourse upon the matter\nwhich honest people commonly feel now. It will be remembered that he\ntook bribes when he came to be Lord Chancellor.\n\nIt is on the same principle that we find it so distasteful to hear one\npraise another for earnestness. For such praise raises a suspicion in\nour minds (_pace_ the late Dr. Arnold and his following) that the\npraiser\u2019s attention must have been arrested by sincerity, as by something\nmore or less unfamiliar to himself. So universally is this recognised\nthat the world has for some time been discarded entirely by all reputable\npeople. Truly, if there is one who cannot find himself in the same room\nwith the life and letters of an earnest person without being made\ninstantly unwell, the same is a just man and perfect in all his ways.\n\nBut enough has perhaps been said. As the fish in the sea, or the bird in\nthe air, so unreasoningly and inarticulately safe must a man feel before\nhe can be said to know. It is only those who are ignorant and\nuncultivated who can know anything at all in a proper sense of the words.\nCultivation will breed in any man a certainty of the uncertainty even of\nhis most assured convictions. It is perhaps fortunate for our comfort\nthat we can none of us be cultivated upon very many subjects, so that\nconsiderable scope for assurance will still remain to us; but however\nthis may be, we certainly observe it as a fact that the greatest men are\nthey who are most uncertain in spite of certainty, and at the same time\nmost certain in spite of uncertainty, and who are thus best able to feel\nthat there is nothing in such complete harmony with itself as a flat\ncontradiction in terms. For nature hates that any principle should\nbreed, so to speak, hermaphroditically, but will give to each an help\nmeet for it which shall cross it and be the undoing of it; as in the case\nof descent with modification, of which the essence would appear to be\nthat every offspring should resemble its parents, and yet, at the same\ntime, that no offspring should resemble its parents. But for the\nslightly irritating stimulant of this perpetual crossing, we should pass\nour lives unconsciously as though in slumber.\n\nUntil we have got to understand that though black is not white, yet it\nmay be whiter than white itself (and any painter will readily paint that\nwhich shall show obviously as black, yet it shall be whiter than that\nwhich shall show no less obviously as white), we may be good logicians,\nbut we are still poor reasoners. Knowledge is in an inchoate state as\nlong as it is capable of logical treatment; it must be transmuted into\nthat sense or instinct which rises altogether above the sphere in which\nwords can have being at all, otherwise it is not yet vital. For sense is\nto knowledge what conscience is to reasoning about right and wrong; the\nreasoning must be so rapid as to defy conscious reference to first\nprinciples, and even at times to be apparently subversive of them\naltogether, or the action will halt. It must, in fact, become automatic\nbefore we are safe with it. While we are fumbling for the grounds of our\nconviction, our conviction is prone to fall, as Peter for lack of faith\nsinking into the waves of Galilee; so that the very power to prove at all\nis an _\u00e0 priori_ argument against the truth\u2014or at any rate the practical\nimportance to the vast majority of mankind\u2014of all that is supported by\ndemonstration. For the power to prove implies a sense of the need of\nproof, and things which the majority of mankind find practically\nimportant are in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred above proof. The\nneed of proof becomes as obsolete in the case of assumed knowledge, as\nthe practice of fortifying towns in the middle of an old and long settled\ncountry. Who builds defences for that which is impregnable or little\nlikely to be assailed? The answer is ready, that unless the defences had\nbeen built in former times it would be impossible to do without them now;\nbut this does not touch the argument, which is not that demonstration is\nunwise, but that as long as a demonstration is still felt necessary, and\ntherefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such demonstration is not\nyet securely known. _Qui s\u2019excuse_, _s\u2019accuse_; and unless a matter can\nhold its own without the brag and self-assertion of continual\ndemonstration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we shall not\nlose much by neglecting till it has less occasion to blow its own\ntrumpet. The only alternative is that it is an error in process of\ndetection, for if evidence concerning any opinion has long been denied\nsuperfluous, and ever after this comes to be again felt necessary, we\nknow that the opinion is doomed.\n\nIf there is any truth in the above, it should follow that our conception\nof the words \u201cscience\u201d and \u201cscientific\u201d should undergo some modification.\nNot that we should speak slightingly of science, but that we should\nrecognise more than we do, that there are two distinct classes of\nscientific people corresponding not inaptly with the two main parties\nunto which the political world is divided. The one class is deeply\nversed in those sciences which have already become the common property of\nmankind; enjoying, enforcing, perpetuating, and engraving still more\ndeeply unto the mind of man acquisitions already approved by common\nexperience, but somewhat careless about extension of empire, or at any\nrate disinclined, for the most part, to active effort on their own part\nfor the sake of such extension\u2014neither progressive, in fact, nor\naggressive\u2014but quiet, peaceable people, who wish to live and let live, as\ntheir fathers before them; while the other class is chiefly intent upon\npushing forward the boundaries of science, and is comparatively\nindifferent to what is known already save in so far as necessary for\npurposes of extension. These last are called pioneers of science, and to\nthem alone is the title \u201cscientific\u201d commonly accorded; but pioneers,\nunimportant to an army as they are, are still not the army itself; which\ncan get on better without the pioneers than the pioneers without the\narmy. Surely the class which knows thoroughly well what it knows, and\nwhich adjudicates upon the value of the discoveries made by the\npioneers\u2014surely this class has as good a right or better to be called\nscientific than the pioneers themselves.\n\nThese two classes above described blend into one another with every shade\nof gradation. Some are admirably proficient in the well-known\nsciences\u2014that is to say, they have good health, good looks, good temper,\ncommon sense, and energy, and they hold all these good things in such\nperfection as to lie altogether without introspection\u2014to be not under the\nlaw, but so utterly and entirely under grace that every one who sees them\nlikes them. But such may, and perhaps more commonly will, have very\nlittle inclination to extend the boundaries of human knowledge; their aim\nis in another direction altogether. Of the pioneers, on the other hand,\nsome are agreeable people, well versed in the older sciences, though\nstill more eminent as pioneers, while others, whose services in this last\ncapacity have been of inestimable value, are noticeably ignorant of the\nsciences which have already become current with the larger part of\nmankind\u2014in other words, they are ugly, rude, and disagreeable people,\nvery progressive, it may be, but very aggressive to boot.\n\nThe main difference between these two classes lies in the fact that the\nknowledge of the one, so far as it is new, is known consciously, while\nthat of the other is unconscious, consisting of sense and instinct rather\nthan of recognised knowledge. So long as a man has these, and of the\nsame kind as the more powerful body of his fellow-countrymen, he is a\ntrue man of science, though he can hardly read or write. As my great\nnamesake said so well, \u201cHe knows what\u2019s what, and that\u2019s as high as\nmetaphysic wit can fly.\u201d As usual, these true and thorough knowers do\nnot know that they are scientific, and can seldom give a reason for the\nfaith that is in them. They believe themselves to be ignorant,\nuncultured men, nor can even the professors whom they sometimes outwit in\ntheir own professorial domain perceive that they have been outwitted by\nmen of superior scientific attainments to their own. The following\npassage from Dr. Carpenter\u2019s \u201cMesmerism, Spiritualism,\u201d &c., may serve as\nan illustration:\u2014\n\n\u201cIt is well known that persons who are conversant with the geological\nstructure of a district are often able to indicate with considerable\ncertainty in what spot and at what depth water will be found; and men _of\nless scientific knowledge_, _but of considerable practical\nexperience_\u201d\u2014(so that in Dr. Carpenter\u2019s mind there seems to be some sort\nof contrast or difference in kind between the knowledge which is derived\nfrom observation of facts and scientific knowledge)\u2014\u201cfrequently arrive at\na true conclusion upon this point without being able to assign reasons\nfor their opinions.\n\n\u201cExactly the same may be said in regard to the mineral structure of a\nmining district; the course of a metallic vein being often correctly\nindicated by the shrewd guess of an _observant_ workman, when _the\nscientific reasoning_ of the mining engineer altogether fails.\u201d\n\nPrecisely. Here we have exactly the kind of thing we are in search of:\nthe man who has observed and observed till the facts are so thoroughly in\nhis head that through familiarity he has lost sight both of them and of\nthe processes whereby he deduced his conclusions from them\u2014is apparently\nnot considered scientific, though he knows how to solve the problem\nbefore him; the mining engineer, on the other hand, who reasons\nscientifically\u2014that is to say, with a knowledge of his own knowledge\u2014is\nfound not to know, and to fail in discovering the mineral.\n\n\u201cIt is an experience we are continually encountering in other walks of\nlife,\u201d continues Dr. Carpenter, \u201cthat particular persons are guided\u2014some\napparently by an original and others by _an acquired intuition_\u2014to\nconclusions for which they can give no adequate reason, but which\nsubsequent events prove to have been correct.\u201d And this, I take it,\nimplies what I have been above insisting on, namely, that on becoming\nintense, knowledge seems also to become unaware of the grounds on which\nit rests, or that it has or requires grounds at all, or indeed even\nexists. The only issue between myself and Dr. Carpenter would appear to\nbe, that Dr. Carpenter, himself an acknowledged leader in the scientific\nworld, restricts the term \u201cscientific\u201d to the people who know that they\nknow, but are beaten by those who are not so conscious of their own\nknowledge; while I say that the term \u201cscientific\u201d should be applied (only\nthat they would not like it) to the nice sensible people who know what\u2019s\nwhat rather than to the discovering class.\n\nAnd this is easily understood when we remember that the pioneer cannot\nhope to acquire any of the new sciences in a single lifetime so perfectly\nas to become unaware of his own knowledge. As a general rule, we observe\nhim to be still in a state of active consciousness concerning whatever\nparticular science he is extending, and as long as he is in this state he\ncannot know utterly. It is, as I have already so often insisted on,\nthose who do not know that they know so much who have the firmest grip of\ntheir knowledge: the best class, for example, of our English youth, who\nlive much in the open air, and, as Lord Beaconsfield finely said, never\nread. These are the people who know best those things which are best\nworth knowing\u2014that is to say, they are the most truly scientific.\nUnfortunately, the apparatus necessary for this kind of science is so\ncostly as to be within the reach of few, involving, as it does, an\nexperience in the use of it for some preceding generations. Even those\nwho are born with the means within their reach must take no less pains,\nand exercise no less self-control, before they can attain the perfect\nunconscious use of them, than would go to the making of a James Watt or a\nStephenson; it is vain, therefore, to hope that this best kind of science\ncan ever be put within the reach of the many; nevertheless it may be\nsafely said that all the other and more generally recognised kinds of\nscience are valueless except in so far as they tend to minister to this\nthe highest kind. They have no _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ except so far as they\ntend to do away with the necessity for work, and to diffuse good health,\nand that good sense which is above self-consciousness. They are to be\nencouraged because they have rendered the most fortunate kind of modern\nEuropean possible, and because they tend to make possible a still more\nfortunate kind than any now existing. But the man who devotes himself to\nscience cannot\u2014with the rarest, if any, exceptions\u2014belong to this most\nfortunate class himself. He occupies a lower place, both scientifically\nand morally, for it is not possible but that his drudgery should somewhat\nsoil him both in mind and health of body, or, if this be denied, surely\nit must let him and hinder him in running the race for unconsciousness.\nWe do not feel that it increases the glory of a king or great nobleman\nthat he should excel in what is commonly called science. Certainly he\nshould not go further than Prince Rupert\u2019s drops. Nor should he excel in\nmusic, art, literature, or theology\u2014all which things are more or less\nparts of science. He should be above them all, save in so far as he can\nwithout effort reap renown from the labours of others. It is a _l\u00e2che_\nin him that he should write music or books, or paint pictures at all; but\nif he must do so, his work should be at best contemptible. Much as we\nmust condemn Marcus Aurelius, we condemn James I. ever more severely.\n\nIt is a pity there should exist so general a confusion of thought upon\nthis subject, for it may be asserted without fear of contradiction that\nthere is hardly any form of immorality now rife which produces more\ndisastrous effects upon those who give themselves up to it, and upon\nsociety in general, than the so-called science of those who know that\nthey know too well to be able to know truly. With very clever people\u2014the\npeople who know that they know\u2014it is much as with the members of the\nearly Corinthian Church, to whom St. Paul wrote, that if they looked\ntheir numbers over, they would not find many wise, nor powerful, nor\nwell-born people among them. Dog-fanciers tell us that performing dogs\nnever carry their tails; such dogs have eaten of the tree of knowledge,\nand are convinced of sin accordingly\u2014they know that they know things, in\nrespect of which, therefore, they are no longer under grace, but under\nthe law, and they have yet so much grace left as to be ashamed. So with\nthe human clever dog; he may speak with the tongues of men and angels,\nbut so long as he knows that he knows, his tail will droop. More\nespecially does this hold in the case of those who are born to wealth and\nof old family. We must all feel that a rich young nobleman with a taste\nfor science and principles is rarely a pleasant object. We do not even\nlike the rich young man in the Bible who wanted to inherit eternal life,\nunless, indeed, he merely wanted to know whether there was not some way\nby which he could avoid dying, and even so he is hardly worth\nconsidering. Principles are like logic, which never yet made a good\nreasoner of a bad one, but might still be occasionally useful if they did\nnot invariably contradict each other whenever there is any temptation to\nappeal to them. They are like fire, good servants but bad masters. As\nmany people or more have been wrecked on principle as from want of\nprinciple. They are, as their name implies, of an elementary character,\nsuitable for beginners only, and he who has so little mastered them as to\nhave occasion to refer to them consciously, is out of place in the\nsociety of well-educated people. The truly scientific invariably hate\nhim, and, for the most part, the more profoundly in proportion to the\nunconsciousness with which they do so.\n\nIf the reader hesitates, let him go down into the streets and look in the\nshop-windows at the photographs of eminent men, whether literary,\nartistic, or scientific, and note the work which the consciousness of\nknowledge has wrought on nine out of every ten of them; then let him go\nto the masterpieces of Greek and Italian art, the truest preachers of the\ntruest gospel of grace; let him look at the Venus of Milo, the\nDiscobolus, the St. George of Donatello. If it had pleased these people\nto wish to study, there was no lack of brains to do it with; but imagine\n\u201cwhat a deal of scorn\u201d would \u201clook beautiful\u201d upon the Venus of Milo\u2019s\nface if it were suggested to her that she should learn to read. Which,\nthink you, knows most, the Theseus, or any modern professor taken at\nrandom? True, the advancement of learning must have had a great share in\nthe advancement of beauty, inasmuch as beauty is but knowledge perfected\nand incarnate\u2014but with the pioneers it is _sic vos non vobis_; the grace\nis not for them, but for those who come after. Science is like offences.\nIt must needs come, but woe unto that man through whom it comes; for\nthere cannot be much beauty where there is consciousness of knowledge,\nand while knowledge is still new it must in the nature of things involve\nmuch consciousness.\n\nIt is not knowledge, then, that is incompatible with beauty; there cannot\nbe too much knowledge, but it must have passed through many people who it\nis to be feared must be more or less disagreeable, before beauty or grace\nwill have anything to say to it; it must be so incarnate in a man\u2019s whole\nbeing that he shall not be aware of it, or it will fit him constrainedly\nas one under the law, and not as one under grace.\n\nAnd grace is best, for where grace is, love is not distant. Grace! the\nold Pagan ideal whose charm even unlovely Paul could not understand, but,\nas the legend tells us, his soul fainted within him, his heart misgave\nhim, and, standing alone on the seashore at dusk, he \u201ctroubled deaf\nheaven with his bootless cries,\u201d his thin voice pleading for grace after\nthe flesh.\n\nThe waves came in one after another, the sea-gulls cried together after\ntheir kind, the wind rustled among the dried canes upon the sandbanks,\nand there came a voice from heaven saying, \u201cLet My grace be sufficient\nfor thee.\u201d Whereon, failing of the thing itself, he stole the word and\nstrove to crush its meaning to the measure of his own limitations. But\nthe true grace, with her groves and high places, and troups of young men\nand maidens crowned with flowers, and singing of love and youth and\nwine\u2014the true grace he drove out into the wilderness\u2014high up, it may be,\ninto Piora, and into such-like places. Happy they who harboured her in\nher ill report.\n\nIt is common to hear men wonder what new faith will be adopted by mankind\nif disbelief in the Christian religion should become general. They seem\nto expect that some new theological or quasi-theological system will\narise, which, _mutatis mutandis_, shall be Christianity over again. It\nis a frequent reproach against those who maintain that the supernatural\nelement of Christianity is without foundation, that they bring forward no\nsuch system of their own. They pull down but cannot build. We sometimes\nhear even those who have come to the same conclusions as the destroyers\nsay, that having nothing new to set up, they will not attack the old.\nBut how can people set up a new superstition, knowing it to be a\nsuperstition? Without faith in their own platform, a faith as intense as\nthat manifested by the early Christians, how can they preach? A new\nsuperstition will come, but it is in the very essence of things that its\napostles should have no suspicion of its real nature; that they should no\nmore recognise the common element between the new and the old than the\nearly Christians recognised it between their faith and Paganism. If they\ndid, they would be paralysed. Others say that the new fabric may be seen\nrising on every side, and that the coming religion is science. Certainly\nits apostles preach it without misgiving, but it is not on that account\nless possible that it may prove only to be the coming superstition\u2014like\nChristianity, true to its true votaries, and, like Christianity, false to\nthose who follow it introspectively.\n\nIt may well be we shall find we have escaped from one set of taskmasters\nto fall into the hands of others far more ruthless. The tyranny of the\nChurch is light in comparison with that which future generations may have\nto undergo at the hands of the doctrinaires. The Church did uphold a\ngrace of some sort as the _summum bonum_, in comparison with which all\nso-called earthly knowledge\u2014knowledge, that is to say, which had not\npassed through so many people as to have become living and incarnate\u2014was\nunimportant. Do what we may, we are still drawn to the unspoken teaching\nof her less introspective ages with a force which no falsehood could\ncommand. Her buildings, her music, her architecture, touch us as none\nother on the whole can do; when she speaks there are many of us who think\nthat she denies the deeper truths of her own profounder mind, and\nunfortunately her tendency is now towards more rather than less\nintrospection. The more she gives way to this\u2014the more she becomes\nconscious of knowing\u2014the less she will know. But still her ideal is in\ngrace.\n\nThe so-called man of science, on the other hand, seems now generally\ninclined to make light of all knowledge, save of the pioneer character.\nHis ideal is in self-conscious knowledge. Let us have no more Lo, here,\nwith the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows; no sooner\nhas he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great flourish of\ntrumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than himself. He\nis but medicine-man, augur, priest, in its latest development; useful it\nmay be, but requiring to be well watched by those who value freedom.\nWait till he has become more powerful, and note the vagaries which his\nconceit of knowledge will indulge in. The Church did not persecute while\nshe was still weak. Of course every system has had, and will have, its\nheroes, but, as we all very well know, the heroism of the hero is but\nremotely due to system; it is due not to arguments, nor reasoning, nor to\nany consciously recognised perceptions, but to those deeper sciences\nwhich lie far beyond the reach of self-analysis, and for the sturdy of\nwhich there is but one schooling\u2014to have had good forefathers for many\ngenerations.\n\nAbove all things, let no unwary reader do me the injustice of believing\nin _me_. In that I write at all I am among the dammed. If he must\nbelieve in anything, let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting\nof Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul\u2019s First\nEpistle to the Corinthians.\n\nBut to return. Whenever we find people knowing that they know this or\nthat, we have the same story over and over again. They do not yet know\nit perfectly.\n\nWe come, therefore, to the conclusion that our knowledge and reasoning\nthereupon, only become perfect, assured, unhesitating, when they have\nbecome automatic, and are thus exercised without further conscious effort\nof the mind, much in the same way as we cannot walk nor read nor write\nperfectly till we can do so automatically.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\nAPPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS TO CERTAIN HABITS ACQUIRED AFTER BIRTH\nWHICH ARE COMMONLY CONSIDERED INSTINCTIVE.\n\n\nWHAT is true of knowing is also true of willing. The more intensely we\nwill, the less is our will deliberate and capable of being recognised as\nwill at all. So that it is common to hear men declare under certain\ncircumstances that they had no will, but were forced into their own\naction under stress of passion or temptation. But in the more ordinary\nactions of life, we observe, as in walking or breathing, that we do not\nwill anything utterly and without remnant of hesitation, till we have\nlost sight of the fact that we are exercising our will.\n\nThe question, therefore, is forced upon us, how far this principle\nextends, and whether there may not be unheeded examples of its operation\nwhich, if we consider them, will land us in rather unexpected\nconclusions. If it be granted that consciousness of knowledge and of\nvolition vanishes when the knowledge and the volition have become intense\nand perfect, may it not be possible that many actions which we do without\nknowing how we do them, and without any conscious exercise of the\nwill\u2014actions which we certainly could not do if we tried to do them, nor\nrefrain from doing if for any reason we wished to do so\u2014are done so\neasily and so unconsciously owing to excess of knowledge or experience\nrather than deficiency, we having done them too often, knowing how to do\nthem too well, and having too little hesitation as to the method of\nprocedure, to be capable of following our own action without the utter\nderangement of such action altogether; or, in other cases, because we\nhave so long settled the question, that we have stowed away the whole\napparatus with which we work in corners of our system which we cannot now\nconveniently reach?\n\nIt may be interesting to see whether we can find any class or classes of\nactions which would seem to link actions which for some time after birth\nwe could not do at all, and in which our proficiency has reached the\nstage of unconscious performance obviously through repeated effort and\nfailure, and through this only, with actions which we could do as soon as\nwe were born, and concerning which it would at first sight appear absurd\nto say that they can have been acquired by any process in the least\nanalogous to that which we commonly call experience, inasmuch as the\ncreature itself which does them has only just begun to exist, and cannot,\ntherefore, in the very nature of things, have had experience.\n\nCan we see that actions, for the acquisition of which experience is such\nan obvious necessity, that whenever we see the acquisition we assume the\nexperience, gradate away imperceptibly into actions which would seem,\naccording to all reasonable analogy, to presuppose experience, of which,\nhowever, the time and place seem obscure, if not impossible?\n\nEating and drinking would appear to be such actions. The new-born child\ncannot eat, and cannot drink, but he can swallow as soon as he is born;\nand swallowing would appear (as we may remark in passing) to have been an\nearlier faculty of animal life than that of eating with teeth. The ease\nand unconsciousness with which we eat and drink is clearly attributable\nto practice; but a very little practice seems to go a long way\u2014a\nsuspiciously small amount of practice\u2014as though somewhere or at some\nother time there must have been more practice than we can account for.\nWe can very readily stop eating or drinking, and can follow our own\naction without difficulty in either process; but, as regards swallowing,\nwhich is the earlier habit, we have less power of self-analysis and\ncontrol: when we have once committed ourselves beyond a certain point to\nswallowing, we must finish doing so,\u2014that is to say, our control over the\noperation ceases. Also, a still smaller experience seems necessary for\nthe acquisition of the power to swallow than appeared necessary in the\ncase of eating; and if we get into a difficulty we choke, and are more at\na loss how to become introspective than we are about eating and drinking.\n\nWhy should a baby be able to swallow\u2014which one would have said was the\nmore complicated process of the two\u2014with so much less practice than it\ntakes him to learn to eat? How comes it that he exhibits in the case of\nthe more difficult operation all the phenomena which ordinarily accompany\na more complete mastery and longer practice? Analogy would certainly\nseem to point in the direction of thinking that the necessary experience\ncannot have been wanting, and that, too, not in such a quibbling sort as\nwhen people talk about inherited habit or the experience of the race,\nwhich, without explanation, is to plain-speaking persons very much the\nsame, in regard to the individual, as no experience at all, but _bon\u00e2\nfide_ in the child\u2019s own person.\n\nBreathing, again, is an action acquired after birth, generally with some\nlittle hesitation and difficulty, but still acquired in a time seldom\nlonger, as I am informed, than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. For\nan ant which has to be acquired at all, there would seem here, as in the\ncase of eating, to be a disproportion between, on the one hand, the\nintricacy of the process performed, and on the other, the shortness of\nthe time taken to acquire the practice, and the ease and unconsciousness\nwith which its exercise is continued from the moment of acquisition.\n\nWe observe that in later life much less difficult and intricate\noperations than breathing acquire much longer practice before they can be\nmastered to the extent of unconscious performance. We observe also that\nthe phenomena attendant on the learning by an infant to breathe are\nextremely like those attendant upon the repetition of some performance by\none who has done it very often before, but who requires just a little\nprompting to set him off, on getting which, the whole familiar routine\npresents itself before him, and he repeats his task by rote. Surely then\nwe are justified in suspecting that there must have been more _bon\u00e2 fide_\npersonal recollection and experience, with more effort and failure on the\npart of the infant itself than meet the eye.\n\nIt should be noticed, also, that our control over breathing is very\nlimited. We can hold our breath a little, or breathe a little faster for\na short time, but we cannot do this for long, and after having gone\nwithout air for a certain time we must breath.\n\nSeeing and hearing require some practice before their free use is\nmastered, but not very much. They are so far within our control that we\ncan see more by looking harder, and hear more by listening\nattentively\u2014but they are beyond our control in so far as that we must see\nand hear the greater part of what presents itself to us as near, and at\nthe same time unfamiliar, unless we turn away or shut our eyes, or stop\nour ears by a mechanical process; and when we do this it is a sign that\nwe have already involuntarily seen or heard more than we wished. The\nfamiliar, whether sight or sound, very commonly escapes us.\n\nTake again the processes of digestion, the action of the heart, and the\noxygenisation of the blood\u2014processes of extreme intricacy, done almost\nentirely unconsciously, and quite beyond the control of our volition.\n\nIs it possible that our unconsciousness concerning our own performance of\nall these processes arises from over-experience?\n\nIs there anything in digestion, or the oxygenisation of the blood,\ndifferent in kind to the rapid unconscious action of a man playing a\ndifficult piece of music on the piano? There may be in degree, but as a\nman who sits down to play what he well knows, plays on, when once\nstarted, almost, as we say, mechanically, so, having eaten his dinner, he\ndigests it as a matter of course, unless it has been in some way\nunfamiliar to him, or he to it, owing to some derangement or occurrence\nwith which he is unfamiliar, and under which therefore he is at a loss\nnow to comport himself, as a player would be at a loss how to play with\ngloves on, or with gout in his fingers, or if set to play music upside\ndown.\n\nCan we show that all the acquired actions of childhood and after-life,\nwhich we now do unconsciously, or without conscious exercise of the will,\nare familiar acts\u2014acts which we have already done a very great number of\ntimes?\n\nCan we also show that there are no acquired actions which we can perform\nin this automatic manner, which were not at one time difficult, requiring\nattention, and liable to repeated failure, our volition failing to\ncommand obedience from the members which should carry its purposes into\nexecution?\n\nIf so, analogy will point in the direction of thinking that other acts\nwhich we do even more unconsciously may only escape our power of\nself-examination and control because they are even more familiar\u2014because\nwe have done them oftener; and we may imagine that if there were a\nmicroscope which could show us the minutest atoms of consciousness and\nvolition, we should find that even the apparently most automatic actions\nwere yet done in due course, upon a balance of considerations, and under\nthe deliberate exercise of the will.\n\nWe should also incline to think that even such an action as the\noxygenisation of its blood by an infant of ten minutes\u2019 old, can only be\ndone so well and so unconsciously, after repeated failures on the part of\nthe infant itself.\n\nTrue, as has been already implied, we do not immediately see when the\nbaby could have made the necessary mistakes and acquired that infinite\npractice without which it could never go through such complex processes\nsatisfactorily; we have therefore invented the words \u201chereditary\ninstinct,\u201d and consider them as accounting for the phenomenon; but a very\nlittle reflection will show that though these words may be a very good\nway of stating the difficulty, they do little or nothing towards removing\nit.\n\nWhy should hereditary instinct enable a creature to dispense with the\nexperience which we see to be necessary in all other cases before\ndifficult operations can be performed successfully?\n\nWhat is this talk that is made about the experience _of the race_, as\nthough the experience of one man could profit another who knows nothing\nabout him? If a man eats his dinner, it nourishes _him_ and not his\nneighbour; if he learns a different art, it is _he_ that can do it and\nnot his neighbour. Yet, practically, we see that the vicarious\nexperience, which seems so contrary to our common observation, does\nnevertheless appear to hold good in the case of creatures and their\ndescendants. Is there, then, any way of bringing these apparently\nconflicting phenomena under the operation of one law? Is there any way\nof showing that this experience of the race, of which so much is said\nwithout the least attempt to show in what way it may or does become the\nexperience of the individual, is in sober seriousness the experience of\none single being only, repeating in a great many different ways certain\nperformances with which he has become exceedingly familiar?\n\nIt would seem that we must either suppose the conditions of experience to\ndiffer during the earlier stages of life from those which we observe them\nto become during the heyday of any existence\u2014and this would appear very\ngratuitous, tolerable only as a suggestion because the beginnings of life\nare so obscure, that in such twilight we may do pretty much whatever we\nplease without danger of confutation\u2014or that we must suppose the\ncontinuity of life and sameness between living beings, whether plants or\nanimals, and their descendants, to be far closer than we have hitherto\nbelieved; so that the experience of one person is not enjoyed by his\nsuccessor, so much as that the successor is _bon\u00e2 fide_ but a part of the\nlife of his progenitor, imbued with all his memories, profiting by all\nhis experiences\u2014which are, in fact, his own\u2014and only unconscious of the\nextent of his own memories and experiences owing to their vastness and\nalready infinite repetitions.\n\nCertainly it presents itself to us at once as a singular coincidence\u2014\n\nI. That we are _most conscious of_, _and have most control over_, such\nhabits as speech, the upright position, the arts and sciences, which are\nacquisitions peculiar to the human race, always acquired after birth, and\nnot common to ourselves and any ancestor who had not become entirely\nhuman.\n\nII. That we are _less conscious of_, _and have less control over_,\neating and drinking, swallowing, breathing, seeing and hearing, which\nwere acquisitions of our prehuman ancestry, and for which we had provided\nourselves with all the necessary apparatus before we saw light, but which\nare still, geologically speaking, recent, or comparatively recent.\n\nIII. That we are _most unconscious of_, _and have least control over_,\nour digestion and circulation, which belonged even to our invertebrate\nancestry, and which are habits, geologically speaking, of extreme\nantiquity.\n\nThere is something too like method in this for it to be taken as the\nresult of mere chance\u2014chance again being but another illustration of\nNature\u2019s love of a contradiction in terms; for everything is chance, and\nnothing is chance. And you may take it that all is chance or nothing\nchance, according as you please, but you must not have half chance and\nhalf not chance.\n\nDoes it not seem as though the older and more confirmed the habit, the\nmore unquestioning the act of volition, till, in the case of the oldest\nhabits, the practice of succeeding existences has so formulated the\nprocedure, that, on being once committed to such and such a line beyond a\ncertain point, the subsequent course is so clear as to be open to no\nfurther doubt, to admit of no alternative, till the very power of\nquestioning is gone, and even the consciousness of volition? And this\ntoo upon matters which, in earlier stages of a man\u2019s existence, admitted\nof passionate argument and anxious deliberation whether to resolve them\nthus or thus, with heroic hazard and experiment, which on the losing side\nproved to be vice, and on the winning virtue. For there was passionate\nargument once what shape a man\u2019s teeth should be, nor can the colour of\nhis hair be considered as ever yet settled, or likely to be settled for a\nvery long time.\n\nIt is one against legion when a creature tries to differ from his own\npast selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so as to\nlack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, or not to gratify them.\nIt is more righteous in a man that he should \u201ceat strange food,\u201d and that\nhis cheek should \u201cso much as lank not,\u201d than that he should starve if the\nstrange food be at his command. His past selves are living in him at\nthis moment with the accumulated life of centuries. \u201cDo this, this,\nthis, which we too have done, and found our profit in it,\u201d cry the souls\nof his forefathers within him. Faint are the far ones, coming and going\nas the sound of bells wafted on to a high mountain; loud and clear are\nthe near ones, urgent as an alarm of fire. \u201cWithhold,\u201d cry some. \u201cGo on\nboldly,\u201d cry others. \u201cMe, me, me, revert hitherward, my descendant,\u201d\nshouts one as it were from some high vantage-ground over the heads of the\nclamorous multitude. \u201cNay, but me, me, me,\u201d echoes another; and our\nformer selves fight within us and wrangle for our possession. Have we\nnot here what is commonly called an _internal tumult_, when dead\npleasures and pains tug within us hither and thither? Then may the\nbattle be decided by what people are pleased to call our own experience.\nOur own indeed! What is our own save by mere courtesy of speech? A\nmatter of fashion. Sanction sanctifieth and fashion fashioneth. And so\nwith death\u2014the most inexorable of all conventions.\n\nHowever this may be, we may assume it as an axiom with regard to actions\nacquired after birth, that we never do them automatically save as the\nresult of long practice, and after having thus acquired perfect mastery\nover the action in question.\n\nBut given the practice or experience, and the intricacy of the process to\nbe performed appears to matter very little. There is hardly anything\nconceivable as being done by man, which a certain amount of familiarity\nwill not enable him to do, as it were mechanically and without conscious\neffort. \u201cThe most complex and difficult movements,\u201d writes Mr Darwin,\n\u201ccan in time be performed without the least effort or consciousness.\u201d\nAll the main business of life is done thus unconsciously or\nsemi-unconsciously. For what is the main business of life? We work that\nwe may eat and digest, rather than eat and digest that we may work; this,\nat any rate, is the normal state of things: the more important business\nthen is that which is carried on unconsciously. So again the action of\nthe brain, which goes on prior to our realising the idea in which it\nresults, is not perceived by the individual. So also all the deeper\nsprings of action and conviction. The residuum with which we fret and\nworry ourselves is a mere matter of detail, as the higgling and haggling\nof the market, which is not over the bulk of the price, but over the last\nhalfpenny.\n\nShall we say, then, that a baby of a day old sucks (which involves the\nwhole principle of the pump, and hence a profound practical knowledge of\nthe laws of pneumatics and hydrostatics), digests, oxygenises its blood\n(millions of years before Sir Humphry Davy discovered oxygen), sees and\nhears\u2014all most difficult and complicated operations, involving a\nknowledge of the facts concerning optics and acoustics, compared with\nwhich the discoveries of Newton sink into utter insignificance? Shall we\nsay that a baby can do all these things at once, doing them so well and\nso regularly, without being even able to direct its attention to them,\nand without mistake, and at the same time not know how to do them, and\nnever have done them before?\n\nSuch an assertion would be a contradiction to the whole experience of\nmankind. Surely the _onus probandi_ must rest with him who makes it.\n\nA man may make a lucky hit now and again by what is called a fluke, but\neven this must be only a little in advance of his other performances of\nthe same kind. He may multiply seven by eight by a fluke after a little\nstudy of the multiplication table, but he will not be able to extract the\ncube root of 4913 by a fluke, without long training in arithmetic, any\nmore than an agricultural labourer would be able to operate successfully\nfor cataract. If, then, a grown man cannot perform so simple an\noperation as that we will say, for cataract, unless he have been long\ntrained in other similar operations, and until he has done what comes to\nthe same thing many times over, with what show of reason can we maintain\nthat one who is so far less capable than a grown man, can perform such\nvastly more difficult operations, without knowing how to do them, and\nwithout ever having done them before? There is no sign of \u201cfluke\u201d about\nthe circulation of a baby\u2019s blood. There may perhaps be some little\nhesitation about its earliest breathing, but this, as a general rule,\nsoon passes over, both breathing and circulation, within an hour after\nbirth, being as regular and easy as at any time during life. Is it\nreasonable, then, to say that the baby does these things without knowing\nhow to do them, and without ever having done them before, and continues\nto do them by a series of lifelong flukes?\n\nIt would be well if those who feel inclined to hazard such an assertion\nwould find some other instances of intricate processes gone through by\npeople who know nothing about them, and never had any practice therein.\nWhat _is_ to know how to do a thing? Surely to do it. What is proof\nthat we know how to do a thing? Surely the fact that we can do it. A\nman shows that he knows how to throw the boomerang by throwing the\nboomerang. No amount of talking or writing can get over this; _ipso\nfacto_, that a baby breathes and makes its blood circulate, it knows how\nto do so and the fact that it does not know its own knowledge is only\nproof of the perfection of that knowledge, and of the vast number of past\noccasions on which it must have been exercised already. As we have said\nalready, it is less obvious when the baby could have gained its\nexperience, so as to be able so readily to remember exactly what to do;\nbut it is more easy to suppose that the necessary occasions cannot have\nbeen wanting, than that the power which we observe should have been\nobtained without practice and memory.\n\nIf we saw any self-consciousness on the baby\u2019s part about its breathing\nor circulation, we might suspect that it had had less experience, or\nprofited less by its experience, than its neighbours\u2014exactly in the same\nmanner as we suspect a deficiency of any quality which we see a man\ninclined to parade. We all become introspective when we find that we do\nnot know our business, and whenever we are introspective we may generally\nsuspect that we are on the verge of unproficiency. Unfortunately, in the\ncase of sickly children, we observe that they sometimes do become\nconscious of their breathing and circulation, just as in later life we\nbecome conscious that we have a liver or a digestion. In that case there\nis always something wrong. The baby that becomes aware of its breathing\ndoes not know how to breathe, and will suffer for his ignorance and\nincapacity, exactly in the same way as he will suffer in later life for\nignorance and incapacity in any other respect in which his peers are\ncommonly knowing and capable. In the case of inability to breath, the\npunishment is corporal, breathing being a matter of fashion, so old and\nlong settled that nature can admit of no departure from the established\ncustom, and the procedure in case of failure is as much formulated as the\nfashion itself in the case of the circulation, the whole performance has\nbecome one so utterly of rote, that the mere discovery that we could do\nit at all was considered one of the highest flights of human genius.\n\nIt has been said a day will come when the Polar ice shall have\naccumulated, till it forms vast continents many thousands of feet above\nthe level of the sea, all of solid ice. The weight of this mass will, it\nis believed, cause the world to topple over on its axis, so that the\nearth will be upset as an ant-heap overturned by a ploughshare. In that\nday time icebergs will come crunching against our proudest cities, razing\nthem from off the face of the earth as though they were made of rotten\nblotting-paper. There is no respect now of Handel nor of Shakespeare;\nthe works of Rembrandt and Bellini fossilise at the bottom of the sea.\nGrace, beauty, and wit, all that is precious in music, literature, and\nart\u2014all gone. In the morning there was Europe. In the evening there are\nno more populous cities nor busy hum of men, but a sea of jagged ice, a\nlurid sunset, and the doom of many ages. Then shall a scared remnant\nescape in places, and settle upon the changed continent when the waters\nhave subsided\u2014a simple people, busy hunting shellfish on the drying ocean\nbeds, and with little time for introspection yet they can read and write\nand sum, for by that time these accomplishments will have become\nuniversal, and will be acquired as easily as we now learn to talk; but\nthey do so as a matter of course, and without self-consciousness. Also\nthey make the simpler kinds of machinery too easily to be able to follow\ntheir own operations\u2014the manner of their own apprenticeship being to them\nas a buried city. May we not imagine that, after the lapse of another\nten thousand years or so, some one of them may again become cursed with\nlust of introspection, and a second Harvey may astonish the world by\ndiscovering that it can read and write, and that steam-engines do not\ngrow, but are made? It may be safely prophesied that he will die a\nmartyr, and be honoured in the fourth generation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\nAPPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES TO ACTIONS AND HABITS ACQUIRED\nBEFORE BIRTH.\n\n\nBUT if we once admit the principle that consciousness and volition have a\ntendency to vanish as soon as practice has rendered any habit exceedingly\nfamiliar, so that the mere presence of an elaborate but unconscious\nperformance shall carry with it a presumption of infinite practice, we\nshall find it impossible to draw the line at those actions which we see\nacquired after birth, no matter at how early a period. The whole history\nand development of the embryo in all its stages forces itself on our\nconsideration. Birth has been made too much of. It is a salient feature\nin the history of the individual, but not more salient than a hundred\nothers, and far less so than the commencement of his existence as a\nsingle cell uniting in itself elements derived from both parents, or\nperhaps than any point in his whole existence as an embryo. For many\nyears after we are born we are still very incomplete. We cease to\noxygenise our blood vicariously as soon as we are born, but we still\nderive our sustenance from our mothers. Birth is but the beginning of\ndoubt, the first hankering after scepticism, the dreaming of a dawn of\ntrouble, the end of certainty and of settled convictions. Not but what\nbefore birth there have been unsettled convictions (more\u2019s the pity) with\nnot a few, and after birth we have still so made up our minds upon many\npoints as to have no further need of reflection concerning them;\nnevertheless, in the main, birth is the end of that time when we really\nknew our business, and the beginning of the days wherein we know not what\nwe would do, or do. It is therefore the beginning of consciousness, and\ninfancy is as the dosing of one who turns in his bed on waking, and takes\nanother short sleep before he rises. When we were yet unborn, our\nthoughts kept the roadway decently enough; then were we blessed; we\nthought as every man thinks, and held the same opinions as our fathers\nand mothers had done upon nearly every subject. Life was not an art\u2014and\na very difficult art\u2014much too difficult to be acquired in a lifetime; it\nwas a science of which we were consummate masters.\n\nIn this sense, then, birth may indeed be looked upon as the most salient\nfeature in a man\u2019s life; but this is not at all the sense in which it is\ncommonly so regarded. It is commonly considered as the point at which we\nbegin to live. More truly it is the point at which we leave off knowing\nhow to live.\n\nA chicken, for example, is never so full of consciousness, activity,\nreasoning faculty, and volition, as when it is an embryo in the eggshell,\nmaking bones, and flesh, and feathers, and eyes, and claws, with nothing\nbut a little warmth and white of egg to make them from. This is indeed\nto make bricks with but a small modicum of straw. There is no man in the\nwhole world who knows consciously and articulately as much as a\nhalf-hatched hen\u2019s egg knows unconsciously. Surely the egg in its own\nway must know quite as much as the chicken does. We say of the chicken\nthat it knows how to run about as soon as it is hatched. So it does; but\nhad it no knowledge before it was hatched? What made it lay the\nfoundations of those limbs which should enable it to run about? What\nmade it grow a horny tip to its bill before it was hatched, so that it\nmight peck all round the larger end of the eggshell and make a hole for\nitself to get out at? Having once got outside the eggshell, the chicken\nthrows away this horny tip; but is it reasonable to suppose that it would\nhave grown it at all unless it had known that it would want something\nwith which to break the eggshell? And again, is it in the least\nagreeable to our experience that such elaborate machinery should be made\nwithout endeavour, failure, perseverance, intelligent contrivance,\nexperience, and practice?\n\nIn the presence of such considerations, it seems impossible to refrain\nfrom thinking that there must be a closer continuity of identity, life,\nand memory, between successive generations than we generally imagine. To\nshear the thread of life, and hence of memory, between one generation and\nits successor, is so to speak, a brutal measure, an act of intellectual\nbutchery, and like all such strong high-handed measures, a sign of\nweakness in him who is capable of it till all other remedies have been\nexhausted. It is mere horse science, akin to the theories of the\nconvulsionists in the geological kingdom, and of the believers in the\nsupernatural origin of the species of plants and animals. Yet it is to\nbe feared that we have not a few among us who would feel shocked rather\nat the attempt towards a milder treatment of the facts before them, than\nat a continuance of the present crass tyranny with which we try to crush\nthem inside our preconceived opinions. It is quite common to hear men of\neducation maintain that not even when it was on the point of being\nhatched, had the chicken sense enough to know that it wanted to get\noutside the eggshell. It did indeed peck all round the end of the shell,\nwhich, if it wanted to get out, would certainly be the easiest way of\neffecting its purpose; but it did not, they say, peck because it was\naware of this, but \u201cpromiscuously.\u201d Curious, such a uniformity of\npromiscuous action among so many eggs for so many generations. If we see\na man knock a hole in a wall on finding that he cannot get out of a place\nby any other means, and if we see him knock this hole in a very\nworkmanlike way, with an implement with which he has been at great pains\nto make for a long the past, but which he throws away as soon as he has\nno longer use for it, thus showing that he had made it expressly for the\npurpose of escape, do we say that this person made the implement and\nbroke the wall of his prison promiscuously? No jury would acquit a\nburglar on these grounds. Then why, without much more evidence to the\ncontrary than we have, or can hope to have, should we not suppose that\nwith chickens, as with men, signs of contrivance are indeed signs of\ncontrivance, however quick, subtle, and untraceable, the contrivance may\nbe? Again, I have heard people argue that though the chicken, when\nnearly hatched, had such a glimmering of sense that it pecked the shell\nbecause it wanted to get out, yet that it is not conceivable that, so\nlong before it was hatched, it should have had the sense to grow the\nhorny tip to its bill for use when wanted. This, at any rate, they say,\nit must have grown, as the persons previously referred to would maintain,\npromiscuously.\n\nNow no one indeed supposes that the chicken does what it does, with the\nsame self-consciousness with which a tailor makes a suit of clothes. Not\nany one who has thought upon the subject is likely to do it so great an\ninjustice. The probability is that it knows what it is about to an\nextent greater than any tailor ever did or will, for, to say the least of\nit, many thousands of years to come. It works with such absolute\ncertainty and so vast an experience, that it is utterly incapable of\nfollowing the operations of its own mind\u2014as accountants have been known\nto add up long columns of pounds, shillings, and pence, running the three\nfingers of one hand, a finger for each column, up the page, and putting\nthe result down correctly at the bottom, apparently without an effort.\nIn the case of the accountant, we say that the processes which his mind\ngoes through are so rapid and subtle as to elude his own power of\nobservation as well as ours. We do not deny that his mind goes though\nprocesses of some kind; we very readily admit that it must do so, and say\nthat these processes are so rapid and subtle, owing, as a general rule,\nto long experience in addition. Why then should we find it so difficult\nto conceive that this principle, which we observe to play so large a part\nin mental physiology, wherever we can observe mental physiology at all,\nmay have a share also in the performance of intricate operations\notherwise inexplicable, though the creature performing them is not man,\nor man only in embryo?\n\nAgain, after the chicken is hatched, it grows more feathers and bones and\nblood, but we still say that it knows nothing about all this. What then\ndo we say it _does_ know? One is almost ashamed to confess that we only\ncredit it with knowing what it appears to know by processes which we find\nit exceedingly easy to follow, or perhaps rather, which we find it\nabsolutely impossible to avoid following, as recognising too great a\nfamily likeness between them, and those which are most easily followed in\nour own minds, to be able to sit down in comfort under a denial of the\nresemblance. Thus, for example, if we see a chicken running away from a\nfox, we do admit that the chicken knows the fox would kill it if it\ncaught it.\n\nOn the other hand, if we allow that the half-hatched chicken grew the\nhorny tip to be ready for use, with an intensity of unconscious\ncontrivance which can be only attributed to experience, we are driven to\nadmit that from the first moment the men began to sit upon it\u2014and earlier\ntoo than this\u2014the egg was always full of consciousness and volition, and\nthat during its embryological condition the unhatched chicken is doing\nexactly what it continues doing from the moment it is hatched till it\ndies; that is to say, attempting to better itself, doing (as Aristotle\nsays all creatures do all things upon all occasions) what it considers\nmost for its advantage under the existing circumstances. What it may\nthink most advantageous will depend, while it is in the eggshell, upon\nexactly the same causes as will influence its opinions in later life\u2014to\nwit, upon its habits, its past circumstances and ways of thinking; for\nthere is nothing, as Shakespeare tells us, good or ill, but thinking\nmakes it so.\n\nThe egg thinks feathers much more to its advantage than hair or fur, and\nmuch more easily made. If it could speak, it would probably tell us that\nwe could make them ourselves very easily after a few lessons, if we took\nthe trouble to try, but that hair was another matter, which it really\ncould not see how any protoplasm could be got to make. Indeed, during\nthe more intense and active part of our existence, in the earliest\nstages, that is to say, of our embryological life, we could probably have\nturned our protoplasm into feathers instead of hair if we had cared about\ndoing so. If the chicken can make feathers, there seems no sufficient\nreason for thinking that we cannot do so, beyond the fact that we prefer\nhair, and have preferred it for so many ages that we have lost the art\nalong with the desire of making feathers, if indeed any of our ancestors\never possessed it. The stuff with which we make hair is practically the\nsame as that with which chickens make feathers. It is nothing but\nprotoplasm, and protoplasm is like certain prophecies, out of which\nanything can be made by the creature which wants to make it. Everything\ndepends upon whether a creature knows its own mind sufficiently well, and\nhas enough faith in its own powers of achievement. When these two\nrequisites are wanting, the strongest giant cannot lift a two-ounce\nweight; when they are given, a bullock can take an eyelash out of its eye\nwith its hind-foot, or a minute jelly speck can build itself a house out\nof various materials which it will select according to its purpose with\nthe nicest care, though it have neither brain to think with, nor eyes to\nsee with, nor hands nor feet to work with, nor is it anything but a\nminute speck of jelly\u2014faith and protoplasm only.\n\nThat this is indeed so, the following passage from Dr. Carpenter\u2019s\n\u201cMental Physiology\u201d may serve to show:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe simplest type of an animal consists of a minute mass of\n\u2018protoplasm,\u2019 or living jelly, which is not yet _differentiated_ into\n\u2018organs;\u2019 every part having the same endowments, and taking an equal\nshare in every action which the creature performs. One of these \u2018jelly\nspecks,\u2019 the am\u0153ba, moves itself about by changing the form of its body,\nextemporising a foot (or pseudopodium), first in one direction, and then\nin another; and then, when it has met with a nutritive particle,\nextemporises a stomach for its reception, by wrapping its soft body\naround it. Another, instead of going about in search of food, remains in\none place, but projects its protoplasmic substance into long pseudopodia,\nwhich entrap and draw in very minute particles, or absorb nutrient\nmaterial from the liquid through which they extend themselves, and are\ncontinually becoming fused (as it were) into the central body, which is\nitself continually giving off new pseudopodia. Now we can scarcely\nconceive that a creature of such simplicity should possess any distinct\n_consciousness_ of its needs\u201d (why not?), \u201cor that its actions should be\ndirected by any _intention_ of its own; and yet the writer has lately\nfound results of the most singular elaborateness to be wrought out by the\ninstrumentality of these minute jelly specks, which build up tests or\ncasings of the most regular geometrical symmetry of form, and of the most\nartificial construction.\u201d\n\nOn this Dr. Carpenter remarks:\u2014\u201cSuppose a human mason to be put down by\nthe side of a pile of stones of various shapes and sizes, and to be told\nto build a dome of these, smooth on both surfaces, without using more\nthan the least possible quantity of a very tenacious, but very costly,\ncement, in holding the stones together. If he accomplished this well, he\nwould receive credit for great intelligence and skill. Yet this is\nexactly what these little \u2018jelly specks\u2019 do on a most minute scale; the\n\u2018tests\u2019 they construct, when highly magnified, bearing comparison with\nthe most skilful masonry of man. From _the same sandy bottom_ one\nspecies picks up the _coarser_ quartz grains, cements them together with\n_phosphate of iron_ secreted from its own substance\u201d (should not this\nrather be, \u201cwhich it has contrived in some way or other to manufacture\u201d?)\nand thus constructs a flask-shaped \u2018test,\u2019 having a short neck and a\nlarge single orifice. Another picks up the _finest_ grains, and puts\nthem together, with the same cement, into perfectly spherical \u2018tests\u2019 of\nthe most extraordinary finish, perforated with numerous small pores\ndisposed at pretty regular intervals. Another selects the _minutest_\nsand grains and the terminal portions of sponge spicules, and works them\nup together\u2014apparently with no cement at all, by the mere laying of the\nspicules\u2014into perfect white spheres, like hom\u0153opathic globules, each\nhaving a single-fissured orifice. And another, which makes a straight,\nmany-chambered \u2018test,\u2019 that resembles in form the chambered shell of an\northoceratite\u2014the conical mouth of each chamber projecting into the\ncavity of the next\u2014while forming the walls of its chambers of ordinary\nsand grains rather loosely held together, shapes the conical mouth of the\nsuccessive chambers by firmly cementing together grains of ferruginous\nquartz, which it must have picked out from the general mass.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo give these actions,\u201d continues Dr. Carpenter, \u201cthe vague designation\nof \u2018instinctive\u2019 does not in the least help us to account for them, since\nwhat we want is to discover the _mechanism_ by which they are worked out;\nand it is most difficult to conceive how so artificial a selection can be\nmade by a creature so simple\u201d (Mental Physiology, 4th ed. pp. 41\u201343)\n\nThis is what protoplasm can do when it has the talisman of faith\u2014of faith\nwhich worketh all wonders, either in the heavens above, or in the earth\nbeneath, or in the waters under the earth. Truly if a man have faith,\neven as a grain of mustard seed, though he may not be able to remove\nmountains, he will at any rate be able to do what is no less\ndifficult\u2014make a mustard plant.\n\nYet this is but a barren kind of comfort, for we have not, and in the\nnature of things cannot have, sufficient faith in the unfamiliar,\ninasmuch as the very essence of faith involves the notion of familiarity,\nwhich can grow but slowly, from experience to confidence, and can make no\nsudden leap at any time. Such faith cannot be founded upon reason,\u2014that\nis to say, upon a recognised perception on the part of the person holding\nit that he is holding it, and of the reasons for his doing so\u2014or it will\nshift as other reasons come to disturb it. A house built upon reason is\na house built upon the sand. It must be built upon the current cant and\npractice of one\u2019s peers, for this is the rock which, though not\nimmovable, is still most hard to move.\n\nBut however this may be, we observe broadly that the intensity of the\nwill to make this or that, and of the confidence that one can make it,\ndepends upon the length of time during which the maker\u2019s forefathers have\nwanted the same thing before it; the older the custom the more inveterate\nthe habit, and, with the exception, perhaps, that the reproductive system\nis generally the crowning act of development\u2014an exception which I will\nhereafter explain\u2014the earlier its manifestation, until, for some reason\nor another, we relinquish it and take to another, which we must, as a\ngeneral rule, again adhere to for a vast number of generations, before it\nwill permanently supplant the older habit. In our own case, the habit of\nbreathing like a fish through gills may serve as an example. We have now\nleft off this habit, yet we did it formerly for so many generations that\nwe still do it a little; it still crosses our embryological existence\nlike a faint memory or dream, for not easily is an inveterate habit\nbroken. On the other hand\u2014again speaking broadly\u2014the more recent the\nhabit the later the fashion of its organ, as with the teeth, speech, and\nthe higher intellectual powers, which are too new for development before\nwe are actually born.\n\nBut to return for a short time to Dr. Carpenter. Dr. Carpenter evidently\nfeels, what must indeed be felt by every candid mind, that there is no\nsufficient reason for supposing that these little specks of jelly,\nwithout brain or eyes, or stomach, or hands, or feet, but the very lowest\nknown form of animal life, are not imbued with a consciousness of their\nneeds, and the reasoning faculties which shall enable them to gratify\nthose needs in a manner, all things considered, equalling the highest\nflights of the ingenuity of the highest animal\u2014man. This is no\nexaggeration. It is true, that in an earlier part of the passage, Dr.\nCarpenter has said that we can scarcely conceive so simple a creature to\n\u201cpossess any distinct _consciousness_ of its needs, or that its actions\nshould be directed by any intention of its own;\u201d but, on the other hand,\na little lower down he says, that if a workman did what comes to the same\nthing as what the am\u0153ba does, he \u201cwould receive credit for great\nintelligence and skill.\u201d Now if an am\u0153ba can do that, for which a\nworkman would receive credit as for a highly skilful and intelligent\nperformance, the am\u0153ba should receive no less credit than the workman; he\nshould also be no less credited with skill and intelligence, which words\nunquestionably involve a distinct consciousness of needs and an action\ndirected by an intention of its own. So that Dr. Carpenter seems rather\nto blow hot and cold with one breath. Nevertheless there can be no doubt\nto which side the minds of the great majority of mankind will incline\nupon the evidence before them; they will say that the creature is highly\nreasonable and intelligent, though they would readily admit that long\npractice and familiarity may have exhausted its powers of attention to\nall the stages of its own performance, just as a practised workman in\nbuilding a wall certainly does not consciously follow all the processes\nwhich he goes through.\n\nAs an example, however, of the extreme dislike which philosophers of a\ncertain school have for making the admissions which seem somewhat\ngrudgingly conceded by Dr. Carpenter, we may take the paragraph which\nimmediately follows the ones which we have just quoted. Dr. Carpenter\nthere writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe writer has often amused himself and others, when by the seaside,\nwith getting a _terebella_ (a marine worm that cases its body in a sandy\ntube) out of its house, and then, putting it into a saucer of water with\na supply of sand and comminuted shell, watching its appropriation of\nthese materials in constructing a new tube. The extended tentacles soon\nspread themselves over the bottom of the saucer and lay hold of whatever\ncomes in their way, \u2018all being fish that comes to their net,\u2019 and in half\nan hour or thereabouts the new house is finished, though on a very rude\nand artificial type. Now here the organisation is far higher; the\ninstrumentality obviously serves the needs of the animal and suffices for\nthem; and we characterise the action, on account of its uniformity and\napparent _un_intelligence, as instinctive.\u201d\n\nNo comment will, one would think, be necessary to make the reader feel\nthat the difference between the terebella and the am\u0153ba is one of degree\nrather than kind, and that if the action of the second is as conscious\nand reasonable as that, we will say, of a bird making her nest, the\naction of the first should be so also. It is only a question of being a\nlittle less skilful, or more so, but skill and intelligence would seem\npresent in both cases. Moreover, it is more clever of the terebella to\nhave made itself the limbs with which it can work, than of the am\u0153ba to\nbe able to work without the limbs; and perhaps it is more sensible also\nto want a less elaborate dwelling, provided it is sufficient for\npractical purposes. But whether the terebella be less intelligent than\nthe am\u0153ba or not, it does quite enough to establish its claim to\nintelligence of a higher order; and one does not see ground for the\nsatisfaction which Dr. Carpenter appears to find at having, as it were,\ntaken the taste of the am\u0153ba\u2019s performance out of our mouth, by setting\nus about the less elaborate performance of the terebella, which he thinks\nwe can call unintelligent and instinctive.\n\nI may be mistaken in the impression I have derived from the paragraphs I\nhave quoted. I commonly say they give me the impression that I have\ntried to convey to the reader, _i.e._, that the writer\u2019s assent to\nanything like intelligence, or consciousness of needs, an animal low down\nin the scale of life, is grudging, and that he is more comfortable when\nhe has got hold of onto to which he can point and say that mere, at any\nrate, is an unintelligent and merely instinctive creature. I have only\ncalled attention to the passage as an example of the intellectual bias of\na large number of exceedingly able and thoughtful persons, among whom, so\nfar as I am able to form an opinion at all, few have greater claims to\nour respectful attention than Dr. Carpenter himself.\n\nFor the embryo of a chicken, then, we damn exactly the same kind of\nreasoning power and contrivance which we damn for the am\u0153ba, or for our\nown intelligent performances in later life. We do not claim for it much,\nif any, perception of its own forethought, for we know very well that it\nis among the most prominent features of intellectual activity that, after\na number of repetitions, it ceases to be perceived, and that it does not,\nin ordinary cases, cease to be perceived till after a very great number\nof repetitions. The fact that the embryo chicken makes itself always as\nnearly as may be in the same way, would lead us to suppose that it would\nbe unconscious of much of its own action, _provided it were always the\nsame chicken which made itself over and over again_. So far we can see,\nit always _is_ unconscious of the greater part of its own wonderful\nperformance. Surely then we have a presumption that _it is the same\nchicken which makes itself over and over again_; for such unconsciousness\nis not won, so far as our experience goes, by any other means than by\nfrequent repetition of the same act on the part of one and the same\nindividual. How this can be we shall perceive in subsequent chapters.\nIn the meantime, we may say that all knowledge and volition would seem to\nbe merely parts of the knowledge and volition of the primordial cell\n(whatever this may be), which slumbers but never dies\u2014which has grown,\nand multiplied, and differentiated itself into the compound life of the\nwomb, and which never becomes conscious of knowing what it has once\nlearnt effectually, till it is for some reason on the point of, or in\ndanger of, forgetting it.\n\nThe action, therefore, of an embryo making its way up in the world from a\nsimple cell to a baby, developing for itself eyes, ears, hands, and feet\nwhile yet unborn, proves to be exactly of one and the same kind as that\nof a man of fifty who goes into the City and tells his broker to buy him\nso many Great Northern A shares\u2014that is to say, an effort of the will\nexercised in due course on a balance of considerations as to the\nimmediate expediency, and guided by past experience; while children who\ndo not reach birth are but prenatal spendthrifts, ne\u2019er-do-weels,\ninconsiderate innovators, the unfortunate in business, either through\ntheir own fault or that of others, or through inevitable mischances,\nbeings who are culled out before birth instead of after; so that even the\nlowest idiot, the most contemptible in health or beauty, may yet reflect\nwith pride that they were _born_. Certainly we observe that those who\nhave had good fortune (mother and sole cause of virtue, and sole virtue\nin itself), and have profited by their experience, and known their\nbusiness best before birth, so that they made themselves both to be and\nto look well, do commonly on an average prove to know it best in\nafter-life: they grow their clothes best who have grown their limbs best.\nIt is rare that those who have not remembered how to finish their own\nbodies fairly well should finish anything well in later life. But how\nsmall is the addition to their unconscious attainments which even the\nTitans of human intellect have consciously accomplished, in comparison\nwith the problems solved by the meanest baby living, nay, even by one\nwhose birth is untimely! In other words, how vast is that back knowledge\nover which we have gone fast asleep, through the prosiness of perpetual\nrepetition; and how little in comparison, is that whose novelty keeps it\nstill within the scope of our conscious perception! What is the\ndiscovery of the laws of gravitation as compared with the knowledge which\nsleeps in every hen\u2019s egg upon a kitchen shelf?\n\nIt is all a matter of habit and fashion. Thus we see kings and\ncouncillors of the earth admired for facing death before what they are\npleased to call dishonour. If, on being required to go without anything\nthey have been accustomed to, or to change their habits, or do what is\nunusual in the case of other kings under like circumstances, then, if\nthey but fold their cloak decently around them, and die upon the spot of\nshame at having had it even required of them to do thus or thus, then are\nthey kings indeed, of old race, that know their business from generation\nto generation. Or if, we will say, a prince, on having his dinner\nbrought to him ill-cooked, were to feel the indignity so keenly as that\nhe should turn his face to the wall, and breathe out his wounded soul in\none sigh, do we not admire him as a \u201c_real_ prince,\u201d who knows the\nbusiness of princes so well that he can conceive of nothing foreign to it\nin connection with himself, the bare effort to realise a state of things\nother than what princes have been accustomed to being immediately fatal\nto him? Yet is there no less than this in the demise of every\nhalf-hatched hen\u2019s egg, shaken rudely by a schoolboy, or neglected by a\ntruant mother; for surely the prince would not die if he knew how to do\notherwise, and the hen\u2019s egg only dies of being required to do something\nto which it is not accustomed.\n\nBut the further consideration of this and other like reflections would\ntoo long detain us. Suffice it that we have established the position\nthat all living creatures which show any signs of intelligence, must\ncertainly each one have already gone through the embryonic stages an\ninfinite number of times, or they could no more have achieved the\nintricate process of self-development unconsciously, than they could play\nthe piano unconsciously without any previous knowledge of the instrument.\nIt remains, therefore, to show the when and where of their having done\nso, and this leads us naturally to the subject of the following\nchapter\u2014Personal Identity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\nPERSONAL IDENTITY.\n\n\n\u201cSTRANGE difficulties have been raised by some,\u201d says Bishop Butler,\n\u201cconcerning personal identity, or the sameness of living agents as\nimplied in the notion of our existing now and hereafter, or indeed in any\ntwo consecutive moments.\u201d But in truth it is not easy to see the\nstrangeness of the difficulty, if the words either \u201cpersonal\u201d or\n\u201cidentity\u201d are used in any strictness.\n\nPersonality is one of those ideas with which we are so familiar that we\nhave lost sight of the foundations upon which it rests. We regard our\npersonality as a simple definite whole; as a plain, palpable, individual\nthing, which can be seen going about the streets or sitting indoors at\nhome, which lasts us our lifetime, and about the confines of which no\ndoubt can exist in the minds of reasonable people. But in truth this\n\u201cwe,\u201d which looks so simple and definite, is a nebulous and indefinable\naggregation of many component parts which war not a little among\nthemselves, our perception of our existence at all being perhaps due to\nthis very clash of warfare, as our sense of sound and light is due to the\njarring of vibrations. Moreover, as the component parts of our identity\nchange from moment to moment, our personality becomes a thing dependent\nupon the present, which has no logical existence, but lives only upon the\nsufferance of times past and future, slipping out of our hands into the\ndomain of one or other of these two claimants the moment we try to\napprehend it. And not only is our personality as fleeting as the present\nmoment, but the parts which compose it blend some of them so\nimperceptibly into, and are so inextricably linked on to, outside things\nwhich clearly form no part of our personality, that when we try to bring\nourselves to book, and determine wherein we consist, or to draw a line as\nto where we begin or end, we find ourselves completely baffled. There is\nnothing but fusion and confusion.\n\nPutting theology on one side, and dealing only with the common daily\nexperience of mankind, our body is certainly part of our personality.\nWith the destruction of our bodies, our personality, as far as we can\nfollow it, comes to a full stop; and with every modification of them it\nis correspondingly modified. But what are the limits of our bodies?\nThey are composed of parts, some of them so unessential as to be hardly\nincluded in personality at all, and to be separable from ourselves\nwithout perceptible effect, as the hair, nails, and daily waste of\ntissue. Again, other parts are very important, as our hands, feet, arms,\nlegs, &c., but still are no essential parts of our \u201cself\u201d or \u201csoul,\u201d\nwhich continues to exist in spite of their amputation. Other parts, as\nthe brain, heart, and blood, are so essential that they cannot be\ndispensed with, yet it is impossible to say that personality consists in\nany one of them.\n\nEach one of these component members of our personality is continually\ndying and being born again, supported in this process by the food we eat,\nthe water we drink, and the air we breathe; which three things link us\non, and fetter us down, to the organic and inorganic world about us. For\nour meat and drink, though no part of our personality before we eat and\ndrink, cannot, after we have done so, be separated entirely from us\nwithout the destruction of our personality altogether, so far as we can\nfollow it; and who shall say at what precise moment our food has or has\nnot become part of ourselves? A famished man eats food; after a short\ntime his whole personality is so palpably affected that we know the food\nto have entered into him and taken, as it were, possession of him; but\nwho can say at what precise moment it did so? Thus we find that we are\nrooted into outside things and melt away into them, nor can any man say\nhe consists absolutely in this or that, nor define himself so certainly\nas to include neither more nor less than himself; many undoubted parts of\nhis personality being more separable from it, and changing it less when\nso separated, both to his own senses and those of other people, than\nother parts which are strictly speaking no parts at all.\n\nA man\u2019s clothes, for example, as they lie on a chair at night are no part\nof him, but when he wears them they would appear to be so, as being a\nkind of food which warms him and hatches him, and the loss of which may\nkill him of cold. If this be denied, and a man\u2019s clothes be considered\nas no part of his self, nevertheless they, with his money, and it may\nperhaps be added his religious opinions, stamp a man\u2019s individuality as\nstrongly as any natural feature could stamp it. Change in style of\ndress, gain or loss of money, make a man feel and appear more changed\nthan having his chin shaved or his nails cut. In fact, as soon as we\nleave common parlance on one side, and try for a scientific definition of\npersonality, we find that there is none possible, any more than there can\nbe a demonstration of the fact that we exist at all\u2014a demonstration for\nwhich, as for that of a personal God, many have hunted but none have\nfound. The only solid foundation is, as in the case of the earth\u2019s\ncrust, pretty near the surface of things; the deeper we try to go, the\ndamper and darker and altogether more uncongenial we find it. There is\nno knowing into what quagmire of superstition we may not find ourselves\ndrawn, if we once cut ourselves adrift from those superficial aspects of\nthings, in which alone our nature permits us to be comforted.\n\nCommon parlance, however, settles the difficulty readily enough (as\nindeed it settles most others if they show signs of awkwardness) by the\nsimple process of ignoring it: we decline, and very properly, to go into\nthe question of where personality begins and ends, but assume it to be\nknown by every one, and throw the onus of not knowing it upon the\nover-curious, who had better think as their neighbours do, right or\nwrong, or there is no knowing into what villainy they may not presently\nfall.\n\nAssuming, then, that every one knows what is meant by the word \u201cperson\u201d\n(and such superstitious bases as this are the foundations upon which all\naction, whether of man, beast, or plant, is constructed and rendered\npossible; for even the corn in the fields grows upon a superstitious\nbasis as to its own existence, and only turns the earth and moisture into\nwheat through the conceit of its own ability to do so, without which\nfaith it were powerless; and the lichen only grows upon the granite rock\nby first saying to itself, \u201cI think I can do it;\u201d so that it would not be\nable to grow unless it thought it could grow, and would not think it\ncould grow unless it found itself able to grow, and thus spends its life\narguing in a most vicious circle, basing its action upon a hypothesis,\nwhich hypothesis is in turn based upon its action)\u2014assuming that we know\nwhat is meant by the word \u201cperson,\u201d we say that we are one and the same\nfrom the moment of our birth to the moment of our death, so that whatever\nis done by or happens to any one between birth and death, is said to\nhappen to or be done by one individual. This in practice is found to be\nsufficient for the law courts and the purposes of daily life, which,\nbeing full of hurry and the pressure of business, can only tolerate\ncompromise, or conventional rendering of intricate phenomena. When facts\nof extreme complexity have to be daily and hourly dealt with by people\nwhose time is money, they must be simplified, and treated much as a\npainter treats them, drawing them in squarely, seizing the more important\nfeatures, and neglecting all that does not assert itself as too essential\nto be passed over\u2014hence the slang and cant words of every profession, and\nindeed all language; for language at best is but a kind of \u201cpatter,\u201d the\nonly way, it is true, in many cases, of expressing our ideas to one\nanother, but still a very bad way, and not for one moment comparable to\nthe unspoken speech which we may sometimes have recourse to. The\nmetaphors and _fa\u00e7ons de parler_ to which even in the plainest speech we\nare perpetually recurring (as, for example, in this last two lines,\n\u201cplain,\u201d \u201cperpetually,\u201d and \u201crecurring,\u201d are all words based on metaphor,\nand hence more or less liable to mislead) often deceive us, as though\nthere were nothing more than what we see and say, and as though words,\ninstead of being, as they are, the creatures of our convenience, had some\nclaim to be the actual ideas themselves concerning which we are\nconversing.\n\nThis is so well expressed in a letter I have recently received from a\nfriend, now in New Zealand, and certainly not intended by him for\npublication, that I shall venture to quote the passage, but should say\nthat I do so without his knowledge or permission which I should not be\nable to receive before this book must be completed.\n\n\u201cWords, words, words,\u201d he writes, \u201care the stumbling-blocks in the way of\ntruth. Until you think of things as they are, and not of the words that\nmisrepresent them, you cannot think rightly. Words produce the\nappearance of hard and fast lines where there are none. Words divide;\nthus we call this a man, that an ape, that a monkey, while they are all\nonly differentiations of the same thing. To think of a thing they must\nbe got rid of: they are the clothes that thoughts wear\u2014only the clothes.\nI say this over and over again, for there is nothing of more importance.\nOther men\u2019s words will stop you at the beginning of an investigation. A\nman may play with words all his life, arranging them and rearranging them\nlike dominoes. If I could _think_ to you without words you would\nunderstand me better.\u201d\n\nIf such remarks as the above hold good at all, they do so with the words\n\u201cpersonal identity.\u201d The least reflection will show that personal\nidentity in any sort of strictness is an impossibility. The expression\nis one of the many ways in which we are obliged to scamp our thoughts\nthrough pressure of other business which pays us better. For surely all\nreasonable people will feel that an infant an hour before birth, when in\nthe eye of the law he has no existence, and could not be called a peer\nfor another sixty minutes, though his father were a peer, and already\ndead,\u2014surely such an embryo is more personally identical with the baby\ninto which he develops within an hour\u2019s time than the born baby is so\nwith itself (if the expression may be pardoned), one, twenty, or it may\nbe eighty years after birth. There is more sameness of matter; there are\nfewer differences of any kind perceptible by a third person; there is\nmore sense of continuity on the part of the person himself; and far more\nof all that goes to make up our sense of sameness of personality between\nan embryo an hour before birth and the child on being born, than there is\nbetween the child just born and the man of twenty. Yet there is no\nhesitation about admitting sameness of personality between these two\nlast.\n\nOn the other hand, if that hazy contradiction in terms, \u201cpersonal\nidentity,\u201d be once allowed to retreat behind the threshold of the womb,\nit has eluded us once for all. What is true of one hour before birth is\ntrue of two, and so on till we get back to the impregnate ovum, which may\nfairly claim to have been personally identical with the man of eighty\ninto which it ultimately developed, in spite of the fact that there is no\nparticle of same matter nor sense of continuity between them, nor\nrecognised community of instinct, nor indeed of anything which goes to\nthe making up of that which we call identity.\n\nThere is far more of all these things common to the impregnate ovum and\nthe ovum immediately before impregnation, or again between the impregnate\novum, and both the ovum before impregnation and the spermatozoon which\nimpregnated it. Nor, if we admit personal identity between the ovum and\nthe octogenarian, is there any sufficient reason why we should not admit\nit between the impregnate ovum and the two factors of which it is\ncomposed, which two factors are but offshoots from two distinct\npersonalities, of which they are as much part as the apple is of the\napple-tree; so that an impregnate ovum cannot without a violation of\nfirst principles be debarred from claiming personal identity with both\nits parents, and hence, by an easy chain of reasoning, _with each of the\nimpregnate ova from which its parents were developed_.\n\nSo that each ovum when impregnate should be considered not as descended\nfrom its ancestors, but as being a continuation of the personality of\nevery ovum in the chain of its ancestry, which every ovum _it actually\nis_ quite as truly as the octogenarian _is_ the same identity with the\novum from which he has been developed.\n\nThis process cannot stop short of the primordial cell, which again will\nprobably turn out to be but a brief resting-place. We therefore prove\neach one of us to _be actually_ the primordial cell which never died nor\ndies, but has differentiated itself into the life of the world, all\nliving beings whatever, being one with it, and members one of another.\n\nTo look at the matter for a moment in another light, it will be admitted\nthat if the primordial cell had been killed before leaving issue, all its\npossible descendants would have been killed at one and the same time. It\nis hard to see how this single fact does not establish at the point, as\nit were, of a logical bayonet, an identity, between any creature and all\nothers that are descended from it.\n\nIn Bishop Butler\u2019s first dissertation on personality, we find expressed\nvery much the same opinions as would follow from the above\nconsiderations, though they are mentioned by the Bishop only to be\ncondemned, namely, \u201cthat personality is not a permanent but a transient\nthing; that it lives and dies, begins and ends continually; that no man\ncan any more remain one and the same person two moments together, than\ntwo successive moments can be one and the same moment;\u201d in which case, he\ncontinues, our present self would not be \u201cin reality the same with the\nself of yesterday, but another like self or person coming up in its room\nand mistaken for it, to which another self will succeed to-morrow.\u201d This\nview the Bishop proceeds to reduce to absurdity by saying, \u201cIt must be a\nfallacy upon ourselves to charge our present selves with anything we did,\nor to imagine our present selves interested in anything which befell us\nyesterday; or that our present self will be interested in what will\nbefall us to-morrow. This, I say, must follow, for if the self or person\nof to-day and that of to-morrow are not the same, but only like persons,\nthe person of to-day is really no more interested in what will befall the\nperson of to-morrow than in what will befall any other person. It may be\nthought, perhaps, that this is not a just representation of the opinion\nwe are speaking of, because those who maintain it allow that a person is\nthe same as far back as his remembrance reaches. And indeed they do use\nthe words _identity_ and _same person_. Nor will language permit these\nwords to be laid aside, since, if they were, there must be I know not\nwhat ridiculous periphrasis substituted in the room of them. But they\ncannot consistently with themselves mean that the person is really the\nsame. For it is self-evident that the personality cannot be really the\nsame, if, as they expressly assert, that in which it consists is not the\nsame. And as consistently with themselves they cannot, so I think it\nappears they do not mean that the person is really the same, but only\nthat he is so in a fictitious sense; in such a sense only as they\nassert\u2014for this they do assert\u2014that any number of persons whatever may be\nthe same person. The bare unfolding of this notion, and laying it thus\nnaked and open, seems the best confutation of it.\u201d\n\nThis fencing, for it does not deserve the name of serious disputation, is\nrendered possible by the laxness with which the words \u201cidentical\u201d and\n\u201cidentity\u201d are commonly used. Bishop Butler would not seriously deny\nthat personality undergoes great changes between infancy and old age, and\nhence that it must undergo some change from moment to moment. So\nuniversally is this recognised, that it is common to hear it said of such\nand such a man that he is not at all the person he was, or of such and\nsuch another that he is twice the man he used to be\u2014expressions than\nwhich none nearer the truth can well be found. On the other hand, those\nwhom Bishop Butler is intending to confute would be the first to admit\nthat, though there are many changes between infancy and old age, yet they\ncome about in any one individual under such circumstances as we are all\nagreed in considering as the factors of personal identity rather than as\nhindrances thereto\u2014that is to say, there has been no death on the part of\nthe individual between any two phases of his existence, and any one phase\nhas had a permanent though perhaps imperceptible effect upon all\nsucceeding ones. So that no one ever seriously argued in the manner\nsupposed by Bishop Butler, unless with modifications and saving clauses,\nto which it does not suit his purpose to call attention.\n\nIdentical strictly means \u201cone and the same;\u201d and if it were tied down to\nits strictest usage, it would indeed follow very logically, as we have\nsaid already, that no such thing as personal identity is possible, but\nthat the case actually is as Bishop Butler has supposed his opponents\nwithout qualification to maintain it. In common use, however, the word\n\u201cidentical\u201d is taken to mean anything so like another that no vital or\nessential differences can be perceived between them; as in the case of\ntwo specimens of the same kind of plant, when we say they are identical\nin spite of considerable individual differences. So with two impressions\nof a print from the same plate; so with the plate itself, which is\nsomewhat modified with every impression taken from it. In like manner\n\u201cidentity\u201d is not held to its strict meaning\u2014absolute sameness\u2014but is\npredicated rightly of a past and present which are now very widely\nasunder, provided they have been continuously connected by links so small\nas not to give too sudden a sense of change at any one point; as, for\ninstance, in the case of the Thames at Oxford and Windsor or again at\nGreenwich, we say the same river flows by all three places, by which we\nmean that much of the water at Greenwich has come down from Oxford and\nWindsor in a continuous stream. How sudden a change at any one point, or\nhow great a difference between the two extremes is sufficient to bar\nidentity, is one of the most uncertain things imaginable, and seems to be\ndecided on different grounds in different cases, sometimes very\nintelligibly, and again at others arbitrarily and capriciously.\n\nPersonal identity is barred at one end, in the common opinion, by birth,\nand at the other by death. Before birth, a child cannot complain either\nby himself or another, in such way as to set the law in motion; after\ndeath he is in like manner powerless to make himself felt by society,\nexcept in so far as he can do so by acts done before the breath has left\nhis body. At any point between birth and death he is liable, either by\nhimself or another, to affect his fellow-creatures; hence, no two other\nepochs can be found of equal convenience for social purposes, and\ntherefore they have been seized by society as settling the whole question\nof when personal identity begins and ends\u2014society being rightly concerned\nwith its own practical convenience, rather than with the abstract truth\nconcerning its individual members. No one who is capable of reflection\nwill deny that the limitation of personality is certainly arbitrary to a\ndegree as regards birth, nor yet that it is very possibly arbitrary as\nregards death; and as for intermediate points, no doubt it would be more\nstrictly accurate to say, \u201cyou are the now phase of the person I met last\nnight,\u201d or \u201cyou are the being which has been evolved from the being I met\nlast night,\u201d than \u201cyou are the person I met last night.\u201d But life is too\nshort for the pen-phrases which would crowd upon us from every quarter,\nif we did not set our face against all that is under the surface of\nthings, unless, that is to say, the going beneath the surface is, for\nsome special chance of profit, excusable or capable of extenuation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\nPERSONAL IDENTITY\u2014(_continued_).\n\n\nHOW arbitrary current notions concerning identity really are, may perhaps\nbe perceived by reflecting upon some of the many different phases of\nreproduction.\n\nDirect reproduction in which a creation reproduces another, the\n_facsimile_, or nearly so, of itself may perhaps occur among the lowest\nforms of animal life; but it is certainly not the rule among beings of a\nhigher order.\n\nA hen lays an egg, which egg becomes a chicken, which chicken, in the\ncourse of time, becomes a hen.\n\nA moth lays an egg, which egg becomes a caterpillar, which caterpillar,\nafter going through several stages, becomes a chrysalis, which chrysalis\nbecomes a moth.\n\nA medusa begets a ciliated larva, the larva begets a polyp, the polyp\nbegets a strobila, and the strobila begets a medusa again; the cycle of\nreproduction being completed in the fourth generation.\n\nA frog lays an egg, which egg becomes a tadpole; the tadpole, after more\nor fewer intermediate stages, becomes a frog.\n\nThe mammals lay eggs, which they hatch inside their own bodies, instead\nof outside them; but the difference is one of degree and not of kind. In\nall these cases how difficult is it to say where identity begins or ends,\nor again where death begins or ends, or where reproduction begins or\nends.\n\nHow small and unimportant is the difference between the changes which a\ncaterpillar undergoes before becoming a moth, and those of a strobila\nbefore becoming a medusa. Yet in the one case we say the caterpillar\ndoes not die, but is changed (though, if the various changes in its\nexistence be produced metagenetically, as is the case with many insects,\nit would appear to make a clean sweep of every organ of its existence,\nand start _de novo_, growing a head where its feet were, and so on\u2014at\nleast twice between its lives as caterpillar and butterfly); in this\ncase, however, we say the caterpillar does not die, but is changed;\nbeing, nevertheless, one personality with the moth, into which it is\ndeveloped. But in the case of the strobila we say that it is not\nchanged, but dies, and is no part of the personality of the medusa.\n\nWe say the egg becomes the caterpillar, not by the death of the egg and\nbirth of the caterpillar, but by the ordinary process of nutrition and\nwaste\u2014waste and repair\u2014waste and repair continually. In like manner we\nsay the caterpillar becomes the chrysalis, and the chrysalis the moth,\nnot through the death of either one or the other, but by the development\nof the same creature, and the ordinary processes of waste and repair.\nBut the medusa after three or four cycles becomes the medusa again, not,\nwe say, by these same processes of nutrition and waste, but by a series\nof generations, each one involving an actual birth and an actual death.\nWhy this difference? Surely only because the changes in the offspring of\nthe medusa are marked by the leaving a little more husk behind them, and\nthat husk less shrivelled, than is left on the occasion of each change\nbetween the caterpillar and the butterfly. A little more residuum, which\nresiduum, it may be, can move about; and though shrivelling from hour to\nhour, may yet leave a little more offspring before it is reduced to\npowder; or again, perhaps, because in the one case, though the actors are\nchanged, they are changed behind the scenes, and come on in parts and\ndresses, more nearly resembling those of the original actors, than in the\nother.\n\nWhen the caterpillar emerges from the egg, almost all that was inside the\negg has become caterpillar; the shell is nearly empty, and cannot move;\ntherefore we do not count it, and call the caterpillar a continuation of\nthe egg\u2019s existence, and personally identical with the egg. So with the\nchrysalis and the moth; but after the moth has laid her eggs she can\nstill move her wings about, and she looks nearly as large as she did\nbefore she laid them; besides, she may yet lay a few more, therefore we\ndo not consider the moth\u2019s life as continued in the life of her eggs, but\nrather in their husk, which we still call the moth, and which we say dies\nin a day or two, and there is an end of it. Moreover, if we hold the\nmoth\u2019s life to be continued in that of her eggs, we shall be forced to\nadmit her to be personally identical with each single egg, and, hence,\neach egg to be identical with every other egg, as far as the past, and\ncommunity of memories, are concerned; and it is not easy at first to\nbreak the spell which words have cast around us, and to feel that one\nperson may become many persons, and that many different persons may be\npractically one and the same person, as far as their past experience is\nconcerned; and again, that two or more persons may unite and become one\nperson, with the memories and experiences of both, though this has been\nactually the case with every one of us.\n\nOur present way of looking at these matters is perfectly right and\nreasonable, so long as we bear in mind that it is a _fa\u00e7on de parler_, a\nsort of hieroglyphic which shall stand for the course of nature, but\nnothing more. Repair (as is now universally admitted by physiologists)\nis only a phase of reproduction, or rather reproduction and repair are\nonly phases of the same power; and again, death and the ordinary daily\nwaste of tissue, are phases of the same thing. As for identity it is\ndetermined in any true sense of the word, not by death alone, but by a\ncombination of death and failure of issue, whether of mind or body.\n\nTo repeat. Wherever there is a separate centre of thought and action, we\nsee that it is connected with its successive stages of being, by a series\nof infinitely small changes from moment to moment, with, perhaps, at\ntimes more startling and rapid changes, but, nevertheless, with no such\nsudden, complete, and unrepaired break up of the preceding condition, as\nwe shall agree in calling death. The branching out from it at different\ntimes of new centres of thought and action, has commonly as little\nappreciable effect upon the parent-stock as the fall of an apple full of\nripe seeds has upon an apple-tree; and though the life of the parent,\nfrom the date of the branching off of such personalities, is more truly\ncontinued in these than in the residuum of its own life, we should find\nourselves involved in a good deal of trouble if we were commonly to take\nthis view of the matter. The residuum has generally the upper hand. He\nhas more money, and can eat up his new life more easily than his new\nlife, him. A moral residuum will therefore prefer to see the remainder\nof his life in his own person, than in that of his descendants, and will\nact accordingly. Hence we, in common with most other living beings,\nignore the offspring as forming part of the personality of the parent,\nexcept in so far as that we make the father liable for its support and\nfor its extravagances (than which no greater proof need be wished that\nthe law is at heart a philosopher, and perceives the completeness of the\npersonal identity between father and son) for twenty-one years from\nbirth. In other respects we are accustomed, probably rather from\nconsiderations of practical convenience than as the result of pure\nreason, to ignore the identity between parent and offspring as completely\nas we ignore personality before birth. With these exceptions, however,\nthe common opinion concerning personal identity is reasonable enough, and\nis found to consist neither in consciousness of such identity, nor yet in\nthe power of recollecting its various phases (for it is plain that\nidentity survives the distinction or suspension of both these), but in\nthe fact that the various stages appear to the majority of people to have\nbeen in some way or other linked together.\n\nFor a very little reflection will show that identity, as commonly\npredicated of living agents, does not consist in identity of matter, of\nwhich there is no same particle in the infant, we will say, and the\noctogenarian into whom he has developed. Nor, again, does it depend upon\nsameness of form or fashion; for personality is felt to survive frequent\nand radical modification of structure, as in the case of caterpillars and\nother insects. Mr. Darwin, quoting from Professor Owen, tells us (Plants\nand Animals under Domestication, vol. ii. p. 362, ed. 1875), that in the\ncase of what is called metagenetic development, \u201cthe new parts are not\nmoulded upon the inner surfaces of the old ones. The plastic force has\nchanged its mode of operation. _The outer case_, _and all that gave form\nand character to the precedent individual_, _perish_, _and are cast off_;\n_they are not changed_ into the corresponding parts of the same\nindividual. These are due to a new and distinct developmental process.\u201d\nAssuredly, there is more birth and death in the world than is dreamt of\nby the greater part of us; but it is so masked, and on the whole, so\nlittle to our purpose, that we fail to see it. Yet radical and sweeping\nas the changes of organism above described must be, we do not feel them\nto be more a bar to personal identity than the considerable changes which\ntake place in the structure of our own bodies between youth and old age.\n\nPerhaps the most striking illustration of this is to be found in the case\nof some Echinoderms, concerning which Mr. Darwin tells us, that \u201cthe\nanimal in the second stage of development is formed almost like a bud\nwithin the animal of the first stage, the latter being then cast off like\nan old vestment, yet sometimes maintaining for a short period an\nindependent vitality\u201d (\u201cPlants and Animals under Domestication,\u201d vol. ii.\np. 362, ed. 1875).\n\nNor yet does personality depend upon any consciousness or sense of such\npersonality on the part of the creature itself\u2014it is not likely that the\nmoth remembers having been a caterpillar, more than we ourselves remember\nhaving been children of a day old. It depends simply upon the fact that\nthe various phases of existence have been linked together, by links which\nwe agree in considering sufficient to cause identity, and that they have\nflowed the one out of the other in what we see as a continuous, though it\nmay be at times, a troubled stream. This is the very essence of\npersonality, but it involves the probable unity of all animal and\nvegetable life, as being, in reality, nothing but one single creature, of\nwhich the component members are but, as it were, blood corpuscles or\nindividual cells; life being a sort of leaven, which, if once introduced\ninto the world, will leaven it altogether; or of fire, which will consume\nall it can burn; or of air or water, which will turn most things into\nthemselves. Indeed, no difficulty would probably be felt about admitting\nthe continued existence of personal identity between parents and their\noffspring through all time (there being no _sudden_ break at any time\nbetween the existence of any maternal parent and that of its offspring),\nwere it not that after a certain time the changes in outward appearance\nbetween descendants and ancestors become very great, the two seeming to\nstand so far apart, that it seems absurd in any way to say that they are\none and the same being; much in the same way as after a time\u2014though\nexactly when no one can say\u2014the Thames becomes the sea. Moreover, the\nseparation of the identity is practically of far greater importance to it\nthan its continuance. We want to be ourselves; we do not want any one\nelse to claim part and parcel of our identity. This community of\nidentities is not found to answer in everyday life. When then our love\nof independence is backed up by the fact that continuity of life between\nparents and offspring is a matter which depends on things which are a\ngood deal hidden, and that thus birth gives us an opportunity of\npretending that there has been a sudden leap into a separate life; when\nalso we have regard to the utter ignorance of embryology, which prevailed\ntill quite recently, it is not surprising that our ordinary language\nshould be found to have regard to what is important and obvious, rather\nthan to what is not quite obvious, and is quite unimportant.\n\nPersonality is the creature of time and space, changing, as time changes,\nimperceptibly; we are therefore driven to deal with it as with all\ncontinuous and blending things; as with time, for example, itself, which\nwe divide into days, and seasons, and times, and years, into divisions\nthat are often arbitrary, but coincide, on the whole, as nearly as we can\nmake them do so, with the more marked changes which we can observe. We\nlay hold, in fact, of anything we can catch; the most important feature\nin any existence as regards ourselves being that which we can best lay\nhold of rather than that which is most essential to the existence itself.\nWe can lay hold of the continued personality of the egg and the moth into\nwhich the egg develops, but it is less easy to catch sight of the\ncontinued personality between the moth and the eggs which she lays; yet\nthe one continuation of personality is just as true and free from quibble\nas the other. A moth becomes each egg that she lays, and that she does\nso, she will in good time show by doing, now that she has got a fresh\nstart, as near as may be what she did when first she was an egg, and then\na moth, before; and this I take it, so far as I can gather from looking\nat life and things generally, she would not be able to do if she had not\ntravelled the same road often enough already, to be able to know it in\nher sleep and blindfold, that is to say, to remember it without any\nconscious act of memory.\n\nSo also a grain of wheat is linked with an ear, containing, we will say,\na dozen grains, by a series of changes so subtle that we cannot say at\nwhat moment the original grain became the blade, nor when each ear of the\nhead became possessed of an individual centre of action. To say that\neach grain of the head is personally identical with the original grain\nwould perhaps be an abuse of terms; but it can be no abuse to say that\neach grain is a continuation of the personality of the original grain,\nand if so, of every grain in the chain of its own ancestry; and that, as\nbeing such a continuation, it must be stored with the memories and\nexperiences of its past existences, to be recollected under the\ncircumstances most favourable to recollection, _i.e._, when under similar\nconditions to those when the impression was last made and last\nremembered. Truly, then, in each case the new egg and the new grain _is_\nthe egg, and the grain from which its parent sprang, as completely as the\nfull-grown ox is the calf from which it has grown.\n\nAgain, in the case of some weeping trees, whose boughs spring up into\nfresh trees when they have reached the ground, who shall say at what time\nthey cease to be members of the parent tree? In the case of cuttings\nfrom plants it is easy to elude the difficulty by making a parade of the\nsharp and sudden act of separation from the parent stock, but this is\nonly a piece of mental sleight of hand; the cutting remains as much part\nof its parent plant as though it had never been severed from it; it goes\non profiting by the experience which it had before it was cut off, as\nmuch as though it had never been cut off at all. This will be more\nreadily seen in the case of worms which have been cut in half. Let a\nworm be cut in half, and the two halves will become fresh worms; which of\nthem is the original worm? Surely both. Perhaps no simpler case than\nthis could readily be found of the manner in which personality eludes us,\nthe moment we try to investigate its real nature. There are few ideas\nwhich on first consideration appear so simple, and none which becomes\nmore utterly incapable of limitation or definition as soon as it is\nexamined closely.\n\nFinally, Mr. Darwin (\u201cPlants and Animals under Domestication,\u201d vol. ii.\np. 38, ed. 1875), writes\u2014\n\n\u201cEven with plants multiplied by bulbs, layers, &c., which may _in one\nsense_ be said to form part of the same individual,\u201d &c., &c.; and again,\np. 58, \u201cThe same rule holds good with plants when propagated by bulbs,\noffsets, &c., which _in one sense_ still form parts of the same\nindividual,\u201d &c. In each of these passages it is plain that the\ndifficulty of separating the personality of the offspring from that of\nthe parent plant is present to his mind. Yet, p. 351 of the same volume\nas above, he tells us that asexual generation \u201cis effected in many\nways\u2014by the formation of buds of various kinds, and by fissiparous\ngeneration, that is, by spontaneous or artificial division.\u201d The\nmultiplication of plants by bulbs and layers clearly comes under this\nhead, nor will any essential difference be felt between one kind of\nasexual generation and another; if, then, the offspring formed by bulbs\nand layers is in one sense part of the original plant, so also, it would\nappear, is all offspring developed by asexual generation in its manifold\nphrases.\n\nIf we now turn to p. 357, we find the conclusion arrived at, as it would\nappear, on the most satisfactory evidence, that \u201csexual and asexual\nreproduction are not seen to differ essentially; and . . . that asexual\nreproduction, the power of regrowth, and development are all parts of one\nand the same great law.\u201d Does it not then follow, quite reasonably and\nnecessarily, that all offspring, however generated, is _in one sense_\npart of the individuality of its parent or parents. The question,\ntherefore, turns upon \u201cin what sense\u201d this may be said to be the case?\nTo which I would venture to reply, \u201cIn the same sense as the parent plant\n(which is but the representative of the outside matter which it has\nassimilated during growth, and of its own powers of development) is the\nsame individual that it was when it was itself an offset, or a cow the\nsame individual that it was when it was a calf\u2014but no otherwise.\u201d\n\nNot much difficulty will be felt about supposing the offset of a plant,\nto be imbued with the memory of the past history of the plant of which it\nis an offset. It is part of the plant itself; and will know whatever the\nplant knows. Why, then, should there be more difficulty in supposing the\noffspring of the highest mammals, to remember in a profound but\nunselfconscious way, the anterior history of the creatures of which they\ntoo have been part and parcel?\n\nPersonal identity, then, is much like species itself. It is now, thanks\nto Mr. Darwin, generally held that species blend or have blended into one\nanother; so that any possibility of arrangement and apparent subdivision\ninto definite groups, is due to the suppression by death both of\nindividuals and whole genera, which, had they been now existing, would\nhave linked all living beings by a series of gradations so subtle that\nlittle classification could have been attempted. How it is that the one\ngreat personality of life as a whole, should have split itself up into so\nmany centres of thought and action, each one of which is wholly, or at\nany rate nearly, unconscious of its connection with the other members,\ninstead of having grown up into a huge polyp, or as it were coral reef or\ncompound animal over the whole world, which should be conscious but of\nits own one single existence; how it is that the daily waste of this\ncreature should be carried on by the conscious death of its individual\nmembers, instead of by the unconscious waste of tissue which goes on in\nthe bodies of each individual (if indeed the tissue which we waste daily\nin our own bodies is so unconscious of its birth and death as we\nsuppose); how, again, that the daily repair of this huge creature life\nshould have become decentralised, and be carried on by conscious\nreproduction on the part of its component items, instead of by the\nunconscious nutrition of the whole from a single centre, as the nutrition\nof our own bodies would appear (though perhaps falsely) to be carried on;\nthese are matters upon which I dare not speculate here, but on which some\nreflections may follow in subsequent chapters.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\nOUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES.\n\n\nWE have seen that we can apprehend neither the beginning nor the end of\nour personality, which comes up out of infinity as an island out of the\nsea, so gently, that none can say when it is first visible on our mental\nhorizon, and fades away in the case of those who leave offspring, so\nimperceptibly that none can say when it is out of sight. But, like the\nisland, whether we can see it or no, it is always there. Not only are we\ninfinite as regards time, but we are so also as regards extension, being\nso linked on to the external world that we cannot say where we either\nbegin or end. If those who so frequently declare that man is a finite\ncreature would point out his boundaries, it might lead to a better\nunderstanding.\n\nNevertheless, we are in the habit of considering that our personality, or\nsoul, no matter where it begins or ends, and no matter what it comprises,\nis nevertheless a single thing, uncompounded of other souls. Yet there\nis nothing more certain than that this is not at all the case, but that\nevery individual person is a compound creature, being made up of an\ninfinite number of distinct centres of sensation and will, each one of\nwhich is personal, and has a soul and individual existence, a\nreproductive system, intelligence, and memory of its own, with probably\nits hopes and fears, its times of scarcity and repletion, and a strong\nconviction that it is itself the centre of the universe.\n\nTrue, no one is aware of more than one individuality in his own person at\none time. We are, indeed, often greatly influenced by other people, so\nmuch so, that we act on many occasions in accordance with their will\nrather than our own, making our actions answer to their sensations, and\nregister the conclusions of their cerebral action and not our own; for\nthe time being, we become so completely part of them, that we are ready\nto do things most distasteful and dangerous to us, if they think it for\ntheir advantage that we should do so. Thus we sometimes see people\nbecome mere processes of their wives or nearest relations. Yet there is\na something which blinds us, so that we cannot see how completely we are\npossessed by the souls which influence us upon these occasions. We still\nthink we are ourselves, and ourselves only, and are as certain as we can\nbe of any fact, that we are single sentient beings, uncompounded of other\nsentient beings, and that our action is determined by the sole operation\nof a single will.\n\nBut in reality, over and above this possession of our souls by others of\nour own species, the will of the lower animals often enters into our\nbodies and possesses them, making us do as they will, and not as we will;\nas, for example, when people try to drive pigs, or are run away with by a\nrestive horse, or are attacked by a savage animal which masters them. It\nis absurd to say that a person is a single \u201cego\u201d when he is in the\nclutches of a lion. Even when we are alone, and uninfluenced by other\npeople except in so far as we remember their wishes, we yet generally\nconform to the usages which the current feeling of our peers has taught\nus to respect; their will having so mastered our original nature, that,\ndo what we may, we can never again separate ourselves and dwell in the\nisolation of our own single personality. And even though we succeeded in\nthis, and made a clean sweep of every mental influence which had ever\nbeen brought to bear upon us, and though at the same time we were alone\nin some desert where there was neither beast nor bird to attract our\nattention or in any way influence our action, yet we could not escape the\nparasites which abound within us; whose action, as every medical man well\nknows, is often such as to drive men to the commission of grave crimes,\nor to throw them into convulsions, make lunatics of them, kill them\u2014when\nbut for the existence and course of conduct pursued by these parasites\nthey would have done no wrong to any man.\n\nThese parasites\u2014are they part of us or no? Some are plainly not so in\nany strict sense of the word, yet their action may, in cases which it is\nunnecessary to detail, affect us so powerfully that we are irresistibly\nimpelled to act in such or such a manner; and yet we are as wholly\nunconscious of any impulse outside of our own \u201cego\u201d as though they were\npart of ourselves; others again are essential to our very existence, as\nthe corpuscles of the blood, which the best authorities concur in\nsupposing to be composed of an infinite number of living souls, on whose\nwelfare the healthy condition of our blood, and hence of our whole\nbodies, depends. We breathe that they may breathe, not that we may do\nso; we only care about oxygen in so far as the infinitely small beings\nwhich course up and down in our veins care about it: the whole\narrangement and mechanism of our lungs may be our doing, but is for their\nconvenience, and they only serve us because it suits their purpose to do\nso, as long as we serve them. Who shall draw the line between the\nparasites which are part of us, and the parasites which are not part of\nus? Or again, between the influence of those parasites which are within\nus, but are yet not _us_, and the external influence of other sentient\nbeings and our fellow-men? There is no line possible. Everything melts\naway into everything else; there are no hard edges; it is only from a\nlittle distance that we see the effect as of individual features and\nexistences. When we go close up, there is nothing but a blur and\nconfused mass of apparently meaningless touches, as in a picture by\nTurner.\n\nThe following passage from Mr. Darwin\u2019s provisional theory of Pangenesis,\nwill sufficiently show that the above is no strange and paradoxical view\nput forward wantonly, but that it follows as a matter of course from the\nconclusions arrived at by those who are acknowledged leaders in the\nscientific world. Mr. Darwin writes thus:\u2014\n\n\u201c_The functional independence of the elements or units of the\nbody_.\u2014Physiologists agree that the whole organism consists of a\nmultitude of elemental parts, which are to a great extent independent of\none another. Each organ, says Claude Bernard, has its proper life, its\nautonomy; it can develop and reproduce itself independently of the\nadjoining tissues. A great German authority, Virchow, asserts still more\nemphatically that each system consists of \u2018an enormous mass of minute\ncentres of action. . . . Every element has its own special action, and\neven though it derive its stimulus to activity from other parts, yet\nalone effects the actual performance of duties. . . . Every single\nepithelial and muscular fibre-cell leads a sort of parasitical existence\nin relation to the rest of the body. . . . Every single bone corpuscle\nreally possesses conditions of nutrition peculiar to itself.\u2019 Each\nelement, as Sir J. Paget remarks, lives its appointed time, and then\ndies, and is replaced after being cast off and absorbed. I presume that\nno physiologist doubts that, for instance, each bone corpuscle of the\nfinger differs from the corresponding corpuscle of the corresponding\njoint of the toe,\u201d &c., &c. (\u201cPlants and Animals under Domestication,\u201d\nvol. ii. pp. 364, 365, ed. 1875).\n\nIn a work on heredity by M. Ribot, I find him saying, \u201cSome recent\nauthors attribute a memory\u201d (and if so, surely every attribute of\ncomplete individuality) \u201cto every organic element of the body;\u201d among\nthem Dr. Maudsley, who is quoted by M. Ribot, as saying, \u201cThe permanent\neffects of a particular virus, such as that of the variola, in the\nconstitution, shows that the organic element remembers for the remainder\nof its life certain modifications it has received. The manner in which a\ncicatrix in a child\u2019s finger grows with the growth of the body, proves,\nas has been shown by Paget, that the organic element of the part does not\nforget the impression it has received. What has been said about the\ndifferent nervous centres of the body demonstrates the existence of a\nmemory in the nerve cells diffused through the heart and intestines; in\nthose of the spinal cord, in the cells of the motor ganglia, and in the\ncells of the cortical substance of the cerebal hemispheres.\u201d\n\nNow, if words have any meaning at all, it must follow from the passages\nquoted above, that each cell in the human body is a person with an\nintelligent soul, of a low class, perhaps, but still differing from our\nown more complex soul in degree, and not in kind; and, like ourselves,\nbeing born, living, and dying. So that each single creature, whether man\nor beast, proves to be as a ray of white light, which, though single, is\ncompounded of the red, blue, and yellow rays. It would appear, then, as\nthough \u201cwe,\u201d \u201cour souls,\u201d or \u201cselves,\u201d or \u201cpersonalities,\u201d or by whatever\nname we may prefer to be called, are but the _consensus_ and full flowing\nstream of countless sensations and impulses on the part of our tributary\nsouls or \u201cselves,\u201d who probably know no more that we exist, and that they\nexist as part of us, than a microscopic water-flea knows the results of\nspectrum analysis, or than an agricultural labourer knows the working of\nthe British constitution: and of whom we know no more, until some\nmisconduct on our part, or some confusion of ideas on theirs, has driven\nthem into insurrection, than we do of the habits and feelings of some\nclass widely separated from our own.\n\nThese component souls are of many and very different natures, living in\nterritories which are to them vast continents, and rivers, and seas, but\nwhich are yet only the bodies of our other component souls; coral reefs\nand sponge-beds within us; the animal itself being a kind of mean\nproportional between its house and its soul, and none being able to say\nwhere house ends and animal begins, more than they can say where animal\nends and soul begins. For our bones within us are but inside walls and\nbuttresses, that is to say, houses constructed of lime and stone, as it\nwere, by coral insects; and our houses without us are but outside bones,\na kind of exterior skeleton or shell, so that we perish of cold if\npermanently and suddenly deprived of the coverings which warm us and\ncherish us, as the wing of a hen cherishes her chickens. If we consider\nthe shells of many living creatures, we shall find it hard to say whether\nthey are rather houses, or part of the animal itself, being, as they are,\ninseparable from the animal, without the destruction of its personality.\n\nIs it possible, then, to avoid imagining that if we have within us so\nmany tributary souls, so utterly different from the soul which they unite\nto form, that they neither can perceive us, nor we them, though it is in\nus that they live and move and have their being, and though we are what\nwe are, solely as the result of their co-operation\u2014is it possible to\navoid imagining that we may be ourselves atoms, undesignedly combining to\nform some vaster being, though we are utterly incapable of perceiving\nthat any such being exists, or of realising the scheme or scope of our\nown combination? And this, too, not a spiritual being, which, without\nmatter, or what we think matter of some sort, is as complete nonsense to\nus as though men bade us love and lean upon an intelligent vacuum, but a\nbeing with what is virtually flesh and blood and bones; with organs,\nsenses, dimensions, in some way analogous to our own, into some other\npart of which being, at the time of our great change we must infallibly\nre-enter, starting clean anew, with bygones bygones, and no more ache for\never from either age or antecedents. Truly, sufficient for the life is\nthe evil thereof. Any speculations of ours concerning the nature of such\na being, must be as futile and little valuable as those of a blood\ncorpuscle might be expected to be concerning the nature of man; but if I\nwere myself a blood corpuscle, I should be amused at making the discovery\nthat I was not only enjoying life in my own sphere, but was _bon\u00e2 fide_\npart of an animal which would not die with myself, and in which I might\nthus think of myself as continuing to live to all eternity, or to what,\nas far as my power of thought would carry me, must seem practically\neternal. But, after all, the amusement would be of a rather dreary\nnature.\n\nOn the other hand, if I were the being of whom such an introspective\nblood corpuscle was a component item, I should conceive he served me\nbetter by attending to my blood and making himself a successful\ncorpuscle, than by speculating about my nature. He would serve me best\nby serving himself best, without being over curious. I should expect\nthat my blood might suffer if his brain were to become too active. If,\ntherefore, I could discover the vein in which he was, I should let him\nout to begin life anew in some other and, _qu\u00e2_ me, more profitable\ncapacity.\n\nWith the units of our bodies it is as with the stars of heaven: there is\nneither speech nor language, but their voices are heard among them. Our\nwill is the _fiat_ of their collective wisdom, as sanctioned in their\nparliament, the brain; it is they who make us do whatever we do\u2014it is\nthey who should be rewarded if they have done well, or hanged if they\nhave committed murder. When the balance of power is well preserved among\nthem, when they respect each other\u2019s rights and work harmoniously\ntogether, then we thrive and are well; if we are ill, it is because they\nare quarrelling with themselves, or are gone on strike for this or that\naddition to their environment, and our doctor must pacify or chastise\nthem as best he may. They are we and we are they; and when we die it is\nbut a redistribution of the balance of power among them or a change of\ndynasty, the result, it may be, of heroic struggle, with more epics and\nlove romances than we could read from now to the Millennium, if they were\nso written down that we could comprehend them.\n\nIt is plain, then, that the more we examine the question of personality\nthe more it baffles us, the only safeguard against utter confusion and\nidleness of thought being to fall back upon the superficial and common\nsense view, and refuse to tolerate discussions which seem to hold out\nlittle prospect of commercial value, and which would compel us, if\nlogically followed, to be at the inconvenience of altering our opinions\nupon matters which we have come to consider as settled.\n\nAnd we observe that this is what is practically done by some of our\nablest philosophers, who seem unwilling, if one may say so without\npresumption, to accept the conclusions to which their own experiments and\nobservations would seem to point.\n\nDr. Carpenter, for example, quotes the well-known experiments upon\nheadless frogs. If we cut off a frog\u2019s head and pinch any part of its\nskin, the animal at once begins to move away with the same regularity as\nthough the brain had not been removed. Flourens took guinea-pigs,\ndeprived them of the cerebral lobes, and then irritated their skin; the\nanimals immediately walked, leaped, and trotted about, but when the\nirritation was discontinued they ceased to move. Headless birds, under\nexcitation, can still perform with their wings the rhythmic movements of\nflying. But here are some facts more curious still, and more difficult\nof explanation. If we take a frog or a strong and healthy triton, and\nsubject it to various experiments; if we touch, pinch, or burn it with\nacetic acid, and if then, after decapitating the animal, we subject it to\nthe same experiments, it will be seen that the reactions are exactly the\nsame; it will strive to be free of the pain, and to shake off the acetic\nacid that is burning it; it will bring its foot up to the part of its\nbody that is irritated, and this movement of the member will follow the\nirritation wherever it may be produced.\n\nThe above is mainly taken from M. Ribot\u2019s work on heredity rather than\nDr. Carpenter\u2019s, because M. Ribot tells us that the head of the frog was\nactually cut off, a fact which does not appear so plainly in Dr.\nCarpenter\u2019s allusion to the same experiments. But Dr. Carpenter tells us\nthat _after the brain of a frog has been removed_\u2014which would seem to be\nmuch the same thing as though its head were cut off\u2014\u201cif acetic acid be\napplied over the upper and under part of the thigh, the foot of the same\nside will wipe it away; _but if that foot be cut off_, _after some\nineffectual efforts and a short period of inaction_,\u201d during which it is\nhard not to surmise that the headless body is considering what it had\nbetter do under the circumstances, \u201c_the same movement will be made by\nthe foot of the opposite side_,\u201d which, to ordinary people, would convey\nthe impression that the headless body was capable of feeling the\nimpressions it had received, and of reasoning upon them by a\npsychological act; and this of course involves the possession of a soul\nof some sort.\n\nHere is a frog whose right thigh you burn with acetic acid. Very\nnaturally it tries to get at the place with its right foot to remove the\nacid. You then cut off the frog\u2019s head, and put more acetic acid on the\nsome place: the headless frog, or rather the body of the late frog, does\njust what the frog did before its head was cut off\u2014it tries to get at the\nplace with its right foot. You now cut off its right foot: the headless\nbody deliberates, and after a while tries to do with its left foot what\nit can no longer do with its right. Plain matter-of-fact people will\ndraw their own inference. They will not be seduced from the superficial\nview of the matter. They will say that the headless body can still, to\nsome extent, feel, think, and act, and if so, that it must have a living\nsoul.\n\nDr. Carpenter writes as follows:\u2014\u201cNow the performance of these, as well\nas of many other movements, that show a most remarkable adaptation to a\npurpose, might be supposed to indicate that sensations are called up by\nthe _impressions_, and that the animal can not only _feel_, but can\nvoluntarily direct its movements so as to get rid of the irritation which\nannoys it. But such an inference would be inconsistent with other facts.\nIn the first place, the motions performed under such circumstances are\nnever spontaneous, but are always excited by a stimulus of some kind.\u201d\n\nHere we pause to ask ourselves whether any action of any creature under\nany circumstances is ever excited without \u201cstimulus of some kind,\u201d and\nunless we can answer this question in the affirmative, it is not easy to\nsee how Dr. Carpenter\u2019s objection is valid.\n\n\u201cThus,\u201d he continues, \u201ca decapitated frog\u201d (here then we have it that the\nfrog\u2019s head was actually cut off) \u201cafter the first violent convulsive\nmoments occasioned by the operation have passed away, remains at rest\nuntil it is touched; and then the leg, or its whole body may be thrown\ninto sudden action, which suddenly subsides again.\u201d (How does this\nquiescence when it no longer feels anything show that the \u201cleg or whole\nbody\u201d had not perceived something which made it feel when it was not\nquiescent?)\u2014\u201cAgain we find that such movements may be performed not only\nwhen the brain has been removed, the spinal cord remaining entire, but\nalso when the spinal cord has been itself cut across, so as to be divided\ninto two or more portions, each of them completely isolated from each\nother, and from other parts of the nervous centres. Thus, if the head of\na frog be cut off, and its spinal cord be divided in the middle of the\nback, so that its fore legs remain connected with the upper part, and its\nhind legs with the lower, each pair of members may be excited to\nmovements by stimulants applied to itself; but the two pairs will not\nexhibit any consentaneous motions, as they will do when the spinal cord\nis undivided.\u201d\n\nThis may be put perhaps more plainly thus. If you take a frog and cut it\ninto three pieces\u2014say, the head for one piece, the fore legs and shoulder\nfor another, and the hind legs for a third\u2014and then irritate any one of\nthese pieces, you will find it move much as it would have moved under\nlike irritation if the animal had remained undivided, but you will no\nlonger find any concert between the movements of the three pieces; that\nis to say, if you irritate the head, the other two pieces will remain\nquiet, and if you irritate the hind legs, you will excite no action in\nthe fore legs or head.\n\nDr. Carpenter continues: \u201cOr if the spinal cord be cut across without the\nremoval of the brain, the lower limbs may be _excited_ to movement by an\nappropriate stimulant, though the animal has clearly no power over them,\nwhilst the upper part remains under its control as completely as before.\u201d\n\nWhy are the head and shoulders \u201cthe animal\u201d more than the hind legs under\nthese circumstances? Neither half can exist long without the other; the\ntwo parts, therefore, being equally important to each other, we have\nsurely as good a right to claim the title of \u201cthe animal\u201d for the hind\nlegs, and to maintain that they have no power over the head and\nshoulders, as any one else has to claim the animalship for these last.\nWhat we say is, that the animal has ceased to exist as a frog on being\ncut in half, and that the two halves are no longer, either of them, the\nfrog, but are simply pieces of still living organism, each of which has a\nsoul of its own, being capable of sensation, and of intelligent\npsychological action as the consequence of sensations, though the one\npart has probably a much higher and more intelligent soul than the other,\nand neither part has a soul for a moment comparable in power and\ndurability to that of the original frog.\n\n\u201cNow it is scarcely conceivable,\u201d continues Dr Carpenter, \u201cthat in this\nlast case sensations should be felt and volition exercised through the\ninstrumentality of that portion of the spinal cord which remains\nconnected with the nerves of the posterior extremities, but which is cut\noff from the brain. For if it were so, there must be two distinct\ncentres of sensation and will in the same animal, the attributes of the\nbrain not being affected; and by dividing the spinal cord into two or\nmore segments we might thus create in the body of one animal two or more\nsuch independent centres in addition to that which holds its proper place\nin the head.\u201d\n\nIn the face of the facts before us, it does not seen far-fetched to\nsuppose that there _are_ two, or indeed an infinite number of centres of\nsensation and will in an animal, the attributes of whose brain are not\naffected but that these centres, while the brain is intact, habitually\nact in connection with and in subordination to that central authority; as\nin the ordinary state of the fish trade, fish is caught, we will say, at\nYarmouth, sent up to London, and then sent down to Yarmouth again to be\neaten, instead of being eaten at Yarmouth when caught. But from the\nphenomena exhibited by three pieces of an animal, it is impossible to\nargue that the causes of the phenomena were present in the quondam animal\nitself; the memory of an infinite series of generations having so\nhabituated the local centres of sensation and will, to act in concert\nwith the central government, that as long as they can get at that\ngovernment, they are absolutely incapable of acting independently. When\nthrown on their own resources, they are so demoralised by ages of\ndependence on the brain, that they die after a few efforts at\nself-assertion, from sheer unfamiliarity with the position, and inability\nto recognise themselves when disjointed rudely from their habitual\nassociations.\n\nIn conclusion, Dr. Carpenter says, \u201cTo say that two or more distinct\ncentres of sensation and will are present in such a case, would really be\nthe same as saying that we have the power of constituting two or more\ndistinct egos in one body, _which is manifestly absurd_.\u201d One sees the\nabsurdity of maintaining that we can make one frog into two frogs by\ncutting a frog into two pieces, but there is no absurdity in believing\nthat the two pieces have minor centres of sensation and intelligence\nwithin themselves, which, when the animal is entire, act in much concert\nwith the brain, and with each other, that it is not easy to detect their\noriginally autonomous character, but which, when deprived of their power\nof acting in concert, are thrown back upon earlier habit, now too long\nforgotten to be capable of permanent resumption.\n\nIllustrations are apt to mislead, nevertheless they may perhaps be\nsometimes tolerated. Suppose, for example, that London to the extent,\nsay, of a circle with a six-mile radius from Charing Cross, were utterly\nannihilated in the space of five minutes during the Session of\nParliament. Suppose, also, that two entirely impassable barriers, say of\nfive miles in width, half a mile high, and red hot, were thrown across\nEngland; one from Gloucester to Harwich, and another from Liverpool to\nHull, and at the same time the sea were to become a mass of molten lava,\nso no water communication should be possible; the political, mercantile,\nsocial, and intellectual life of the country would be convulsed in a\nmanner which it is hardly possible to realise. Hundreds of thousands\nwould die through the dislocation of existing arrangements.\nNevertheless, each of the three parts into which England was divided\nwould show signs of provincial life for which it would find certain\nimperfect organisms ready to hand. Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, and\nManchester, accustomed though they are to act in subordination to London,\nwould probably take up the reins of government in their several sections;\nthey would make their town councils into local governments, appoint\njudges from the ablest of their magistrates, organise relief committees,\nand endeavour as well as they could to remove any acetic acid that might\nbe now poured on Wiltshire, Warwickshire, or Northumberland, but no\nconcert between the three divisions of the country would be any longer\npossible. Should we be justified, under these circumstances, in calling\nany of the three parts of England, England? Or, again, when we observed\nthe provincial action to be as nearly like that of the original undivided\nnation as circumstances would allow, should we be justified in saying\nthat the action, such as it was, was not political? And, lastly, should\nwe for a moment think that an admission that the provincial action was of\na _bon\u00e2 fide_ political character would involve the supposition that\nEngland, undivided, had more than one \u201cego\u201d as England, no matter how\nmany subordinate \u201cegos\u201d might go to the making of it, each one of which\nproved, on emergency, to be capable of a feeble autonomy?\n\nM. Ribot would seem to take a juster view of the phenomenon when he says\n(p. 222 of the English translation)\u2014\n\n\u201cWe can hardly say that here the movements are co-ordinated like those of\na machine; the acts of the animal are adapted to a special end; we find\nin them the characters of intelligence and will, a knowledge and choice\nof means, since they are as variable as the cause which provokes them.\n\n\u201cIf these, then, and similar acts, were such that both the impressions\nwhich produced them and the acts themselves were perceived by the animal,\nwould they not be called psychological? Is there not in them all that\nconstitutes an intelligent act\u2014adaptation of means to ends; not a general\nand vague adaptation, but a determinate adaptation to a determinate end?\nIn the reflex action we find all that constitutes in some sort the very\ngroundwork of an intelligent act\u2014that is to say, the same series of\nstages, in the same order, with the same relations between them. We have\nthus, in the reflex act, all that constitutes the psychological act\nexcept consciousness. The reflex act, which is physiological, differs in\nnothing from the psychological act, save only in this\u2014that it is without\nconsciousness.\u201d\n\nThe only remark which suggests itself upon this, is that we have no right\nto say that the part of the animal which moves does not also perceive its\nown act of motion, as much as it has perceived the impression which has\ncaused it to move. It is plain \u201cthe animal\u201d cannot do so, for the animal\ncannot be said to be any longer in existence. Half a frog is not a frog;\nnevertheless, if the hind legs are capable, as M. Ribot appears to admit,\nof \u201cperceiving the impression\u201d which produces their action, and if in\nthat action there is (and there would certainly appear to be so) \u201call\nthat constitutes an intelligent act, . . . a determinate adaptation to a\ndeterminate end,\u201d one fails to see on what ground they should be supposed\nto be incapable of perceiving their own action, in which case the action\nof the hind legs becomes distinctly psychological.\n\nSecondly, M. Ribot appears to forget that it is the tendency of all\npsychological action to become unconscious on being frequently repeated,\nand that no line can be drawn between psychological acts and those reflex\nacts which he calls physiological. All we can say is, that there are\nacts which we do without knowing that we do them; but the analogy of many\nhabits which we have been able to watch in their passage from laborious\nconsciousness to perfect unconsciousness, would suggest that all action\nis really psychological, only that the soul\u2019s action becomes invisible to\nourselves after it has been repeated sufficiently often\u2014that there is, in\nfact, a law as simple as in the case of optics or gravitation, whereby\nconscious perception of any action shall vary inversely as the square,\nsay, of its being repeated.\n\nIt is easy to understand the advantage to the individual of this power of\ndoing things rightly without thinking about them; for were there no such\npower, the attention would be incapable of following the multitude of\nmatters which would be continually arresting it; those animals which had\ndeveloped a power of working automatically, and without a recurrence to\nfirst principles when they had once mastered any particular process,\nwould, in the common course of events, stand a better chance of\ncontinuing their species, and thus of transmitting their new power to\ntheir descendants.\n\nM. Ribot declines to pursue the subject further, and has only cursorily\nalluded to it. He writes, however, that, on the \u201cobscure problem\u201d of the\ndifference between reflex and psychological actions, some say, \u201cwhen\nthere can be no consciousness, because the brain is wanting, there is, in\nspite of appearances, only mechanism,\u201d whilst others maintain, that \u201cwhen\nthere is selection, reflection, psychical action, there must also be\nconsciousness in spite of appearances.\u201d A little later (p. 223), he\nsays, \u201cIt is quite possible that if a headless animal could live a\nsufficient length of time\u201d (that is to say, if _the hind legs of an\nanimal_ could live a sufficient length of time without the brain), \u201cthere\nwould be found in it\u201d (_them_) \u201ca consciousness like that of the lower\nspecies, which would consist merely in the faculty of apprehending the\nexternal world.\u201d (Why merely? It is more than apprehending the outside\nworld to be able to try to do a thing with one\u2019s left foot, when one\nfinds that one cannot do it with one\u2019s right.) \u201cIt would not be correct\nto say that the amphioxus, the only one among fishes and vertebrata which\nhas a spinal cord without a brain, has no consciousness because it has no\nbrain; and if it be admitted that the little ganglia of the invertebrata\ncan form a consciousness, the same may hold good for the spinal cord.\u201d\n\nWe conclude, therefore, that it is within the common scope and meaning of\nthe words \u201cpersonal identity,\u201d not only that one creature can become many\nas the moth becomes manifold in her eggs, but that each individual may be\nmanifold in the sense of being compounded of a vast number of subordinate\nindividualities which have their separate lives within him, with their\nhopes, and fears, and intrigues, being born and dying within us, many\ngenerations, of them during our single lifetime.\n\n\u201cAn organic being,\u201d writes Mr. Darwin, \u201cis a microcosm, a little\nuniverse, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably\nminute, and numerous as the stars in heaven.\u201d\n\nAs these myriads of smaller organisms are parts and processes of us, so\nare we but parts and processes of life at large.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\nAPPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS\u2014THE ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER.\n\n\nLET us now return to the position which we left at the end of the fourth\nchapter. We had then concluded that the self-development of each new\nlife in succeeding generations\u2014the various stages through which it passes\n(as it would appear, at first sight, without rhyme or reason)\u2014the manner\nin which it prepares structures of the most surpassing intricacy and\ndelicacy, for which it has no use at the time when it prepares them\u2014and\nthe many elaborate instincts which it exhibits immediately on, and indeed\nbefore, birth\u2014all point in the direction of habit and memory, as the only\ncauses which could produce them.\n\nWhy should the embryo of any animal go through so many\nstages\u2014embryological allusions to forefathers of a widely different type?\nAnd why, again, should the germs of the same kind of creature always go\nthrough the same stages? If the germ of any animal now living is, in its\nsimplest state, but part of the personal identity of one of the original\ngerms of all life whatsoever, and hence, if any now living organism must\nbe considered without quibble as being itself millions of years old, and\nas imbued with an intense though unconscious memory of all that it has\ndone sufficiently often to have made a permanent impression; if this be\nso, we can answer the above questions perfectly well. The creature goes\nthrough so many intermediate stages between its earliest state as life at\nall, and its latest development, for the simplest of all reasons, namely,\nbecause this is the road by which it has always hitherto travelled to its\npresent differentiation; this is the road it knows, and into every turn\nand up or down of which, it has been guided by the force of circumstances\nand the balance of considerations. These, acting in such a manner for\nsuch and such a time, caused it to travel in such and such fashion, which\nfashion having been once sufficiently established, becomes a matter of\ntrick or routine to which the creature is still a slave, and in which it\nconfirms itself by repetition in each succeeding generation.\n\nThus I suppose, as almost every one else, so far as I can gather,\nsupposes, that we are descended from ancestors of widely different\ncharacters to our own. If we could see some of our forefathers a million\nyears back, we should find them unlike anything we could call man; if we\nwere to go back fifty million years, we should find them, it may be,\nfishes pure and simple, breathing through gills, and unable to exist for\nmany minutes in air.\n\nIt is admitted on all hands that there is more or less analogy between\nthe embryological development of the individual, and the various phases\nor conditions of life through which his forefathers have passed. I\nsuppose, then, that the fish of fifty million years back and the man of\nto-day are one single living being, in the same sense, or very nearly so,\nas the octogenarian is one single living being with the infant from which\nhe has grown; and that the fish has lived himself into manhood, not as we\nlive out our little life, living, and living, and living till we die, but\nliving by pulsations, so to speak; living so far, and after a certain\ntime going into a new body, and throwing off the old; making his body\nmuch as we make anything that we want, and have often made already, that\nis to say, as nearly as may be in the same way as he made it last time;\nalso that he is as unable as we ourselves are, to make what he wants\nwithout going through the usual processes with which he is familiar, even\nthough there may be other better ways of doing the same thing, which\nmight not be far to seek, if the creature thought them better, and had\nnot got so accustomed to such and such a method, that he would only be\nbaffled and put out by any attempt to teach him otherwise.\n\nAnd this oneness of personality between ourselves and our supposed\nfishlike ancestors of many millions of years ago, must hold also between\neach individual one of us and the single pair of fishes from which we are\neach (on the present momentary hypothesis) descended; and it must also\nhold between such pair of fishes and all their descendants besides man,\nit may be some of them birds, and others fishes; all these descendants,\nwhether human or otherwise, being but the way in which the creature\n(which was a pair of fishes when we first took it in hand though it was a\nhundred thousand other things as well, and had been all manner of other\nthings before any part of it became fishlike) continues to exist\u2014its\nmanner, in fact, of growing. As the manner in which the human body grows\nis by the continued birth and death, in our single lifetime, of many\ngenerations of cells which we know nothing about, but say that we have\nhad only one hand or foot all our lives, when we have really had many,\none after another; so this huge compound creature, LIFE, probably thinks\nitself but one single animal whose component cells, as it may imagine,\ngrow, and it may be waste and repair, but do not die.\n\nIt may be that the cells of which we are built up, and which we have\nalready seen must be considered as separate persons, each one of them\nwith a life and memory of its own\u2014it may be that these cells reckon time\nin a manner inconceivable by us, so that no word can convey any idea of\nit whatever. What may to them appear a long and painful process may to\nus be so instantaneous as to escape us altogether, we wanting some\nmicroscope to show us the details of time. If, in like manner, we were\nto allow our imagination to conceive the existence of a being as much in\nneed of a microscope for our time and affairs as we for those of our own\ncomponent cells, the years would be to such a being but as the winkings\nor the twinklings of an eye. Would he think, then, that all the ants and\nflies of one wink were different from those of the next? or would he not\nrather believe that they were always the same flies, and, again, always\nthe same men and women, if he could see them at all, and if the whole\nhuman race did not appear to him as a sort of spreading and lichen-like\ngrowth over the earth, not differentiated at all into individuals? With\nthe help of a microscope and the intelligent exercise of his reason, he\nwould in time conceive the truth. He would put Covent Garden Market on\nthe field of his microscope, and would perhaps write a great deal of\nnonsense about the unerring \u201cinstinct\u201d which taught each costermonger to\nrecognise his own basket or his own donkey-cart; and this, _mutatis\nmutandis_, is what we are getting to do as regards our own bodies. What\nI wish is, to make the same sort of step in an upward direction which has\nalready been taken in a downward one, and to show reason for thinking\nthat we are only component atoms of a single compound creature, LIFE,\nwhich has probably a distinct conception of its own personality though\nnone whatever of ours, more than we of our own units. I wish also to\nshow reason for thinking that this creature, LIFE, has only come to be\nwhat it is, by the same sort of process as that by which any human art or\nmanufacture is developed, _i.e._, through constantly doing the same thing\nover and over again, beginning from something which is barely\nrecognisable as faith, or as the desire to know, or do, or live at all,\nand as to the origin of which we are in utter darkness,\u2014and growing till\nit is first conscious of effort, then conscious of power, then powerful\nwith but little consciousness, and finally, so powerful and so charged\nwith memory as to be absolutely without all self-consciousness whatever,\nexcept as regards its latest phases in each of its many differentiations,\nor when placed in such new circumstances as compel it to choose between\ndeath and a reconsideration of its position.\n\nNo conjecture can be hazarded as to how the smallest particle of matter\nbecame so imbued with faith that it must be considered as the beginning\nof LIFE, or as to what such faith is, except that it is the very essence\nof all things, and that it has no foundation.\n\nIn this way, then, I conceive we can fairly transfer the experience of\nthe race to the individual, without any other meaning to our words than\nwhat they would naturally suggest; that is to say, that there is in every\nimpregnate ovum a _bon\u00e2 fide_ memory, which carries it back not only to\nthe time when it was last an impregnate ovum, but to that earlier date\nwhen it was the very beginning of life at all, which same creature it\nstill is, whether as man or ovum, and hence imbued, so far as time and\ncircumstance allow, with all its memories. Surely this is no strained\nhypothesis; for the mere fact that the germ, from the earliest moment\nthat we are able to detect it, appears to be so perfectly familiar with\nits business, acts with so little hesitation and so little introspection\nor reference to principles, this alone should incline us to suspect that\nit must be armed with that which, so far as we observe in daily life, can\nalone ensure such a result\u2014to wit, long practice, and the memory of many\nsimilar performances.\n\nThe difficulty is, that we are conscious of no such memory in our own\npersons, and beyond the one great proof of memory given by the actual\nrepetition of the performance\u2014and of some of the latest deviations from\nthe ordinary performance (and this proof ought in itself, one would have\nthought, to outweigh any save the directest evidence to the contrary) we\ncan detect no symptom of any such mental operation as recollection on the\npart of the embryo. On the other hand, we have seen that we know most\nintensely those things that we are least conscious of knowing; we will\nmost intensely what we are least conscious of willing; we feel\ncontinually without knowing that we feel, and our attention is hourly\narrested without our attention being arrested by the arresting of our\nattention. Memory is no less capable of unconscious exercise, and on\nbecoming intense through frequent repetition, vanishes no less completely\nas a conscious action of the mind than knowledge and volition. We must\nall be aware of instances in which it is plain we must have remembered,\nwithout being in the smallest degree conscious of remembering. Is it\nthen absurd to suppose that our past existences have been repeated on\nsuch a vast number of occasions that the germ, linked on to all preceding\ngerms, and, by once having become part of their identity, imbued with all\ntheir memories, remembers too intensely to be conscious of remembering,\nand works on with the same kind of unconsciousness with which we play, or\nwalk, or read, until something unfamiliar happens to us? and is it not\nsingularly in accordance with this view that consciousness should begin\nwith that part of the creature\u2019s performance with which it is least\nfamiliar, as having repeated it least often\u2014that is to say, in our own\ncase, with the commencement of our human life\u2014at birth, or thereabouts?\n\nIt is certainly noteworthy that the embryo is never at a loss, unless\nsomething happens to it which has not usually happened to its\nforefathers, and which in the nature of things it cannot remember.\n\nWhen events are happening to it which have ordinarily happened to its\nforefathers, and which it would therefore remember, if it was possessed\nof the kind of memory which we are here attributing to it, _it acts\nprecisely as it would act if it were possessed of such memory_.\n\nWhen, on the other hand, events are happening to it which, if it has the\nkind of memory we are attributing to it, would baffle that memory, or\nwhich have rarely or never been included in the category of its\nrecollections, _it acts precisely as a creature acts when its\nrecollection is disturbed_, _or when it is required to do something which\nit has never done before_.\n\nWe cannot remember having been in the embryonic stage, but we do not on\nthat account deny that we ever were in such a stage at all. On a little\nreflection it will appear no more reasonable to maintain that, when we\nwere in the embryonic stage, we did not remember our past existences,\nthan to say that we never were embryos at all. We cannot remember what\nwe did or did not recollect in that state; we cannot now remember having\ngrown the eyes which we undoubtedly did grow, much less can we remember\nwhether or not we then remembered having grown them before; but it is\nprobable that our memory was then, in respect of our previous existences\nas embryos, as much more intense than it is now in respect of our\nchildhood, as our power of acquiring a new language was greater when we\nwere one or two years old, than when we were twenty. And why should this\npower of acquiring languages be greater at two years than at twenty, but\nthat for many generations we have learnt to speak at about this age, and\nhence look to learn to do so again on reaching it, just as we looked to\nmaking eyes, when the time came at which we were accustomed to make them.\n\nIf we once had the memory of having been infants (which we had from day\nto day during infancy), and have lost it, we may well have had other and\nmore intense memories which we have lost no less completely. Indeed,\nthere is nothing more extraordinary in the supposition that the\nimpregnate ovum has an intense sense of its continuity with, and\ntherefore of its identity with, the two impregnate ova from which it has\nsprung, than in the fact that we have no sense of our continuity with\nourselves as infants. If then, there is no _\u00e0 priori_ objection to this\nview, and if the impregnate ovum acts in such a manner as to carry the\nstrongest conviction that it must have already on many occasions done\nwhat it is doing now, and that it has a vivid though unconscious\nrecollection of what all, and more especially its nearer, ancestral ova\ndid under similar circumstances, there would seem to be little doubt what\nconclusion we ought to come to.\n\nA hen\u2019s egg, for example, as soon as the hen begins to sit, sets to work\nimmediately to do as nearly as may be what the two eggs from which its\nfather and mother were hatched did when hens began to sit upon them. The\ninference would seem almost irresistible,\u2014that the second egg remembers\nthe course pursued by the eggs from which it has sprung, and of whose\npresent identity it is unquestionably a part-phase; it also seems\nirresistibly forced upon us to believe that the intensity of this memory\nis the secret of its easy action.\n\nIt has, I believe, been often remarked, that a hen is only an egg\u2019s way\nof making another egg. Every creature must be allowed to \u201crun\u201d its own\ndevelopment in its own way; the egg\u2019s way may seem a very roundabout\nmanner of doing things; but it _is_ its way, and it is one of which man,\nupon the whole, has no great reason to complain. Why the fowl should be\nconsidered more alive than the egg, and why it should be said that the\nhen lays the egg, and not that the egg lays the hen, these are questions\nwhich lie beyond the power of philosophic explanation, but are perhaps\nmost answerable by considering the conceit of man, and his habit,\npersisted in during many ages, of ignoring all that does not remind him\nof himself, or hurt him, or profit him; also by considering the use of\nlanguage, which, if it is to serve at all, can only do so by ignoring a\nvast number of facts which gradually drop out of mind from being out of\nsight. But, perhaps, after all, the real reason is, that the egg does\nnot cackle when it has laid the hen, and that it works towards the hen\nwith gradual and noiseless steps, which we can watch if we be so minded;\nwhereas, we can less easily watch the steps which lead from the hen to\nthe egg, but hear a noise, and see an egg where there was no egg.\nTherefore, we say, the development of the fowl from the egg bears no sort\nof resemblance to that of the egg from the fowl, whereas, in truth, a\nhen, or any other living creature, is only the primordial cell\u2019s way of\ngoing back upon itself.\n\nBut to return. We see an egg, A, which evidently knows its own meaning\nperfectly well, and we know that a twelvemonth ago there were two other\nsuch eggs, B and C, which have now disappeared, but from which we know A\nto have been so continuously developed as to be part of the present form\nof their identity. A\u2019s meaning is seen to be precisely the same as B and\nC\u2019s meaning; A\u2019s personal appearance is, to all intents and purposes, B\nand C\u2019s personal appearance; it would seem, then, unreasonable to deny\nthat A is only B and C come back, with such modification as they may have\nincurred since their disappearance; and that, in spite of any such\nmodification, they remember in A perfectly well what they did as B and C.\n\nWe have considered the question of personal identity so as to see\nwhether, without abuse of terms, we can claim it as existing between any\ntwo generations of living agents (and if between two, then between any\nnumber up to infinity), and we found that we were not only at liberty to\nclaim this, but that we are compelled irresistibly to do so, unless, that\nis to say, we would think very differently concerning personal identity\nthan we do at present. We found it impossible to hold the ordinary\ncommon sense opinions concerning personal identity, without admitting\nthat we are personally identical with all our forefathers, who have\nsuccessfully assimilated outside matter to themselves, and by\nassimilation imbued it with all their own memories; we being nothing else\nthan this outside matter so assimilated and imbued with such memories.\nThis, at least, will, I believe, balance the account correctly.\n\nA few remarks upon the assimilation of outside matter by living organisms\nmay perhaps be hazarded here.\n\nAs long as any living organism can maintain itself in a position to which\nit has been accustomed, more or less nearly, both in its own life and in\nthose of its forefathers, nothing can harm it. As long as the organism\nis familiar with the position, and remembers its antecedents, nothing can\nassimilate it. It must be first dislodged from the position with which\nit is familiar, as being able to remember it, before mischief can happen\nto it. Nothing can assimilate living organism.\n\nOn the other hand, the moment living organism loses sight of its own\nposition and antecedents, it is liable to immediate assimilation, and to\nbe thus familiarised with the position and antecedents of some other\ncreature. If any living organism be kept for but a very short time in a\nposition wholly different from what it has been accustomed to in its own\nlife, and in the lives of its forefathers, it commonly loses its memories\ncompletely, once and for ever; but it must immediately acquire new ones,\nfor nothing can know nothing; everything must remember either its own\nantecedents, or some one else\u2019s. And as nothing can know nothing, so\nnothing can believe in nothing.\n\nA grain of corn, for example, has never been accustomed to find itself in\na hen\u2019s stomach\u2014neither it nor its forefathers. For a grain so placed\nleaves no offspring, and hence cannot transmit its experience. The first\nminute or so after being eaten, it may think it has just been sown, and\nbegin to prepare for sprouting, but in a few seconds, it discovers the\nenvironment to be unfamiliar; it therefore gets frightened, loses its\nhead, is carried into the gizzard, and comminuted among the gizzard\nstones. The hen succeeded in putting it into a position with which it\nwas unfamiliar; from this it was an easy stage to assimilating it\nentirely. Once assimilated, the grain ceases to remember any more as a\ngrain, but becomes initiated into all that happens to, and has happened\nto, fowls for countless ages. Then it will attack all other grains\nwhenever it sees them; there is no such persecutor of grain, as another\ngrain when it has once fairly identified itself with a hen.\n\nWe may remark in passing, that if anything be once familiarised with\nanything, it is content. The only things we really care for in life are\nfamiliar things; let us have the means of doing what we have been\naccustomed to do, of dressing as we have been accustomed to dress, of\neating as we have been accustomed to eat, and let us have no less liberty\nthan we are accustomed to have, and last, but not least, let us not be\ndisturbed in thinking as we have been accustomed to think, and the vast\nmajority of mankind will be very fairly contented\u2014all plants and animals\nwill certainly be so. This would seem to suggest a possible doctrine of\na future state; concerning which we may reflect that though, after we\ndie, we cease to be familiar with ourselves, we shall nevertheless become\nimmediately familiar with many other histories compared with which our\npresent life must then seem intolerably uninteresting.\n\nThis is the reason why a very heavy and sudden shock to the nervous\nsystem does not pain, but kills outright at once; while one with which\nthe system can, at any rate, try to familiarise itself is exceedingly\npainful. We cannot bear unfamiliarity. The part that is treated in a\nmanner with which it is not familiar cries immediately to the brain\u2014its\ncentral government\u2014for help, and makes itself generally as troublesome as\nit can, till it is in some way comforted. Indeed, the law against\ncruelty to animals is but an example of the hatred we feel on seeing even\ndumb creatures put into positions with which they are not familiar. We\nhate this so much for ourselves, that we will not tolerate it for other\ncreatures if we can possibly avoid it. So again, it is said, that when\nAndromeda and Perseus had travelled but a little way from the rock where\nAndromeda had so long been chained, she began upbraiding him with the\nloss of her dragon, who, on the whole, she said, had been very good to\nher. The only things we really hate are unfamiliar things, and though\nnature would not be nature if she did not cross our love of the familiar\nwith a love also of the unfamiliar, yet there can be no doubt which of\nthe two principles is master.\n\nLet us return, however, to the grain of corn. If the grain had had\npresence of mind to avoid being carried into the gizzard stones, as many\nseeds do which are carried for hundreds of miles in birds\u2019 stomachs, and\nif it had persuaded itself that the novelty of the position was not\ngreater than it could very well manage to put up with\u2014if, in fact, it had\nnot known when it was beaten\u2014it might have stuck in the hen\u2019s stomach and\nbegun to grow; in this case it would have assimilated a good part of the\nhen before many days were over; for hens are not familiar with grains\nthat grow in their stomachs, and unless the one in question was as\nstrongminded for a hen, as the grain that could avoid being assimilated\nwould be for a grain, the hen would soon cease to take an interest in her\nantecedents. It is to be doubted, however, whether a grain has ever been\ngrown which has had strength of mind enough to avoid being set off its\nbalance on finding itself inside a hen\u2019s gizzard. For living organism is\nthe creature of habit and routine, and the inside of a gizzard is not in\nthe grain\u2019s programme.\n\nSuppose, then, that the grain, instead of being carried into the gizzard,\nhad stuck in the hen\u2019s throat and choked her. It would now find itself\nin a position very like what it had often been in before. That is to\nsay, it would be in a damp, dark, quiet place, not too far from light,\nand with decaying matter around it. It would therefore know perfectly\nwell what to do, and would begin to grow until disturbed, and again put\ninto a position with which it might, very possibly, be unfamiliar.\n\nThe great question between vast masses of living organism is simply this:\n\u201cAm I to put you into a position with which your forefathers have been\nunfamiliar, or are you to put me into one about which my own have been in\nlike manner ignorant?\u201d Man is only the dominant animal on the earth,\nbecause he can, as a general rule, settle this question in his own\nfavour.\n\nThe only manner in which an organism, which has once forgotten its\nantecedents, can ever recover its memory, is by being assimilated by a\ncreature of its own kind; one, moreover, which knows its business, or is\nnot in such a false position as to be compelled to be aware of being so.\nIt was, doubtless, owing to the recognition of this fact, that some\nEastern nations, as we are told by Herodotus, were in the habit of eating\ntheir deceased parents\u2014for matter which has once been assimilated by any\nidentity or personality, becomes for all practical purposes part of the\nassimilating personality.\n\nThe bearing of the above will become obvious when we return, as we will\nnow do, to the question of personal identity. The only difficulty would\nseem to lie in our unfamiliarity with the real meanings which we attach\nto words in daily use. Hence, while recognising continuity without\nsudden break as the underlying principle of identity, we forget that this\ninvolves personal identity between all the beings who are in one chain of\ndescent, the numbers of such beings, whether in succession, or\ncontemporaneous, going for nothing at all. Thus we take two eggs, one\nmale and one female, and hatch them; after some months the pair of fowls\nso hatched, having succeeded in putting a vast quantity of grain and\nworms into false positions, become full-grown, breed, and produce a dozen\nnew eggs.\n\nTwo live fowls and a dozen eggs are the present phase of the personality\nof the two original eggs. They are also part of the present phase of the\npersonality of all the worms and grain which the fowls have assimilated\nfrom their leaving the eggshell; but the personalities of these last do\nnot count; they have lost their grain and worm memories, and are instinct\nwith the memorises of the whole ancestry of the creature which has\nassimilated them.\n\nWe cannot, perhaps, strictly say that the two fowls and the dozen new\neggs actually _are_ the two original eggs; these two eggs are no longer\nin existence, and we see the two birds themselves which were hatched from\nthem. A bird cannot be called an egg without an abuse of terms.\nNevertheless, it is doubtful how far we should not say this, for it is\nonly with a mental reserve\u2014and with no greater mental reserve\u2014that we\npredicate absolute identity concerning any living being for two\nconsecutive moments; and it is certainly as free from quibble to say to\ntwo fowls and a dozen eggs, \u201cyou are the two eggs I had on my kitchen\nshelf twelve months ago,\u201d as to say to a man, \u201cyou are the child whom I\nremember thirty years ago in your mother\u2019s arms.\u201d In either case we\nmean, \u201cyou have been continually putting other organisms into a false\nposition, and then assimilating them, ever since I last saw you, while\nnothing has yet occurred to put _you_ into such a false position as to\nhave made you lose the memory of your antecedents.\u201d\n\nIt would seem perfectly fair, therefore, to say to any egg of the twelve,\nor to the two fowls and the whole twelve eggs together, \u201cyou were a\ncouple of eggs twelve months ago; twelve months before that you were four\neggs;\u201d and so on, _ad infinitum_, the number neither of the ancestors nor\nof the descendants counting for anything, and continuity being the sole\nthing looked to. From daily observation we are familiar with the fact\nthat identity does both unite with other identities, so that a single new\nidentity is the result, and does also split itself up into several\nidentities, so that the one becomes many. This is plain from the manner\nin which the male and female sexual elements unite to form a single ovum,\nwhich we observe to be instinct with the memories of both the individuals\nfrom which it has been derived; and there is the additional\nconsideration, that each of the elements whose fusion goes to make up the\nimpregnate ovum, is held by some to be itself composed of a fused mass of\ngerms, which stand very much in the same relation to the spermatozoon and\novum, as the living cellular units of which we are composed do to\nourselves\u2014that is to say, are living independent organisms, which\nprobably have no conception of the existence of the spermatozoon nor of\nthe ovum, more than the spermatozoon or ovum have of theirs.\n\nThis, at least, is what I gather from Mr. Darwin\u2019s provisional theory of\nPangenesis; and, again, from one of the concluding sentences in his\n\u201cEffects of Cross and Self Fertilisation,\u201d where, asking the question why\ntwo sexes have been developed, he replies that the answer seems to lie\n\u201cin the great good which is derived from the fusion of two somewhat\ndifferentiated individuals. With the exception,\u201d he continues, \u201cor the\nlowest organisms this is possible only by means of the sexual\nelements\u2014_these consisting of cells separated from the body_\u201d (_i.e._,\nseparated from the bodies of each parent) \u201c_containing the germs of every\npart_\u201d (_i.e._, consisting of the seeds or germs from which each\nindividual cell of the coming organism will be developed\u2014these seeds or\ngerms having been shed by each individual cell of the parent forms),\n\u201c_and capable of being fused completely together_\u201d (_i.e._, so at least I\ngather, capable of being fused completely, in the same way as the cells\nof our own bodies are fused, and thus, of forming a single living\npersonality in the case of both the male and female element; which\nelements are themselves capable of a second fusion so as to form the\nimpregnate ovum). This single impregnate ovum, then, is a single\nidentity that has taken the place of and come up in the room of two\ndistinct personalities, each of whose characteristics it, to a certain\nextent, partakes, and which consist, each one of them, of the fused germs\nof a vast mass of other personalities.\n\nAs regards the dispersion of one identity into many, this also is a\nmatter of daily observation in the case of all female creatures that are\nwith egg or young; the identity of the young with the female parent is in\nmany respects so complete, as to need no enforcing, in spite of the\nentrance into the offspring of all the elements derived from the male\nparent, and of the gradual separation of the two identities, which\nbecomes more and more complete, till in time it is hard to conceive that\nthey can ever have been united.\n\nNumbers, therefore, go for nothing; and, as far as identity or continued\npersonality goes, it is as fair to say to the two fowls, above referred\nto, \u201cyou were four fowls twelve months ago,\u201d as it is to say to a dozen\neggs, \u201cyou were two eggs twelve months ago.\u201d But here a difficulty meets\nus; for if we say, \u201cyou were two eggs twelve months ago,\u201d it follows that\nwe mean, \u201cyou are now those two eggs;\u201d just as when we say to a person,\n\u201cyou were such and such a boy twenty years ago,\u201d we mean, \u201cyou are now\nthat boy, or all that represents him;\u201d it would seem, then, that in like\nmanner we should say to the two fowls, \u201cyou _are_ the four fowls who\nbetween them laid the two eggs from which you sprung.\u201d But it may be\nthat all these four fowls are still to be seen running about; we should\nbe therefore saying, \u201cyou two fowls are really not yourselves only, but\nyou are also the other four fowls into the bargain;\u201d and this might be\nphilosophically true, and might, perhaps, be considered so, but for the\nconvenience of the law courts.\n\nThe difficulty would seem to arise from the fact that the eggs must\ndisappear before fowls can be hatched from them, whereas, the hens so\nhatched may outlive the development of other hens, from the eggs which\nthey in due course have laid. The original eggs being out of sight are\nout of mind, and it is without an effort that we acquiesce in the\nassertion,\u2014that the dozen new eggs actually are the two original ones.\nBut the original four fowls being still in sight, cannot be ignored, we\nonly, therefore, see the new ones as growths from the original ones.\n\nThe strict rendering of the facts should be, \u201cyou are part of the present\nphase of the identity of such and such a past identity,\u201d _i.e._, either\nof the two eggs or the four fowls, as the case may be; this will put the\neggs and the fowls, as it were, into the same box, and will meet both the\nphilosophical and legal requirement of the case, only it is a little\nlong.\n\nSo far then, as regards actual identity of personality; which, we find,\nwill allow us to say, that eggs are part of the present phase of a\ncertain past identity, whether of other eggs, or of fowls, or chickens,\nand in like, manner that chickens are part of the present phase of\ncertain other chickens, or eggs, or fowls; in fact, that anything is part\nof the present phase of any past identity in the line of its ancestry.\nBut as regards the actual memory of such identity (unconscious memory,\nbut still clearly memory), we observe that the egg, as long as it is an\negg, appears to have a very distinct recollection of having been an egg\nbefore, and the fowl of having been a fowl before, but that neither egg\nnor fowl appear to have any recollection of any other stage of their past\nexistences, than the one corresponding to that in which they are\nthemselves at the moment existing.\n\nSo we, at six or seven years old, have no recollection of ever having\nbeen infants, much less of having been embryos; but the manner in which\nwe shed our teeth and make new ones, and the way in which we grow\ngenerally, making ourselves for the most part exceedingly like what we\nmade ourselves, in the person of some one of our nearer ancestors, and\nnot unfrequently repeating the very blunders which we made upon that\noccasion when we come to a corresponding age, proves most incontestably\nthat we remember our past existences, though too utterly to be capable of\nintrospection in the matter. So, when we grow wisdom teeth, at the age\nit may be of one or two and twenty, it is plain we remember our past\nexistences at that age, however completely we may have forgotten the\nearlier stages of our present existence. It may be said that it is the\njaw which remembers, and not we, but it seems hard to deny the jaw a\nright of citizenship in our personality; and in the case of a growing\nboy, every part of him seems to remember equally well, and if every part\nof him combined does not make _him_, there would seem but little use in\ncontinuing the argument further.\n\nIn like manner, a caterpillar appears not to remember having been an egg,\neither in its present or any past existence. It has no concern with eggs\nas soon as it is hatched, but it clearly remembers not only having been a\ncaterpillar before, but also having turned itself into a chrysalis\nbefore; for when the time comes for it to do this, it is at no loss, as\nit would certainly be if the position was unfamiliar, but it immediately\nbegins doing what it did when last it was in a like case, repeating the\nprocess as nearly as the environment will allow, taking every step in the\nsame order as last time, and doing its work with that ease and perfection\nwhich we observe to belong to the force of habit, and to be utterly\nincompatible with any other supposition than that of long long practice.\n\nOnce having become a chrysalis, its memory of its caterpillarhood appears\nto leave it for good and all, not to return until it again assumes the\nshape of a caterpillar by process of descent. Its memory now overleaps\nall past modifications, and reverts to the time when it was last what it\nis now, and though it is probable that both caterpillar and chrysalis, on\nany given day of their existence in either of these forms, have some sort\nof dim power of recollecting what happened to them yesterday, or the day\nbefore; yet it is plain their main memory goes back to the corresponding\nday of their last existence in their present form, the chrysalis\nremembering what happened to it on such a day far more practically,\nthough less consciously, than what happened to it yesterday; and\nnaturally, for yesterday is but once, and its past existences have been\nlegion. Hence, it prepares its wings in due time, doing each day what it\ndid on the corresponding day of its last chrysalishood and at length\nbecoming a moth; whereon its circumstances are so changed that it loses\nall sense of its identity as a chrysalis (as completely as we, for\nprecisely the same reason, lose all sense of our identity with ourselves\nas infants), and remembers nothing but its past existences as a moth.\n\nWe observe this to hold throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms. In\nany one phase of the existence of the lower animals, we observe that they\nremember the corresponding stage, and a little on either side of it, of\nall their past existences for a very great length of time. In their\npresent existence they remember a little behind the present moment\n(remembering more and more the higher they advance in the scale of life),\nand being able to foresee about as much as they could foresee in their\npast existences, sometimes more and sometimes less. As with memory, so\nwith prescience. The higher they advance in the scale of life the more\nprescient they are. It must, of course, be remembered, and will later on\nbe more fully dwelt upon, that no offspring can remember anything which\nhappens to its parents after it and its parents have parted company; and\nthis is why there is, perhaps, more irregularity as regards our\nwisdom-teeth than about anything else that we grow; inasmuch as it must\nnot uncommonly have happened in a long series of generations, that the\noffspring has been born before the parents have grown their wisdom-teeth,\nand thus there will be faults in the memory.\n\nIs there, then, anything in memory, as we observe it in ourselves and\nothers, under circumstances in which we shall agree in calling it memory\npure and simple without ambiguity of terms\u2014is there anything in memory\nwhich bars us from supposing it capable of overleaping a long time of\nabeyance, and thus of enabling each impregnate ovum, or each grain, to\nremember what it did when last in a like condition, and to go on\nremembering the corresponding period of its prior developments throughout\nthe whole period of its present growth, though such memory has entirely\nfailed as regards the interim between any two corresponding periods, and\nis not consciously recognised by the individual as being exercised at\nall?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\nON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY.\n\n\nLET us assume, for the moment, that the action of each impregnate germ is\ndue to memory, which, as it were, pulsates anew in each succeeding\ngeneration, so that immediately on impregnation, the germ\u2019s memory\nreverts to the last occasion on which it was in a like condition, and\nrecognising the position, is at no loss what to do. It is plain that in\nall cases where there are two parents, that is to say, in the greater\nnumber of cases, whether in the vegetable or animal kingdoms, there must\nbe two such last occasions, each of which will have an equal claim upon\nthe attention of the new germ. Its memory would therefore revert to\nboth, and though it would probably adhere more closely to the course\nwhich it took either as its father or its mother, and thus come out\neventually male or female, yet it would be not a little influenced by the\nless potent memory.\n\nAnd not only this, but each of the germs to which the memory of the new\ngerm reverts, is itself imbued with the memories of its own parent germs,\nand these again with the memories of preceding generations, and so on _ad\ninfinitum_; so that, _ex hypothesi_, the germ must become instinct with\nall these memories, epitomised as after long time, and unperceived though\nthey may well be, not to say obliterated in part or entirely so far as\nmany features are concerned, by more recent impressions. In this case,\nwe must conceive of the impregnate germ as of a creature which has to\nrepeat a performance already repeated before on countless different\noccasions, but with no more variation on the more recent ones than is\ninevitable in the repetition of any performance by an intelligent being.\n\nNow if we take the most parallel case to this which we can find, and\nconsider what we should ourselves do under such circumstances, that is to\nsay, if we consider what course is actually taken by beings who are\ninfluenced by what we all call memory, when they repeat an already\noften-repeated performance, and if we find a very strong analogy between\nthe course so taken by ourselves, and that which from whatever cause we\nobserve to be taken by a living germ, we shall surely be much inclined to\nthink that there must be a similarity in the causes of action in each\ncase; and hence, to conclude, that the action of the germ is due to\nmemory.\n\nIt will, therefore, be necessary to consider the general tendency of our\nminds in regard to impressions made upon us, and the memory of such\nimpressions.\n\nDeep impressions upon the memory are made in two ways, differing rather\nin degree than kind, but with two somewhat widely different results.\nThey are made:\u2014\n\nI. By unfamiliar objects, or combinations, which come at comparatively\nlong intervals, and produce their effect, as it were, by one hard blow.\nThe effect of these will vary with the unfamiliarity of the impressions\nthemselves, and the manner in which they seem likely to lead to a further\ndevelopment of the unfamiliar, _i.e._, with the question, whether they\nseem likely to compel us to change our habits, either for better or\nworse.\n\nThus, if an object or incident be very unfamiliar, as, we will say, a\nwhale or an iceberg to one travelling to America for the first time, it\nwill make a deep impression, though but little affecting our interests;\nbut if we struck against the iceberg and were shipwrecked, or nearly so,\nit would produce a much deeper impression, we should think much more\nabout icebergs, and remember much more about them, than if we had merely\nseen one. So, also, if we were able to catch the whale and sell its oil,\nwe should have a deep impression made upon us. In either case we see\nthat the amount of unfamiliarity, either present or prospective, is the\nmain determinant of the depth of the impression.\n\nAs with consciousness and volition, so with sudden unfamiliarity. It\nimpresses us more and more deeply the more unfamiliar it is, until it\nreaches such a point of impressiveness as to make no further impression\nat all; on which we then and there die. For death only kills through\nunfamiliarity\u2014that is to say, because the new position, whatever it is,\nis so wide a cross as compared with the old one, that we cannot fuse the\ntwo so as to understand the combination; hence we lose all recognition\nof, and faith in, ourselves and our surroundings.\n\nBut however much we imagine we remember concerning the details of any\nremarkable impression which has been made us by a single blow, we do not\nremember as much or nearly as much as we think we do. The subordinate\ndetails soon drop out of mind. Those who think they remember even such a\nmomentous matter as the battle of Waterloo recall now probably but\nhalf-a-dozen episodes, a gleam here, and a gleam there, so that what they\ncall remembering the battle of Waterloo, is, in fact, little more than a\nkind of dreaming\u2014so soon vanishes the memory of any unrepeated\noccurrence.\n\nAs for smaller impressions, there is very little of what happens to us in\neach week that will be in our memories a week hence; a man of eighty\nremembers few of the unrepeated incidents of his life beyond those of the\nlast fortnight, a little here, and a little there, forming a matter of\nperhaps six weeks or two months in all, if everything that he can call to\nmind were acted over again with no greater fulness than he can remember\nit. As for incidents that have been often repeated, his mind strikes a\nbalance of its past reminiscences, remembering the two or three last\nperformances, and a general method of procedure, but nothing more.\n\nIf, then, the recollection of all that is not very novel, or very often\nrepeated, so soon fades from our own minds, during what we consider as\nour single lifetime, what wonder that the details of our daily experience\nshould find no place in that brief epitome of them which is all we can\ngive in so small a volume as offspring?\n\nIf we cannot ourselves remember the hundred-thousandth part of what\nhappened to us during our own childhood, how can we expect our offspring\nto remember more than what, through frequent repetition, they can now\nremember as a residuum, or general impression. On the other hand,\nwhatever we remember in consequence of but a single impression, we\nremember consciously. We can at will recall details, and are perfectly\nwell aware, when we do so, that we are recollecting. A man who has never\nseen death looks for the first time upon the dead face of some near\nrelative or friend. He gazes for a few short minutes, but the impression\nthus made does not soon pass out of his mind. He remembers the room, the\nhour of the day or night, and if by day, what sort of a day. He\nremembers in what part of the room, and how disposed the body of the\ndeceased was lying. Twenty years afterwards he can, at will, recall all\nthese matters to his mind, and picture to himself the scene as he\noriginally witnessed it.\n\nThe reason is plain; the impression was very unfamiliar, and affected the\nbeholder, both as regards the loss of one who was dear to him, and as\nreminding him with more than common force that he will one day die\nhimself. Moreover the impression was a simple one, not involving much\nsubordinate detail; we have in this case, therefore, an example of the\nmost lasting kind of impression that can be made by a single unrepeated\nevent. But if we examine ourselves closely, we shall find that after a\nlapse of years we do not remember as much as we think we do, even in such\na case as this; and that beyond the incidents above mentioned, and the\nexpression upon the face of the dead person, we remember little of what\nwe can so consciously and vividly recall.\n\nII. Deep impressions are also made by the repetition, more or less\noften, of a feeble impression which, if unrepeated, would have soon\npassed out of our minds. We observe, therefore, that we remember best\nwhat we have done least often\u2014any unfamiliar deviation, that is to say,\nfrom our ordinary method of procedure\u2014and what we have done most often,\nwith which, therefore, we are most familiar; our memory being mainly\naffected by the force of novelty and the force of routine\u2014the most\nunfamiliar, and the most familiar, incidents or objects.\n\nBut we remember impressions which have been made upon us by force of\nroutine, in a very different way to that in which we remember a single\ndeep impression. As regards this second class, which comprises far the\nmost numerous and important of the impressions with which our memory is\nstored, it is often only by the fact of our performance itself that we\nare able to recognise or show to others that we remember at all. We\noften do not remember how, or when, or where we acquired our knowledge.\nAll we remember is, that we did learn, and that at one time and another\nwe have done this or that very often.\n\nAs regards this second class of impressions we may observe:\u2014\n\n1. That as a general rule we remember only the individual features of\nthe last few repetitions of the act\u2014if, indeed, we remember this much.\nThe influence of preceding ones is to be found only in the general\naverage of the procedure, which is modified by them, but unconsciously to\nourselves. Take, for example, some celebrated singer, or pianoforte\nplayer, who has sung the same air, or performed the same sonata several\nhundreds or, it may be, thousands of times: of the details of individual\nperformances, he can probably call to mind none but those of the last few\ndays, yet there can be no question that his present performance is\naffected by, and modified by, all his previous ones; the care he has\nbestowed on these being the secret of his present proficiency.\n\nIn each performance (the performer being supposed in the same state of\nmental and bodily health), the tendency will be to repeat the immediately\npreceding performances more nearly than remoter ones. It is the common\ntendency of living beings to go on doing what they have been doing most\nrecently. The last habit is the strongest. Hence, if he took great\npains last time, he will play better now, and will take a like degree of\npains, and play better still next time, and so go on improving while life\nand vigour last. If, on the other hand, he took less pains last time, he\nwill play worse now, and be inclined to take little pains next time, and\nso gradually deteriorate. This, at least, is the common everyday\nexperience of mankind.\n\nSo with painters, actors, and professional men of every description;\nafter a little while the memory of many past performances strikes a sort\nof fused balance in the mind, which results in a general method of\nprocedure with but little conscious memory of even the latest\nperformances, and with none whatever of by far the greater number of the\nremoter ones.\n\nStill, it is noteworthy, that the memory of some even of these will\noccasionally assert itself, so far as we can see, arbitrarily, the reason\nwhy this or that occasion should still haunt us, when others like them\nare forgotten, depending on some cause too subtle for our powers of\nobservation.\n\nEven with such a simple matter as our daily dressing and undressing, we\nmay remember some few details of our yesterday\u2019s toilet, but we retain\nnothing but a general and fused recollection of the many thousand earlier\noccasions on which we have dressed, or gone to bed. Men invariably put\nthe same leg first into their trousers\u2014this is the survival of memory in\na residuum; but they cannot, till they actually put on a pair of\ntrousers, remember which leg they _do_ put in first; this is the rapid\nfading away of any small individual impression.\n\nThe seasons may serve as another illustration; we have a general\nrecollection of the kind of weather which is seasonable for any month in\na year; what flowers are due about what time, and whether the spring is\non the whole backward or early; but we cannot remember the weather on any\nparticular day a year ago, unless some unusual incident has impressed it\nupon our memory. We can remember, as a general rule, what kind of season\nit was, upon the whole, a year ago, or perhaps, even two years; but more\nthan this, we rarely remember, except in such cases as the winter of\n1854\u20131855, or the summer of 1868; the rest is all merged.\n\nWe observe, then, that as regards small and often repeated impressions,\nour tendency is to remember best, and in most detail, what we have been\ndoing most recently, and what in general has occurred most recently, but\nthat the earlier impressions though forgotten individually, are\nnevertheless, not wholly lost.\n\n2. When we have done anything very often, and have got into the habit of\ndoing it, we generally take the various steps in the same order; in many\ncases this seems to be a _sine qu\u00e2 non_ for our repetition of the action\nat all. Thus, there is probably no living man who could repeat the words\nof \u201cGod save the Queen\u201d backwards, without much hesitation and many\nmistakes; so the musician and the singer must perform their pieces in the\norder of the notes as written, or at any rate as they ordinarily perform\nthem; they cannot transpose bars or read them backwards, without being\nput out, nor would the audience recognise the impressions they have been\naccustomed to, unless these impressions are made in the accustomed order.\n\n3. If, when we have once got well into the habit of doing anything in a\ncertain way, some one shows us some other way of doing it, or some way\nwhich would in part modify our procedure, or if in our endeavours to\nimprove, we have hit upon some new idea which seems likely to help us,\nand thus we vary our course, on the next occasion we remember this idea\nby reason of its novelty, but if we try to repeat it, we often find the\nresiduum of our old memories pulling us so strongly into our old groove,\nthat we have the greatest difficulty in repeating our performance in the\nnew manner; there is a clashing of memories, a conflict, which if the\nidea is very new, and involves, so to speak, too sudden a cross\u2014too wide\na departure from our ordinary course\u2014will sometimes render the\nperformance monstrous, or baffle us altogether, the new memory failing to\nfuse harmoniously with the old. If the idea is not too widely different\nfrom our older ones, we can cross them with it, but with more or less\ndifficulty, as a general rule in proportion to the amount of variation.\nThe whole process of understanding a thing consists in this, and, so far\nas I can see at present, in this only.\n\nSometimes we repeat the new performance for a few times, in a way which\nshows that the fusion of memories is still in force; and then insensibly\nrevert to the old, in which case the memory of the new soon fades away,\nleaving a residuum too feeble to contend against that of our many earlier\nmemories of the same kind. If, however, the new way is obviously to our\nadvantage, we make an effort to retain it, and gradually getting into the\nhabit of using it, come to remember it by force of routine, as we\noriginally remembered it by force of novelty. Even as regards our own\ndiscoveries, we do not always succeed in remembering our most improved\nand most striking performances, so as to be able to repeat them at will\nimmediately: in any such performance we may have gone some way beyond our\nordinary powers, owing to some unconscious action of the mind. The\nsupreme effort has exhausted us, and we must rest on our oars a little,\nbefore we make further progress; or we may even fall back a little,\nbefore we make another leap in advance.\n\nIn this respect, almost every conceivable degree of variation is\nobservable, according to differences of character and circumstances.\nSometimes the new impression has to be made upon us many times from\nwithout, before the earlier strain of action is eliminated; in this case,\nthere will long remain a tendency to revert to the earlier habit.\nSometimes, after the impression has been once made, we repeat our old way\ntwo or three times, and then revert to the new, which gradually ousts the\nold; sometimes, on the other hand, a single impression, though involving\nconsiderable departure from our routine, makes its mark so deeply that we\nadopt the new at once, though not without difficulty, and repeat it in\nour next performance, and henceforward in all others; but those who vary\ntheir performance thus readily will show a tendency to vary subsequent\nperformances according as they receive fresh ideas from others, or reason\nthem out independently. They are men of genius.\n\nThis holds good concerning all actions which we do habitually, whether\nthey involve laborious acquirement or not. Thus, if we have varied our\nusual dinner in some way that leaves a favourable impression upon our\nminds, so that our dinner may, in the language of the horticulturist, be\nsaid to have \u201csported,\u201d our tendency will be to revert to this particular\ndinner either next day, or as soon as circumstances will allow, but it is\npossible that several hundred dinners may elapse before we can do so\nsuccessfully, or before our memory reverts to this particular dinner.\n\n4. As regards our habitual actions, however unconsciously we remember\nthem, we, nevertheless, remember them with far greater intensity than\nmany individual impressions or actions, it may be of much greater moment,\nthat have happened to us more recently. Thus, many a man who has\nfamiliarised himself, for example, with the odes of Horace, so as to have\nhad them at his fingers\u2019 ends as the result of many repetitions, will be\nable years hence to repeat a given ode, though unable to remember any\ncircumstance in connection with his having learnt it, and no less unable\nto remember when he repeated it last. A host of individual\ncircumstances, many of them not unimportant, will have dropped out of his\nmind, along with a mass of literature read but once or twice, and not\nimpressed upon the memory by several repetitions; but he returns to the\nwell-known ode with so little effort, that he would not know that he was\nremembering unless his reason told him so. The ode seems more like\nsomething born with him.\n\nWe observe, also, that people who have become imbecile, or whose memory\nis much impaired, yet frequently retain their power of recalling\nimpression which have been long ago repeatedly made upon them.\n\nIn such cases, people are sometimes seen to forget what happened last\nweek, yesterday, or an hour ago, without even the smallest power of\nrecovering their recollection; but the oft repeated earlier impression\nremains, though there may be no memory whatever of how it came to be\nimpressed so deeply. The phenomena of memory, therefore, are exactly\nlike those of consciousness and volition, in so far as that the\nconsciousness of recollection vanishes, when the power of recollection\nhas become intense. When we are aware that we are recollecting, and are\ntrying, perhaps hard, to recollect, it is a sign that we do not recollect\nutterly. When we remember utterly and intensely, there is no conscious\neffort of recollection; our recollection can only be recognised by\nourselves and others, through our performance itself, which testifies to\nthe existence of a memory, that we could not otherwise follow or detect.\n\n5. When circumstances have led us to change our habits of life\u2014as when\nthe university has succeeded school, or professional life the\nuniversity\u2014we get into many fresh ways, and leave many old ones. But on\nrevisiting the old scene, unless the lapse of time has been inordinately\ngreat, we experience a desire to revert to old habits. We say that old\nassociations crowd upon us. Let a Trinity man, after thirty years\nabsence from Cambridge, pace for five minutes in the cloister of\nNeville\u2019s Court, and listen to the echo of his footfall, as it licks up\nagainst the end of the cloister, or let an old Johnian stand wherever he\nlikes in the third Court of St. John\u2019s, in either case he will find the\nthirty years drop out of his life, as if they were half-an-hour; his life\nwill have rolled back upon itself, to the date when he was an\nundergraduate, and his instinct will be to do almost mechanically,\nwhatever it would have come most natural to him to do, when he was last\nthere at the same season of the year, and the same hour of the day; and\nit is plain this is due to similarity of environment, for if the place he\nrevisits be much changed, there will be little or no association.\n\nSo those who are accustomed at intervals to cross the Atlantic, get into\ncertain habits on board ship, different to their usual ones. It may be\nthat at home they never play whist; on board ship they do nothing else\nall the evening. At home they never touch spirits; on the voyage they\nregularly take a glass of something before they go to bed. They do not\nsmoke at home; here they are smoking all day. Once the voyage is at an\nend, they return without an effort to their usual habits, and do not feel\nany wish for cards, spirits, or tobacco. They do not remember yesterday,\nwhen they did want all these things; at least, not with such force as to\nbe influenced by it in their desires and actions; their true memory\u2014the\nmemory which makes them want, and do, reverts to the last occasion on\nwhich they were in circumstances like their present; they therefore want\nnow what they wanted then, and nothing more; but when the time comes for\nthem to go on shipboard again, no sooner do they smell the smell of the\nship, than their real memory reverts to the times when they were last at\nsea, and striking a balance of their recollections, they smoke, play\ncards, and drink whisky and water.\n\nWe observe it then as a matter of the commonest daily occurrence within\nour own experience, that memory does fade completely away, and recur with\nthe recurrence of surroundings like those which made any particular\nimpression in the first instance. We observe that there is hardly any\nlimit to the completeness and the length of time during which our memory\nmay remain in abeyance. A smell may remind an old man of eighty of some\nincident of his childhood, forgotten for nearly as many years as he has\nlived. In other words, we observe that when an impression has been\nrepeatedly made in a certain sequence on any living organism\u2014that\nimpression not having been prejudicial to the creature itself\u2014the\norganism will have a tendency, on reassuming the shape and conditions in\nwhich it was when the impression was last made, to remember the\nimpression, and therefore to do again now what it did then; all\nintermediate memories dropping clean out of mind, so far as they have any\neffect upon action.\n\n6. Finally, we should note the suddenness and apparent caprice with\nwhich memory will assert itself at odd times; we have been saying or\ndoing this or that, when suddenly a memory of something which happened to\nus, perhaps in infancy, comes into our head; nor can we in the least\nconnect this recollection with the subject of which we have just been\nthinking, though doubtless there has been a connection, too rapid and\nsubtle for our apprehension.\n\nThe foregoing phenomena of memory, so far as we can judge, would appear\nto be present themselves throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms.\nThis will be readily admitted as regards animals; as regards plants it\nmay be inferred from the fact that they generally go on doing what they\nhave been doing most lately, though accustomed to make certain changes at\ncertain points in their existence. When the time comes for these\nchanges, they appear to know it, and either bud forth into leaf or shed\ntheir leaves, as the case may be. If we keep a bulb in a paper bag it\nseems to remember having been a bulb before, until the time comes for it\nto put forth roots and grow. Then, if we supply it with earth and\nmoisture, it seems to know where it is, and to go on doing now whatever\nit did when it was last planted; but if we keep it in the bag too long,\nit knows that it ought, according to its last experience, to be treated\ndifferently, and shows plain symptoms of uneasiness; it is distracted by\nthe bag, which makes it remember its bulbhood, and also by the want of\nearth and water, without which associations its memory of its previous\ngrowth cannot be duly kindled. Its roots, therefore, which are most\naccustomed to earth and water, do not grow; but its leaves, which do not\nrequire contact with these things to jog their memory, make a more\ndecided effort at development\u2014a fact which would seem to go strongly in\nfavour of the functional independence of the parts of all but the very\nsimplest living organisms, if, indeed, more evidence were wanted in\nsupport of this.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\nWHAT WE SHOULD EXPECT TO FIND IF DIFFERENTIATIONS OF STRUCTURE AND\nINSTINCT ARE MAINLY DUE TO MEMORY.\n\n\nTO repeat briefly;\u2014we remember best our last few performances of any\ngiven kind, and our present performance is most likely to resemble one or\nother of these; we only remember our earlier performances by way of\nresiduum; nevertheless, at times, some older feature is liable to\nreappear.\n\nWe take our steps in the same order on each successive occasion, and are\nfor the most part incapable of changing that order.\n\nThe introduction of slightly new elements into our manner is attended\nwith benefit; the new can be fused with the old, and the monotony of our\naction is relieved. But if the new element is too foreign, we cannot\nfuse the old and new\u2014nature seeming equally to hate too wide a deviation\nfrom our ordinary practice, and no deviation at all. Or, in plain\nEnglish\u2014if any one gives us a new idea which is not too far ahead of us,\nsuch an idea is often of great service to us, and may give new life to\nour work\u2014in fact, we soon go back, unless we more or less frequently come\ninto contact with new ideas, and are capable of understanding and making\nuse of them; if; on the other hand, they are too new, and too little led\nup to, so that we find them too strange and hard to be able to understand\nthem and adopt them, then they put us out, with every degree of\ncompleteness\u2014from simply causing us to fail in this or that particular\npart, to rendering us incapable of even trying to do our work at all,\nfrom pure despair of succeeding.\n\nIt requires many repetitions to fix an impression firmly; but when it is\nfixed, we cease to have much recollection of the manner in which it came\nto be so, or of any single and particular recurrence.\n\nOur memory is mainly called into action by force of association and\nsimilarity in the surroundings. We want to go on doing what we did when\nwe were last as we are now, and we forget what we did in the meantime.\n\nThese rules, however, are liable to many exceptions; as for example, that\na single and apparently not very extraordinary occurrence may sometimes\nproduce a lasting impression, and be liable to return with sudden force\nat some distant time, and then to go on returning to us at intervals.\nSome incidents, in fact, we know not how nor why, dwell with us much\nlonger than others which were apparently quite as noteworthy or perhaps\nmore so.\n\nNow I submit that if the above observations are just, and if, also, the\noffspring, after having become a new and separate personality, yet\nretains so much of the old identity of which it was once indisputably\npart, that it remembers what it did when it was part of that identity as\nsoon as it finds itself in circumstances which are calculated to refresh\nits memory owing to their similarity to certain antecedent ones, then we\nshould expect to find:\u2014\n\nI. That offspring should, as a general rule, resemble its own most\nimmediate progenitors; that is to say, that it should remember best what\nit has been doing most recently. The memory being a fusion of its\nrecollections of what it did, both when it was its father and also when\nit was its mother, the offspring should have a very common tendency to\nresemble both parents, the one in some respects, and the other in others;\nbut it might also hardly less commonly show a more marked recollection of\nthe one history than of the other, thus more distinctly resembling one\nparent than the other. And this is what we observe to be the case. Not\nonly so far as that the offspring is almost invariably either male or\nfemale, and generally resembles rather the one parent than the other, but\nalso that in spite of such preponderance of one set of recollections, the\nsexual characters and instincts of the _opposite_ sex appear, whether in\nmale or female, though undeveloped and incapable of development except by\nabnormal treatment, such as has occasionally caused milk to be developed\nin the mammary glands of males; or by mutilation, or failure of sexual\ninstinct through age, upon which, male characteristics frequently appear\nin the females of any species.\n\nBrothers and sisters, each giving their own version of the same story,\nthough in different words, should resemble each other more closely than\nmore distant relations. This too we see.\n\nBut it should frequently happen that offspring should resemble its\npenultimate rather than its latest phase, and should thus be more like a\ngrand-parent than a parent; for we observe that we very often repeat a\nperformance in a manner resembling that of some earlier, but still\nrecent, repetition; rather than on the precise lines of our very last\nperformance. First-cousins may in this case resemble each other more\nclosely than brothers and sisters.\n\nMore especially, we should not expect very successful men to be fathers\nof particularly gifted children; for the best men are, as it were, the\nhappy thoughts and successes of the race\u2014nature\u2019s \u201cflukes,\u201d so to speak,\nin her onward progress. No creature can repeat at will, and immediately,\nits highest flight. It needs repose. The generations are the essays of\nany given race towards the highest ideal which it is as yet able to see\nahead of itself, and this, in the nature of things, cannot be very far;\nso that we should expect to see success followed by more or less failure,\nand failure by success\u2014a very successful creature being a _great_\n\u201cfluke.\u201d And this is what we find.\n\nIn its earlier stages the embryo should be simply conscious of a general\nmethod of procedure on the part of its forefathers, and should, by reason\nof long practice, compress tedious and complicated histories into a very\nnarrow compass, remembering no single performance in particular. For we\nobserve this in nature, both as regards the sleight-of-hand which\npractice gives to those who are thoroughly familiar with their business,\nand also as regards the fusion of remoter memories into a general\nresiduum.\n\nII. We should expect to find that the offspring, whether in its\nembryonic condition, or in any stage of development till it has reached\nmaturity, should adopt nearly the same order in going through all its\nvarious stages. There should be such slight variations as are\ninseparable from the repetition of any performance by a living being (as\ncontrasted with a machine), but no more. And this is what actually\nhappens. A man may cut his wisdom-teeth a little later than he gets his\nbeard and whiskers, or a little earlier; but on the whole, he adheres to\nhis usual order, and is completely set off his balance, and upset in his\nperformance, if that order be interfered with suddenly. It is, however,\nlikely that gradual modifications of order have been made and then\nadhered to.\n\nAfter any animal has reached the period at which it ordinarily begins to\ncontinue its race, we should expect that it should show little further\npower of development, or, at any rate, that few great changes of\nstructure or fresh features should appear; for we cannot suppose\noffspring to remember anything that happens to the parent subsequently to\nthe parent\u2019s ceasing to contain the offspring within itself; from the\naverage age, therefore, of reproduction, offspring would cease to have\nany further experience on which to fall back, and would thus continue to\nmake the best use of what it already knew, till memory failing either in\none part or another, the organism would begin to decay.\n\nTo this cause must be referred the phenomena of old age, which\ninteresting subject I am unable to pursue within the limits of this\nvolume.\n\nThose creatures who are longest in reaching maturity might be expected\nalso to be the longest lived; I am not certain, however, how far what is\ncalled alternate generation militates against this view, but I do not\nthink it does so seriously.\n\nLateness of marriage, provided the constitution of the individuals\nmarrying is in no respect impaired, should also tend to longevity.\n\nI believe that all the above will be found sufficiently well supported by\nfacts. If so, when we feel that we are getting old we should try and\ngive our cells such treatment as they will find it most easy to\nunderstand, through their experience of their own individual life, which,\nhowever, can only guide them inferentially, and to a very small extent;\nand throughout life we should remember the important bearing which memory\nhas upon health, and both occasionally cross the memories of our\ncomponent cells with slightly new experiences, and be careful not to put\nthem either suddenly or for long together into conditions which they will\nnot be able to understand. Nothing is so likely to make our cells forget\nthemselves, as neglect of one or other of these considerations. They\nwill either fail to recognise themselves completely, in which case we\nshall die; or they will go on strike, more or less seriously as the case\nmay be, or perhaps, rather, they will try and remember their usual\ncourse, and fail; they will therefore try some other, and will probably\nmake a mess of it, as people generally do when they try to do things\nwhich they do not understand, unless indeed they have very exceptional\ncapacity.\n\nIt also follows that when we are ill, our cells being in such or such a\nstate of mind, and inclined to hold a corresponding opinion with more or\nless unreasoning violence, should not be puzzled more than they are\npuzzled already, by being contradicted too suddenly; for they will not be\nin a frame of mind which can understand the position of an open opponent:\nthey should therefore either be let alone, if possible, without notice\nother than dignified silence, till their spleen is over, and till they\nhave remembered themselves; or they should be reasoned with as by one who\nagrees with them, and who is anxious to see things as far as possible\nfrom their own point of view. And this is how experience teaches that we\nmust deal with monomaniacs, whom we simply infuriate by contradiction,\nbut whose delusion we can sometimes persuade to hang itself if we but\ngive it sufficient rope. All which has its bearing upon politics, too,\nat much sacrifice, it may be, of political principles, but a politician\nwho cannot see principles where principle-mongers fail to see them, is a\ndangerous person.\n\nI may say, in passing, that the reason why a small wound heals, and\nleaves no scar, while a larger one leaves a mark which is more or less\npermanent, may be looked for in the fact that when the wound is only\nsmall, the damaged cells are snubbed, so to speak, by the vast majority\nof the unhurt cells in their own neighbourhood. When the wound is more\nserious they can stick to it, and bear each other out that they were\nhurt.\n\nIII. We should expect to find a predominance of sexual over asexual\ngeneration, in the arrangements of nature for continuing her various\nspecies, inasmuch as two heads are better than one, and a _locus\np\u0153nitenti\u00e6_ is thus given to the embryo\u2014an opportunity of correcting the\nexperience of one parent by that of the other. And this is what the more\nintelligent embryos may be supposed to do; for there would seem little\nreason to doubt that there are clever embryos and stupid embryos, with\nbetter or worse memories, as the case may be, of how they dealt with\ntheir protoplasm before, and better or worse able to see how they can do\nbetter now; and that embryos differ as widely in intellectual and moral\ncapacity, and in a general sense of the fitness of things, and of what\nwill look well into the bargain, as those larger embryos\u2014to wit,\nchildren\u2014do. Indeed it would seem probable that all our mental powers\nmust go through a quasi-embryological condition, much as the power of\nkeeping, and wisely spending, money must do so, and that all the\nqualities of human thought and character are to be found in the embryo.\n\nThose who have observed at what an early age differences of intellect and\ntemper show themselves in the young, for example, of cats and dogs, will\nfind it difficult to doubt that from the very moment of impregnation, and\nonward, there has been a corresponding difference in the embryo\u2014and that\nof six unborn puppies, one, we will say, has been throughout the whole\nprocess of development more sensible and better looking\u2014a nicer embryo,\nin fact\u2014than the others.\n\nIV. We should expect to find that all species, whether of plants or\nanimals, are occasionally benefited by a cross; but we should also expect\nthat a cross should have a tendency to introduce a disturbing element, if\nit be too wide, inasmuch as the offspring would be pulled hither and\nthither by two conflicting memories or advices, much as though a number\nof people speaking at once were without previous warning to advise an\nunhappy performer to vary his ordinary performance\u2014one set of people\ntelling him he has always hitherto done thus, and the other saying no\nless loudly that he did it thus;\u2014and he were suddenly to become convinced\nthat they each spoke the truth. In such a case he will either completely\nbreak down, if the advice be too conflicting, or if it be less\nconflicting, he may yet be so exhausted by the one supreme effort of\nfusing these experiences that he will never be able to perform again; or\nif the conflict of experience be not great enough to produce such a\npermanent effect as this, it will yet, if it be at all serious, probably\ndamage his performances on their next several occasions, through his\ninability to fuse the experiences into a harmonious whole, or, in other\nwords, to understand the ideas which are prescribed to him; for to fuse\nis only to understand.\n\nAnd this is absolutely what we find in fact. Mr. Darwin writes\nconcerning hybrids and first crosses:\u2014\u201cThe male element may reach the\nfemale element, but be incapable of causing an embryo to be developed, as\nseems to have been the case with some of Thuret\u2019s experiments on Fuci.\nNo explanation can be given of these facts any more than why certain\ntrees cannot be grafted on others.\u201d\n\nI submit that what I have written above supplies a very fair _prim\u00e2\nfacie_ explanation.\n\nMr. Darwin continues:\u2014\n\n\u201cLastly, an embryo may be developed, and then perish at an early period.\nThis latter alternative has not been sufficiently attended to; but I\nbelieve, from observations communicated to me by Mr. Hewitt, who has had\ngreat experience in hybridising pheasants and fowls, that the early death\nof the embryo is a very frequent cause of sterility in first crosses.\nMr. Salter has recently given the results of an examination of about five\nhundred eggs produced from various crosses between three species of\nGallus and their hybrids; the majority of these eggs had been fertilised;\nand in the majority of the fertilised eggs, the embryos had either been\npartially developed, and had then perished, or had become nearly mature,\nbut the young chickens had been unable to break through the shell. Of\nthe chickens which were born more than four-fifths died within the first\nfew days, or at latest weeks, \u2018without any obvious cause, apparently from\nmere inability to live,\u2019 so that from the five hundred eggs only twelve\nchickens were reared\u201d (\u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d 249, ed. 1876).\n\nNo wonder the poor creatures died, distracted as they were by the\ninternal tumult of conflicting memories. But they must have suffered\ngreatly; and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals may\nperhaps think it worth while to keep an eye even on the embryos of\nhybrids and first crosses. Five hundred creatures puzzled to death is\nnot a pleasant subject for contemplation. Ten or a dozen should, I\nthink, be sufficient for the future.\n\nAs regards plants, we read:\u2014\n\n\u201cHybridised embryos probably often perish in like manner . . . of which\nfact Max Wichura has given some striking cases with hybrid willows . . .\nIt may be here worth noticing, that in some cases of parthenogenesis, the\nembryos within the eggs of silk moths, which have not been fertilised,\npass through their early stages of development, and then perish like the\nembryos produced by a cross between distinct species\u201d (_Ibid_).\n\nThis last fact would at first sight seem to make against me, but we must\nconsider that the presence of a double memory, provided it be not too\nconflicting, would be a part of the experience of the silk moth\u2019s egg,\nwhich might be then as fatally puzzled by the monotony of a single memory\nas it would be by two memories which were not sufficiently like each\nother. So that failure here must be referred to the utter absence of\nthat little internal stimulant of slightly conflicting memory which the\ncreature has always hitherto experienced, and without which it fails to\nrecognise itself. In either case, then, whether with hybrids or in cases\nof parthenogenesis, the early death of the embryo is due to inability to\nrecollect, owing to a fault in the chain of associated ideas. All the\nfacts here given are an excellent illustration of the principle,\nelsewhere insisted upon by Mr. Darwin, that _any_ great and sudden change\nof surroundings has a tendency to induce sterility; on which head he\nwrites (\u201cPlants and Animals under Domestication,\u201d vol. ii. p. 143, ed.\n1875):\u2014\n\n\u201cIt would appear that any change in the habits of life, whatever their\nhabits may be, if great enough, tends to affect in an inexplicable manner\nthe powers of reproduction.\u201d\n\nAnd again on the next page:\u2014\n\n\u201cFinally, we must conclude, limited though the conclusion is, that\nchanged conditions of life have an especial power of acting injuriously\non the reproductive system. The whole case is quite peculiar, for these\norgans, though not diseased, are thus rendered incapable of performing\ntheir proper functions, or perform them imperfectly.\u201d\n\nOne is inclined to doubt whether the blame may not rest with the\ninability on the part of the creature reproduced to recognise the new\nsurroundings, and hence with its failing to know itself. And this seems\nto be in some measure supported\u2014but not in such a manner as I can hold to\nbe quite satisfactory\u2014by the continuation of the passage in the \u201cOrigin\nof Species,\u201d from which I have just been quoting\u2014for Mr. Darwin goes on\nto say:\u2014\n\n\u201cHybrids, however, are differently circumstanced before and after birth.\nWhen born, and living in a country where their parents live, they are\ngenerally placed under suitable conditions of life. But a hybrid\npartakes of only half of the nature and condition of its mother; it may\ntherefore before birth, as long as it is nourished within its mother\u2019s\nwomb, or within the egg or seed produced by its mother, be exposed to\nconditions in some degree unsuitable, and consequently be liable to\nperish at an early period . . . \u201d After which, however, the conclusion\narrived at is, that, \u201cafter all, the cause more probably lies in some\nimperfection in the original act of impregnation, causing the embryo to\nbe imperfectly developed rather than in the conditions to which it is\nsubsequently exposed.\u201d A conclusion which I am not prepared to accept.\n\nReturning to my second alternative, that is to say, to the case of\nhybrids which are born well developed and healthy, but nevertheless\nperfectly sterile, it is less obvious why, having succeeded in\nunderstanding the conflicting memories of their parents, they should fail\nto produce offspring; but I do not think the reader will feel surprised\nthat this should be the case. The following anecdote, true or false, may\nnot be out of place here:\u2014\n\n\u201cPlutarch tells us of a magpie, belonging to a barber at Rome, which\ncould imitate to a nicety almost every word it heard. Some trumpets\nhappened one day to be sounded before the shop, and for a day or two\nafterwards the magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive and melancholy.\nAll who knew it were greatly surprised at its silence; and it was\nsupposed that the sound of the trumpets had so stunned it as to deprive\nit at once of both voice and hearing. It soon appeared, however, that\nthis was far from being the case; for, says Plutarch, the bird had been\nall the time occupied in profound meditation, studying how to imitate the\nsound of the trumpets; and when at last master of it, the magpie, to the\nastonishment of all its friends, suddenly broke its long silence by a\nperfect imitation of the flourish of trumpets it had heard, observing\nwith the greatest exactness all the repetitions, stops, and changes.\n_The acquisition of this lesson had_, _however_, _exhausted the whole of\nthe magpie\u2019s stock of intellect_, _for it made it forget everything it\nhad learned before_\u201d (\u201cPercy Anecdotes,\u201d Instinct, p. 166).\n\nOr, perhaps, more seriously, the memory of every impregnate ovum from\nwhich every ancestor of a mule, for example, has sprung, has reverted to\na very long period of time during which its forefathers have been\ncreatures like that which it is itself now going to become: thus, the\nimpregnate ovum from which the mule\u2019s father was developed remembered\nnothing but horse memories; but it felt its faith in these supported by\nthe recollection of a _vast number_ of previous generations, in which it\nwas, to all intents and purposes, what it now is. In like manner, the\nimpregnate ovum from which the mule\u2019s mother was developed would be\nbacked by the assurance that it had done what it is going to do now a\nhundred thousand times already. All would thus be plain sailing. A\nhorse and a donkey would result. These two are brought together; an\nimpregnate ovum is produced which finds an unusual conflict of memory\nbetween the two lines of its ancestors, nevertheless, being accustomed to\n_some_ conflict, it manages to get over the difficulty, _as on either\nside it finds itself backed by a very long series of sufficiently steady\nmemory_. A mule results\u2014a creature so distinctly different from either\nhorse or donkey, that reproduction is baffled, owing to the creature\u2019s\nhaving nothing but its own knowledge of itself to fall back upon, behind\nwhich there comes an immediate dislocation, or fault of memory, which is\nsufficient to bar identity, and hence reproduction, by rendering too\nsevere an appeal to reason necessary\u2014for no creature can reproduce itself\non the shallow foundation which reason can alone give. Ordinarily,\ntherefore, the hybrid, or the spermatozoon or ovum, which it may throw\noff (as the case may be), finds one single experience too small to give\nit the necessary faith, on the strength of which even to try to reproduce\nitself. In other cases the hybrid itself has failed to be developed; in\nothers the hybrid, or first cross, is almost fertile; in others it is\nfertile, but produces depraved issue. The result will vary with the\ncapacities of the creatures crossed, and the amount of conflict between\ntheir several experiences.\n\nThe above view would remove all difficulties out of the way of evolution,\nin so far as the sterility of hybrids is concerned. For it would thus\nappear that this sterility has nothing to do with any supposed immutable\nor fixed limits of species, but results simply from the same principle\nwhich prevents old friends, no matter how intimate in youth, from\nreturning to their old intimacy after a lapse of years, during which they\nhave been subjected to widely different influences, inasmuch as they will\neach have contracted new habits, and have got into new ways, which they\ndo not like now to alter.\n\nWe should expect that our domesticated plants and animals should vary\nmost, inasmuch as these have been subjected to changed conditions which\nwould disturb the memory, and, breaking the chain of recollection,\nthrough failure of some one or other of the associated ideas, would thus\ndirectly and most markedly affect the reproductive system. Every reader\nof Mr. Darwin will know that this is what actually happens, and also that\nwhen once a plant or animal begins to vary, it will probably vary a good\ndeal further; which, again, is what we should expect\u2014the disturbance of\nthe memory introducing a fresh factor of disturbance, which has to be\ndealt with by the offspring as it best may. Mr. Darwin writes: \u201cAll our\ndomesticated productions, with the rarest exceptions, vary far more than\nnatural species\u201d (\u201cPlants and Animals,\u201d &c., vol. ii. p. 241, ed. 1875).\n\nOn my third supposition, _i.e._, when the difference between parents has\nnot been great enough to baffle reproduction on the part of the first\ncross, but when the histories of the father and mother have been,\nnevertheless, widely different\u2014as in the case of Europeans and Indians\u2014we\nshould expect to have a race of offspring who should seem to be quite\nclear only about those points, on which their progenitors on both sides\nwere in accord before the manifold divergencies in their experiences\ncommenced; that is to say, the offspring should show a tendency to revert\nto an early savage condition.\n\nThat this indeed occurs may be seen from Mr. Darwin\u2019s \u201cPlants and Animals\nunder Domestication\u201d (vol. ii. p. 21, ed. 1875), where we find that\ntravellers in all parts of the world have frequently remarked \u201c_on the\ndegraded state and savage condition of crossed races of man_.\u201d A few\nlines lower down Mr. Darwin tells us that he was himself \u201cstruck with the\nfact that, in South America, men of complicated descent between Negroes,\nIndians, and Spaniards seldom had, whatever the cause might be, a good\nexpression.\u201d \u201cLivingstone\u201d (continues Mr. Darwin) \u201cremarks, \u2018It is\nunaccountable why half-castes are so much more cruel than the Portuguese,\nbut such is undoubtedly the case.\u2019 An inhabitant remarked to\nLivingstone, \u2018God made white men, and God made black men, but the devil\nmade half-castes.\u2019\u201d A little further on Mr. Darwin says that we may\n\u201cperhaps infer that the degraded state of so many half-castes _is in part\ndue to reversion to a primitive and savage condition_, _induced by the\nact of crossing_, even if mainly due to the unfavourable moral conditions\nunder which they are generally reared.\u201d Why the crossing should produce\nthis particular tendency would seem to be intelligible enough, if the\nfashion and instincts of offspring are, in any case, nothing but the\nmemories of its past existences; but it would hardly seem to be so upon\nany of the theories now generally accepted; as, indeed, is very readily\nadmitted by Mr. Darwin himself, who even, as regards purely-bred animals\nand plants, remarks that \u201cwe are quite unable to assign any proximate\ncause\u201d for their tendency to at times reassume long lost characters.\n\nIf the reader will follow for himself the remaining phenomena of\nreversion, he will, I believe, find them all explicable on the theory\nthat they are due to memory of past experiences fused, and modified\u2014at\ntimes specifically and definitely\u2014by changed conditions. There is,\nhowever, one apparently very important phenomenon which I do not at this\nmoment see how to connect with memory, namely, the tendency on the part\nof offspring to revert to an earlier impregnation. Mr. Darwin\u2019s\n\u201cProvisional Theory of Pangenesis\u201d seemed to afford a satisfactory\nexplanation of this; but the connection with memory was not immediately\napparent. I think it likely, however, that this difficulty will vanish\non further consideration, so I will not do more than call attention to it\nhere.\n\nThe instincts of certain neuter insects hardly bear upon reversion, but\nwill be dealt with at some length in Chapter XII.\n\nV. We should expect to find, as was insisted on in the preceding section\nin reference to the sterility of hybrids, that it required many, or at\nany rate several, generations of changed habits before a sufficiently\ndeep impression could be made upon the living being (who must be regarded\nalways as one person in his whole line of ascent or descent) for it to be\nunconsciously remembered by him, when making himself anew in any\nsucceeding generation, and thus to make him modify his method of\nprocedure during his next embryological development. Nevertheless, we\nshould expect to find that sometimes a very deep single impression made\nupon a living organism, should be remembered by it, even when it is next\nin an embryonic condition.\n\nThat this is so, we find from Mr. Darwin, who writes (\u201cPlants and Animals\nunder Domestication,\u201d vol. ii. p. 57, ed. 1875)\u2014\u201cThere is ample evidence\nthat the effect of mutilations and of accidents, especially, or perhaps\nexclusively, when followed by disease\u201d (which would certainly intensify\nthe impression made), \u201care occasionally inherited. There can be no doubt\nthat the evil effects of the long continued exposure of the parent to\ninjurious conditions are sometimes transmitted to the offspring.\u201d As\nregards impressions of a less striking character, it is so universally\nadmitted that they are not observed to be repeated in what is called the\noffspring, until they have been confirmed in what is called the parent,\nfor several generations, but that after several generations, more or\nfewer as the case may be, they often are transmitted\u2014that it seems\nunnecessary to say more upon the matter. Perhaps, however, the following\npassage from Mr. Darwin may be admitted as conclusive:\u2014\n\n\u201cThat they\u201d (acquired actions) \u201care inherited, we see with horses in\ncertain transmitted paces, such as cantering and ambling, which are not\nnatural to them\u2014in the pointing of young pointers, and the setting of\nyoung setters\u2014in the peculiar manner of flight of certain breeds of the\npigeon, &c. We have analogous cases with mankind in the inheritance of\ntricks or unusual gestures.\u201d . . . (\u201cExpression of the Emotions,\u201d p. 29).\n\nIn another place Mr. Darwin writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cHow again can we explain _the inherited effects_ of the use or disuse of\nparticular organs? The domesticated duck flies less and walks more than\nthe wild duck, and its limb bones have become diminished and increased in\na corresponding manner in comparison with those of the wild duck. A\nhorse is trained to certain paces, and the colt inherits similar\nconsensual movements. The domesticated rabbit becomes tame from close\nconfinement; the dog intelligent from associating with man; the retriever\nis taught to fetch and carry; and these mental endowments and bodily\npowers are all inherited\u201d (\u201cPlants and Animals,\u201d &c., vol. ii. p. 367,\ned. 1875).\n\n\u201cNothing,\u201d he continues, \u201cin the whole circuit of physiology is more\nwonderful. How can the use or disuse of a particular limb, or of the\nbrain, affect a small aggregate of reproductive cells, seated in a\ndistant part of the body in such a manner that the being developed from\nthese cells inherits the character of one or both parents? Even an\nimperfect answer to this question would be satisfactory\u201d (\u201cPlants and\nAnimals,\u201d &c. vol. ii. p. 367, ed. 1875).\n\nWith such an imperfect answer will I attempt to satisfy the reader, as to\nsay that there appears to be that kind of continuity of existence and\nsameness of personality, between parents and offspring, which would lead\nus to expect that the impressions made upon the parent should be\nepitomised in the offspring, when they have been or have become important\nenough, through repetition in the history of several so-called existences\nto have earned a place in that smaller edition, which is issued from\ngeneration to generation; or, in other words, when they have been made so\ndeeply, either at one blow or through many, that the offspring can\nremember them. In practice we observe this to be the case\u2014so that the\nanswer lies in the assertion that offspring and parent, being in one\nsense but the same individual, there is no great wonder that, in one\nsense, the first should remember what had happened to the latter; and\nthat too, much in the same way as the individual remembers the events in\nthe earlier history of what he calls his own lifetime, but condensed, and\npruned of detail, and remembered as by one who has had a host of other\nmatters to attend to in the interim.\n\nIt is thus easy to understand why such a rite as circumcision, though\npractised during many ages, should have produced little, if any,\nmodification tending to make circumcision unnecessary. On the view here\nsupported such modification would be more surprising than not, for unless\nthe impression made upon the parent was of a grave character\u2014and probably\nunless also aggravated by subsequent confusion of memories in the cells\nsurrounding the part originally impressed\u2014the parent himself would not be\nsufficiently impressed to prevent him from reproducing himself, as he had\nalready done upon an infinite number of past occasions. The child,\ntherefore, in the womb would do what the father in the womb had done\nbefore him, nor should any trace of memory concerning circumcision be\nexpected till the eighth day after birth, when, but for the fact that the\nimpression in this case is forgotten almost as soon as made, some slight\npresentiment of coming discomfort might, after a large number of\ngenerations, perhaps be looked for as a general rule. It would not,\nhowever, be surprising, that the effect of circumcision should be\noccasionally inherited, and it would appear as though this was sometimes\nactually the case.\n\nThe question should turn upon whether the disuse of an organ has arisen:\u2014\n\n1. From an internal desire on the part of the creature disusing it, to\nbe quit of an organ which it finds troublesome.\n\n2. From changed conditions and habits which render the organ no longer\nnecessary, or which lead the creature to lay greater stress on certain\nother organs or modifications.\n\n3. From the wish of others outside itself; the effect produced in this\ncase being perhaps neither very good nor very bad for the individual, and\nresulting in no grave impression upon the organism as a whole.\n\n4. From a single deep impression on a parent, affecting both himself as\na whole, and gravely confusing the memories of the cells to be\nreproduced, or his memories in respect of those cells\u2014according as one\nadopts Pangenesis and supposes a memory to \u201crun\u201d each gemmule, or as one\nsupposes one memory to \u201crun\u201d the whole impregnate ovum\u2014a compromise\nbetween these two views being nevertheless perhaps possible, inasmuch as\nthe combined memories of all the cells may possibly _be_ the memory which\n\u201cruns\u201d the impregnate ovum, just as we _are_ ourselves the combination of\nall our cells, each one of which is both autonomous, and also takes its\nshare in the central government. But within the limits of this volume it\nis absolutely impossible for me to go into this question.\n\nIn the first case\u2014under which some instances which belong more strictly\nto the fourth would sometimes, but rarely, come\u2014the organ should soon go,\nand sooner or later leave no rudiment, though still perhaps to be found\ncrossing the life of the embryo, and then disappearing.\n\nIn the second it should go more slowly, and leave, it may be, a\nrudimentary structure.\n\nIn the third it should show little or no sign of natural decrease for a\nvery long time.\n\nIn the fourth there may be absolute and total sterility, or sterility in\nregard to the particular organ, or a scar which shall show that the\nmemory of the wound and of each step in the process of healing has been\nremembered; or there may be simply such disturbance in the reproduced\norgan as shall show a confused recollection of injury. There may be\ninfinite gradations between the first and last of these possibilities.\n\nI think that the facts, as given by Mr. Darwin (\u201cPlants and Animals,\u201d\n&c., vol. i. pp. 466\u2013472, ed. 1875), will bear out the above to the\nsatisfaction of the reader. I can, however, only quote the following\npassage:\u2014\n\n\u201c . . . Brown S\u00e9quard has bred during thirty years many thousand\nguinea-pigs, . . . nor has he ever seen a guinea-pig born without toes\nwhich was not the offspring of parents _which had gnawed off their own\ntoes_, owing to the sciatic nerve having been divided. Of this fact\nthirteen instances were carefully recorded, and a greater number were\nseen; yet Brown S\u00e9quard speaks of such cases as among the rarer forms of\ninheritance. It is a still more interesting fact\u2014\u2018that the sciatic nerve\nin the congenitally toeless animal has inherited the power of passing\nthrough _all the different morbid states_ which have occurred in one of\nits parents _from the time of division_ till after its reunion with the\nperipheric end. It is not therefore the power of simply performing an\naction which is inherited, but the power of performing a whole series of\nactions in a certain order.\u2019\u201d\n\nI feel inclined to say it is not merely the original wound that is\nremembered, but the whole process of cure which is now accordingly\nrepeated. Brown S\u00e9quard concludes, as Mr. Darwin tells us, \u201cthat what is\ntransmitted is the morbid state of the nervous system,\u201d due to the\noperation performed on the parents.\n\nA little lower down Mr. Darwin writes that Professor Rolleston has given\nhim two cases\u2014\u201cnamely, of two men, one of whom had his knee, and the\nother his cheek, severely cut, and both had children born with exactly\nthe same spot marked or scarred.\u201d\n\nVI. When, however, an impression has once reached transmission\npoint\u2014whether it be of the nature of a sudden striking thought, which\nmakes its mark deeply then and there, or whether it be the result of\nsmaller impressions repeated until the nail, so to speak, has been driven\nhome\u2014we should expect that it should be remembered by the offspring as\nsomething which he has done all his life, and which he has therefore no\nlonger any occasion to learn; he will act, therefore, as people say,\n_instinctively_. No matter how complex and difficult the process, if the\nparents have done it sufficiently often (that is to say, for a sufficient\nnumber of generations), the offspring will remember the fact when\nassociation wakens the memory; it will need no instruction, and\u2014unless\nwhen it has been taught to look for it during many generations\u2014will\nexpect none. This may be seen in the case of the humming-bird sphinx\nmoth, which, as Mr. Darwin writes, \u201cshortly after its emergence from the\ncocoon, as shown by the bloom on its unruffled scales, may be seen poised\nstationary in the air with its long hair-like proboscis uncurled, and\ninserted into the minute orifices of flowers; _and no one I believe has\never seen_ this moth learning to perform its difficult task, which\nrequires such unerring aim\u201d (\u201cExpression of the Emotions,\u201d p. 30).\n\nAnd, indeed, when we consider that after a time the most complex and\ndifficult actions come to be performed by man without the least effort or\nconsciousness\u2014that offspring cannot be considered as anything but a\ncontinuation of the parent life, whose past habits and experiences it\nepitomises when they have been sufficiently often repeated to produce a\nlasting impression\u2014that consciousness of memory vanishes on the memory\u2019s\nbecoming intense, as completely as the consciousness of complex and\ndifficult movements vanishes as soon as they have been sufficiently\npractised\u2014and finally, that the real presence of memory is testified\nrather by performance of the repeated action on recurrence of like\nsurroundings, than by consciousness of recollecting on the part of the\nindividual\u2014so that not only should there be no reasonable bar to our\nattributing the whole range of the more complex instinctive actions, from\nfirst to last, to memory pure and simple, no matter how marvellous they\nmay be, but rather that there is so much to compel us to do so, that we\nfind it difficult to conceive how any other view can have been ever\ntaken\u2014when, I say, we consider all these facts, we should rather feel\nsurprise that the hawk and sparrow still teach their offspring to fly,\nthan that the humming-bird sphinx moth should need no teacher.\n\nThe phenomena, then, which we observe are exactly those which we should\nexpect to find.\n\nVII. We should also expect that the memory of animals, as regards their\nearlier existences, was solely stimulated by association. For we find,\nfrom Prof. Bain, that \u201cactions, sensations, and states of feeling\noccurring together, or in close succession, tend to grow together or\ncohere in such a way that when any one of them is afterwards presented to\nthe mind, the others are apt to be brought up in idea\u201d (\u201cThe Senses and\nthe Intellect,\u201d 2d ed. 1864, p. 332). And Prof. Huxley says (\u201cElementary\nLessons in Physiology,\u201d 5th ed. 1872, p. 306), \u201cIt may be laid down as a\nrule that if any two mental states be called up together, or in\nsuccession, with due frequency and vividness, the subsequent production\nof the one of them will suffice to call up the other, _and that whether\nwe desire it or not_.\u201d I would go one step further, and would say not\nonly whether we desire it or not, but _whether we are aware that the idea\nhas ever before been called up in our minds or not_. I should say that I\nhave quoted both the above passages from Mr. Darwin\u2019s \u201cExpression of the\nEmotions\u201d (p. 30, ed. 1872).\n\nWe should, therefore, expect that when the offspring found itself in the\npresence of objects which had called up such and such ideas for a\nsufficient number of generations, that is to say, \u201cwith due frequency and\nvividness\u201d\u2014it being of the same age as its parents were, and generally in\nlike case as when the ideas were called up in the minds of the\nparents\u2014the same ideas should also be called up in the minds of the\noffspring \u201c_whether they desire it or not_;\u201d and, I would say also,\n\u201cwhether they recognise the ideas as having ever before been present to\nthem or not.\u201d\n\nI think we might also expect that no other force, save that of\nassociation, should have power to kindle, so to speak, into the flame of\naction the atomic spark of memory, which we can alone suppose to be\ntransmitted from one generation to another.\n\nThat both plants and animals do as we should expect of them in this\nrespect is plain, not only from the performance of the most intricate and\ndifficult actions\u2014difficult both physically and intellectually\u2014at an age,\nand under circumstances which preclude all possibility of what we call\ninstruction, but from the fact that deviations from the parental\ninstinct, or rather the recurrence of a memory, unless in connection with\nthe accustomed train of associations, is of comparatively rare\noccurrence; the result, commonly, of some one of the many memories about\nwhich we know no more than we do of the memory which enables a cat to\nfind her way home after a hundred-mile journey by train, and shut up in a\nhamper, or, perhaps even more commonly, of abnormal treatment.\n\nVIII. If, then, memory depends on association, we should expect two\ncorresponding phenomena in the case of plants and animals\u2014namely, that\nthey should show a tendency to resume feral habits on being turned wild\nafter several generations of domestication, and also that peculiarities\nshould tend to show themselves at a corresponding age in the offspring\nand in the parents. As regards the tendency to resume feral habits, Mr.\nDarwin, though apparently of opinion that the tendency to do this has\nbeen much exaggerated, yet does not doubt that such a tendency exists, as\nshown by well authenticated instances. He writes: \u201cIt has been\nrepeatedly asserted in the most positive manner by various authors that\nferal animals and plants invariably return to their primitive specific\ntype.\u201d\n\nThis shows, at any rate, that there is a considerable opinion to this\neffect among observers generally.\n\nHe continues: \u201cIt is curious on what little evidence this belief rests.\nMany of our domesticated animals could not subsist in a wild state,\u201d\u2014so\nthat there is no knowing whether they would or would not revert. \u201cIn\nseveral cases we do not know the aboriginal parent species, and cannot\ntell whether or not there has been any close degree of reversion.\u201d So\nthat here, too, there is at any rate no evidence _against_ the tendency;\nthe conclusion, however, is that, notwithstanding the deficiency of\npositive evidence to warrant the general belief as to the force of the\ntendency, yet \u201cthe simple fact of animals and plants becoming feral does\ncause some tendency to revert to the primitive state,\u201d and he tells us\nthat \u201cwhen variously-coloured tame rabbits are turned out in Europe, they\ngenerally re-acquire the colouring of the wild animal;\u201d \u201cthere can be no\ndoubt,\u201d he says, \u201cthat this really does occur,\u201d though he seems inclined\nto account for it by the fact that oddly-coloured and conspicuous animals\nwould suffer much from beasts of prey and from being easily shot. \u201cThe\nbest known case of reversion:\u201d he continues, \u201cand that on which the\nwidely-spread belief in its universality apparently rests, is that of\npigs. These animals have run wild in the West Indies, South America, and\nthe Falkland Islands, and have everywhere re-acquired the dark colour,\nthe thick bristles, and great tusks of the wild boar; and the young have\nre-acquired longitudinal stripes.\u201d And on page 22 of \u201cPlants and Animals\nunder Domestication\u201d (vol. ii. ed. 1875) we find that \u201cthe re-appearance\nof coloured, longitudinal stripes on young feral pigs cannot be\nattributed to the direct action of external conditions. In this case,\nand in many others, we can only say that any change in the habits of life\napparently favours a tendency, inherent or latent, in the species to\nreturn to the primitive state.\u201d On which one cannot but remark that\nthough any change may favour such tendency, yet the return to original\nhabits and surroundings appears to do so in a way so marked as not to be\nreadily referable to any other cause than that of association and\nmemory\u2014the creature, in fact, having got into its old groove, remembers\nit, and takes to all its old ways.\n\nAs regards the tendency to inherit changes (whether embryonic, or during\npost-natal development as ordinarily observed in any species), or\npeculiarities of habit or form which do not partake of the nature of\ndisease, it must be sufficient to refer the reader to Mr. Darwin\u2019s\nremarks upon this subject (\u201cPlants and Animals Under Domestication,\u201d vol.\nii. pp. 51\u201357, ed. 1875). The existence of the tendency is not likely to\nbe denied. The instances given by Mr. Darwin are strictly to the point\nas regards all ordinary developmental and metamorphic changes, and even\nas regards transmitted acquired actions, and tricks acquired before the\ntime when the offspring has issued from the body of the parent, or on an\naverage of many generations does so; but it cannot for a moment be\nsupposed that the offspring knows by inheritance anything about what\nhappens to the parent subsequently to the offspring\u2019s being born. Hence\nthe appearance of diseases in the offspring, at comparatively late\nperiods in life, but at the same age as, or earlier, than in the parents,\nmust be regarded as due to the fact that in each case the machine having\nbeen made after the same pattern (which _is_ due to memory), is liable to\nhave the same weak points, and to break down after a similar amount of\nwear and tear; but after less wear and tear in the case of the offspring\nthan in that of the parent, because a diseased organism is commonly a\ndeteriorating organism, and if repeated at all closely, and without\nrepentance and amendment of life, will be repeated for the worse. If we\ndo not improve, we grow worse. This, at least, is what we observe daily.\n\nNor again can we believe, as some have fancifully imagined, that the\nremembrance of any occurrence of which the effect has been entirely, or\nalmost entirely mental, should be remembered by offspring with any\ndefiniteness. The intellect of the offspring might be affected, for\nbetter or worse, by the general nature of the intellectual employment of\nthe parent; or a great shock to a parent might destroy or weaken the\nintellect of the offspring; but unless a deep impression were made upon\nthe cells of the body, and deepened by subsequent disease, we could not\nexpect it to be remembered with any definiteness, or precision. We may\ntalk as we will about mental pain, and mental scars, but after all, the\nimpressions they leave are incomparably less durable than those made by\nan organic lesion. It is probable, therefore, that the feeling which so\nmany have described, as though they remembered this or that in some past\nexistence, is purely imaginary, and due rather to unconscious recognition\nof the fact that we certainly have lived before, than to any actual\noccurrence corresponding to the supposed recollection.\n\nAnd lastly, we should look to find in the action of memory, as between\none generation and another, a reflection of the many anomalies and\nexceptions to ordinary rules which we observe in memory, so far as we can\nwatch its action in what we call our own single lives, and the single\nlives of others. We should expect that reversion should be frequently\ncapricious\u2014that is to say, give us more trouble to account for than we\nare either able or willing to take. And assuredly we find it so in fact.\nMr. Darwin\u2014from whom it is impossible to quote too much or too fully,\ninasmuch as no one else can furnish such a store of facts, so well\narranged, and so above all suspicion of either carelessness or want of\ncandour\u2014so that, however we may differ from him, it is he himself who\nshows us how to do so, and whose pupils we all are\u2014Mr. Darwin writes: \u201cIn\nevery living being we may rest assured that a host of long-lost\ncharacters lie ready to be evolved under proper conditions\u201d (does not one\nalmost long to substitute the word \u201cmemories\u201d for the word \u201ccharacters?\u201d)\n\u201cHow can we make intelligible, and connect with other facts, this\nwonderful and common capacity of reversion\u2014this power of calling back to\nlife long-lost characters?\u201d (\u201cPlants and Animals,\u201d &c., vol. ii. p. 369,\ned. 1875). Surely the answer may be hazarded, that we shall be able to\ndo so when we can make intelligible the power of calling back to life\nlong-lost memories. But I grant that this answer holds out no immediate\nprospect of a clear understanding.\n\nOne word more. Abundant facts are to be found which point inevitably, as\nwill appear more plainly in the following chapter, in the direction of\nthinking that offspring inherits the memories of its parents; but I know\nof no single fact which suggests that parents are in the smallest degree\naffected (other than sympathetically) by the memories of their offspring\n_after that offspring has been born_. Whether the unborn offspring\naffects the memory of the mother in some particulars, and whether we have\nhere the explanation of occasional reversion to a previous impregnation,\nis a matter on which I should hardly like to express an opinion now.\nNor, again, can I find a single fact which seems to indicate any memory\nof the parental life on the part of offspring later than the average date\nof the offspring\u2019s quitting the body of the parent.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\nINSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY.\n\n\nI HAVE already alluded to M. Ribot\u2019s work on \u201cHeredity,\u201d from which I\nwill now take the following passages.\n\nM. Ribot writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cInstinct is innate, _i.e._, _anterior to all individual experience_.\u201d\nThis I deny on grounds already abundantly apparent; but let it pass.\n\u201cWhereas intelligence is developed slowly by accumulated experience,\ninstinct is perfect from the first\u201d (\u201cHeredity,\u201d p. 14).\n\nObviously the memory of a habit or experience will not commonly be\ntransmitted to offspring in that perfection which is called \u201cinstinct,\u201d\ntill the habit or experience has been repeated in several generations\nwith more or less uniformity; for otherwise the impression made will not\nbe strong enough to endure through the busy and difficult task of\nreproduction. This of course involves that the habit shall have\nattained, as it were equilibrium with the creature\u2019s sense of its own\nneeds, so that it shall have long seemed the best course possible,\nleaving upon the whole and under ordinary circumstances little further to\nbe desired, and hence that it should have been little varied during many\ngenerations. We should expect that it would be transmitted in a more or\nless partial, varying, imperfect, and intelligent condition before\nequilibrium had been attained; it would, however, continually tend\ntowards equilibrium, for reasons which will appear more fully later on.\n\nWhen this stage has been reached, as regards any habit, the creature will\ncease trying to improve; on which the repetition of the habit will become\nstable, and hence become capable of more unerring transmission\u2014but at the\nsame time improvement will cease; the habit will become fixed, and be\nperhaps transmitted at an earlier and earlier age, till it has reached\nthat date of manifestation which shall be found most agreeable to the\nother habits of the creature. It will also be manifested, as a matter of\ncourse, without further consciousness or reflection, for people cannot be\nalways opening up settled questions; if they thought a matter over\nyesterday they cannot think it all over again to-day, but will adopt for\nbetter or worse the conclusion then reached; and this, too, even in spite\nsometimes of considerable misgiving, that if they were to think still\nfurther they could find a still better course. It is not, therefore, to\nbe expected that \u201cinstinct\u201d should show signs of that hesitating and\ntentative action which results from knowledge that is still so imperfect\nas to be actively self-conscious; nor yet that it should grow or vary,\nunless under such changed conditions as shall baffle memory, and present\nthe alternative of either invention\u2014that is to say, variation\u2014or death.\nBut every instinct must have poised through the laboriously intelligent\nstages through which human civilisations _and mechanical inventions_ are\nnow passing; and he who would study the origin of an instinct with its\ndevelopment, partial transmission, further growth, further transmission,\napproach to more unreflecting stability, and finally, its perfection as\nan unerring and unerringly transmitted instinct, must look to laws,\ncustoms, _and machinery_ as his best instructors. Customs and machines\nare instincts _and organs_ now in process of development; they will\nassuredly one day reach the unconscious state of equilibrium which we\nobserve in the structures and instincts of bees and ants, and an approach\nto which may be found among some savage nations. We may reflect,\nhowever, not without pleasure, that this condition\u2014the true millennium\u2014is\nstill distant. Nevertheless the ants and bees seem happy; perhaps more\nhappy than when so many social questions were in as hot discussion among\nthem, as other, and not dissimilar ones, will one day be amongst\nourselves.\n\nAnd this, as will be apparent, opens up the whole question of the\nstability of species, which we cannot follow further here, than to say,\nthat according to the balance of testimony, many plants and animals do\nappear to have reached a phase of being from which they are hard to\nmove\u2014that is to say, they will die sooner than be at the pains of\naltering their habits\u2014true martyrs to their convictions. Such races\nrefuse to see changes in their surroundings as long as they can, but when\ncompelled to recognise them, they throw up the game because they cannot\nand will not, or will not and cannot, invent. And this is perfectly\nintelligible, for a race is nothing but a long-lived individual, and like\nany individual, or tribe of men whom we have yet observed, will have its\nspecial capacities and its special limitations, though, as in the case of\nthe individual, so also with the race, it is exceedingly hard to say what\nthose limitations are, and why, having been able to go so far, it should\ngo no further. Every man and every race is capable of education up to a\ncertain point, but not to the extent of being made from a sow\u2019s ear into\na silk purse. The proximate cause of the limitation seems to lie in the\nabsence of the wish to go further; the presence or absence of the wish\nwill depend upon the nature and surroundings of the individual, which is\nsimply a way of saying that one can get no further, but that as the song\n(with a slight alteration) says:\u2014\n\n \u201cSome breeds do, and some breeds don\u2019t,\n Some breeds will, but this breed won\u2019t,\n I tried very often to see if it would,\n But it said it really couldn\u2019t, and I don\u2019t think it could.\u201d\n\nIt may perhaps be maintained, that with time and patience, one might\ntrain a rather stupid plough-boy to understand the differential calculus.\nThis might be done with the help of an inward desire on the part of the\nboy to learn, but never otherwise. If the boy wants to learn or to\nimprove generally, he will do so in spite of every hindrance, till in\ntime he becomes a very different being from what he was originally. If\nhe does not want to learn, he will not do so for any wish of another\nperson. If he feels that he has the power he will wish; or if he wishes,\nhe will begin to think he has the power, and try to fulfil his wishes;\none cannot say which comes first, for the power and the desire go always\nhand in hand, or nearly so, and the whole business is nothing but a most\nvicious circle from first to last. But it is plain that there is more to\nbe said on behalf of such circles than we have been in the habit of\nthinking. Do what we will, we must each one of us argue in a circle of\nour own, from which, so long as we live at all, we can by no possibility\nescape. I am not sure whether the frank acceptation and recognition of\nthis fact is not the best corrective for dogmatism that we are likely to\nfind.\n\nWe can understand that a pigeon might in the course of ages grow to be a\npeacock if there was a persistent desire on the part of the pigeon\nthrough all these ages to do so. We know very well that this has not\nprobably occurred in nature, inasmuch as no pigeon is at all likely to\nwish to be very different from what it is now. The idea of being\nanything very different from what it now is, would be too wide a cross\nwith the pigeon\u2019s other ideas for it to entertain it seriously. If the\npigeon had never seen a peacock, it would not be able to conceive the\nidea, so as to be able to make towards it; if, on the other hand, it had\nseen one, it would not probably either want to become one, or think that\nit would be any use wanting seriously, even though it were to feel a\npassing fancy to be so gorgeously arrayed; it would therefore lack that\nfaith without which no action, and with which, every action, is possible.\n\nThat creatures have conceived the idea of making themselves like other\ncreatures or objects which it was to their advantage or pleasure to\nresemble, will be believed by any one who turns to Mr. Mivart\u2019s \u201cGenesis\nof Species,\u201d where he will find (chapter ii.) an account of some very\nshowy South American butterflies, which give out such a strong odour that\nnothing will eat them, and which are hence mimicked both in appearance\nand flight by a very different kind of butterfly; and, again, we see that\ncertain birds, without any particular desire of gain, no sooner hear any\nsound than they begin to mimick it, merely for the pleasure of mimicking;\nso we all enjoy to mimick, or to hear good mimicry, so also monkeys\nimitate the actions which they observe, from pure force of sympathy. To\nmimick, or to wish to mimick, is doubtless often one of the first steps\ntowards varying in any given direction. Not less, in all probability,\nthan a full twenty per cent. of all the courage and good nature now\nexisting in the world, derives its origin, at no very distant date, from\na desire to appear courageous and good-natured. And this suggests a work\nwhose title should be \u201cOn the Fine Arts as bearing on the Reproductive\nSystem,\u201d of which the title must suffice here.\n\nAgainst faith, then, and desire, all the \u201cnatural selection\u201d in the world\nwill not stop an am\u0153ba from becoming an elephant, if a reasonable time be\ngranted; without the faith and the desire, neither \u201cnatural selection\u201d\nnor artificial breeding will be able to do much in the way of modifying\nany structure. When we have once thoroughly grasped the conception that\nwe are all one creature, and that each one of us is many millions of\nyears old, so that all the pigeons in the one line of an infinite number\nof generations are still one pigeon only\u2014then we can understand that a\nbird, as different from a peacock as a pigeon is now, could yet have\nwandered on and on, first this way and then that, doing what it liked,\nand thought that it could do, till it found itself at length a peacock;\nbut we cannot believe either that a bird like a pigeon should be able to\napprehend any ideal so different from itself as a peacock, and make\ntowards it, or that man, having wished to breed a bird anything like a\npeacock from a bird anything like a pigeon, would be able to succeed in\naccumulating accidental peacock-like variations till he had made the bird\nhe was in search of, no matter in what number of generations; much less\ncan we believe that the accumulation of small fortuitous variations by\n\u201cnatural selection\u201d could succeed better. We can no more believe the\nabove, than we can believe that a wish outside a plough-boy could turn\nhim into a senior wrangler. The boy would prove to be too many for his\nteacher, and so would the pigeon for its breeder.\n\nI do not forget that artificial breeding has modified the original type\nof the horse and the dog, till it has at length produced the dray-horse\nand the greyhound; but in each case man has had to get use and\ndisuse\u2014that is to say, the desires of the animal itself\u2014to help him.\n\nWe are led, then, to the conclusion that all races have what for\npractical purposes may be considered as their limits, though there is no\nsaying what those limits are, nor indeed why, in theory, there should be\nany limits at all, but only that there are limits in practice. Races\nwhich vary considerably must be considered as clever, but it may be\nspeculative, people who commonly have a genius in some special direction,\nas perhaps for mimicry, perhaps for beauty, perhaps for music, perhaps\nfor the higher mathematics, but seldom in more than one or two\ndirections; while \u201cinflexible organisations,\u201d like that of the goose, may\nbe considered as belonging to people with one idea, and the greater\ntendency of plants and animals to vary under domestication may be\nreasonably compared with the effects of culture and education: that is to\nsay, may be referred to increased range and variety of experience or\nperceptions, which will either cause sterility, if they be too\nunfamiliar, so as to be incapable of fusion with preceding ideas, and\nhence to bring memory to a sudden fault, or will open the door for all\nmanner of further variation\u2014the new ideas having suggested new trains of\nthought, which a clever example of a clever race will be only too eager\nto pursue.\n\nLet us now return to M. Ribot. He writes (p. 14):\u2014\u201cThe duckling hatched\nby the hen makes straight for water.\u201d In what conceivable way can we\naccount for this, except on the supposition that the duckling knows\nperfectly well what it can, and what it cannot do with water, owing to\nits recollection of what it did when it was still one individuality with\nits parents, and hence, when it was a duckling before?\n\n\u201cThe squirrel, before it knows anything of winter, lays up a store of\nnuts. A bird when hatched in a cage will, when given its freedom, build\nfor itself a nest like that of its parents, out of the same materials,\nand of the same shape.\u201d\n\nIf this is not due to memory, even an imperfect explanation of what else\nit can be due to, \u201cwould be satisfactory.\u201d\n\n\u201cIntelligence gropes about, tries this way and that, misses its object,\ncommits mistakes, and corrects them.\u201d\n\nYes. Because intelligence is of consciousness, and consciousness is of\nattention, and attention is of uncertainty, and uncertainty is of\nignorance or want of consciousness. Intelligence is not yet thoroughly\nup to its business.\n\n\u201cInstinct advances with a mechanical certainty.\u201d\n\nWhy mechanical? Should not \u201cwith apparent certainty\u201d suffice?\n\n\u201cHence comes its unconscious character.\u201d\n\nBut for the word \u201cmechanical\u201d this is true, and is what we have been all\nalong insisting on.\n\n\u201cIt knows nothing either of ends, or of the means of attaining them; it\nimplies no comparison, judgment, or choice.\u201d\n\nThis is assumption. What is certain is that instinct does not betray\nsigns of self-consciousness as to its own knowledge. It has dismissed\nreference to first principles, and is no longer under the law, but under\nthe grace of a settled conviction.\n\n\u201cAll seems directed by thought.\u201d\n\nYes; because all _has been_ in earlier existences directed by thought.\n\n\u201cWithout ever arriving at thought.\u201d\n\nBecause it has _got past thought_, and though \u201cdirected by thought\u201d\noriginally, is now travelling in exactly the opposite direction. It is\nnot likely to reach thought again, till people get to know worse and\nworse how to do things, the oftener they practise them.\n\n\u201cAnd if this phenomenon appear strange, it must be observed that\nanalogous states occur in ourselves. _All that we do from\nhabit\u2014walking_, _writing_, _or practising a mechanical act_, _for\ninstance\u2014all these and many other very complex acts are performed without\nconsciousness_.\n\n\u201cInstinct appears stationary. It does not, like intelligence, seem to\ngrow and decay, to gain and to lose. It does not improve.\u201d\n\nNaturally. For improvement can only as a general rule be looked for\nalong the line of latest development, that is to say, in matters\nconcerning which the creature is being still consciously exercised.\nOlder questions are settled, and the solution must be accepted as final,\nfor the question of living at all would be reduced to an absurdity, if\neverything decided upon one day was to be undecided again the next; as\nwith painting or music, so with life and politics, let every man be fully\npersuaded in his own mind, for decision with wrong will be commonly a\nbetter policy than indecision\u2014I had almost added with right; and a firm\npurpose with risk will be better than an infirm one with temporary\nexemption from disaster. Every race has made its great blunders, to\nwhich it has nevertheless adhered, inasmuch as the corresponding\nmodification of other structures and instincts was found preferable to\nthe revolution which would be caused by a radical change of structure,\nwith consequent havoc among a legion of vested interests. Rudimentary\norgans are, as has been often said, the survivals of these interests\u2014the\nsigns of their peaceful and gradual extinction as living faiths; they are\nalso instances of the difficulty of breaking through any cant or trick\nwhich we have long practised, and which is not sufficiently troublesome\nto make it a serious object with us to cure ourselves of the habit.\n\n\u201cIf it does not remain perfectly invariable, at least it only varies\nwithin very narrow limits; and though this question has been warmly\ndebated in our day, and is yet unsettled, we may yet say that in instinct\nimmutability is the law, variation the exception.\u201d\n\nThis is quite as it should be. Genius will occasionally rise a little\nabove convention, but with an old convention immutability will be the\nrule.\n\n\u201cSuch,\u201d continues M. Ribot, \u201care the admitted characters of instinct.\u201d\n\nYes; but are they not also the admitted characters of actions that are\ndue to memory?\n\nAt the bottom of p. 15, M. Ribot quotes the following from Mr. Darwin:\u2014\n\n\u201cWe have reason to believe that aboriginal habits are long retained under\ndomestication. Thus with the common ass, we see signs of its original\ndesert-life in its strong dislike to cross the smallest stream of water,\nand in its pleasure in rolling in the dust. The same strong dislike to\ncross a stream is common to the camel which has been domesticated from a\nvery early period. Young pigs, though so tame, sometimes squat when\nfrightened, and then try to conceal themselves, even in an open and bare\nplace. Young turkeys, and occasionally even young fowls, when the hen\ngives the danger-cry, run away and try to hide themselves, like young\npartridges or pheasants, in order that their mother may take flight, of\nwhich she has lost the power. The musk duck in its native country often\nperches and roosts on trees, and our domesticated musk ducks, though\nsluggish birds, are fond of perching on the tops of barns, walls, &c. . . .\nWe know that the dog, however well and regularly fed, often buries\nlike the fox any superfluous food; we see him turning round and round on\na carpet as if to trample down grass to form a bed. . . . In the delight\nwith which lambs and kids crowd together and frisk upon the smallest\nhillock we see a vestige of their former alpine habits.\u201d\n\nWhat does this delightful passage go to show, if not that the young in\nall these cases must still have a latent memory of their past existences,\nwhich is called into an active condition as soon as the associated ideas\npresent themselves?\n\nReturning to M. Ribot\u2019s own observations, we find he tells us that it\nusually requires three or four generations to fix the results of\ntraining, and to prevent a return to the instincts of the wild state. I\nthink, however, it would not be presumptuous to suppose that if an animal\nafter only three or four generations of training be restored to its\noriginal conditions of life, it will forget its intermediate training and\nreturn to its old ways, almost as readily as a London street Arab would\nforget the beneficial effects of a weeks training in a reformatory\nschool, if he were then turned loose again on the streets. So if we\nhatch wild ducks\u2019 eggs under a tame duck, the ducklings \u201cwill have scarce\nleft the egg-shell when they obey the instincts of their race and take\ntheir flight.\u201d So the colts from wild horses, and mongrel young between\nwild and domesticated horses, betray traces of their earlier memories.\n\nOn this M. Ribot says: \u201cOriginally man had considerable trouble in taming\nthe animals which are now domesticated; and his work would have been in\nvain had not heredity\u201d (memory) \u201ccome to his aid. It may be said that\nafter man has modified a wild animal to his will, there goes on in its\nprogeny a silent conflict between two heredities\u201d (memories), \u201cthe one\ntending to fix the acquired modifications and the other to preserve the\nprimitive instincts. The latter often get the mastery, and only after\nseveral generations is training sure of victory. But we may see that in\neither case heredity\u201d (memory) \u201calways asserts its rights.\u201d\n\nHow marvellously is the above passage elucidated and made to fit in with\nthe results of our recognised experience, by the simple substitution of\nthe word \u201cmemory\u201d for \u201cheredity.\u201d\n\n\u201cAmong the higher animals\u201d\u2014to continue quoting\u2014\u201cwhich are possessed not\nonly of instinct, but also of intelligence, nothing is more common than\nto see mental dispositions, which have evidently been acquired, so fixed\nby heredity, that they are confounded with instinct, so spontaneous and\nautomatic do they become. Young pointers have been known to point the\nfirst time they were taken out, sometimes even better than dogs that had\nbeen for a long time in training. The habit of saving life is hereditary\nin breeds that have been brought up to it, as is also the shepherd dog\u2019s\nhabit of moving around the flock and guarding it.\u201d\n\nAs soon as we have grasped the notion, that instinct is only the epitome\nof past experience, revised, corrected, made perfect, and learnt by rote,\nwe no longer find any desire to separate \u201cinstinct\u201d from \u201cmental\ndispositions, which have evidently been acquired and fixed by heredity,\u201d\nfor the simple reason that they are one and the same thing.\n\nA few more examples are all that my limits will allow\u2014they abound on\nevery side, and the difficulty lies only in selecting\u2014M. Ribot being to\nhand, I will venture to lay him under still further contributions.\n\nOn page 19 we find:\u2014\u201cKnight has shown experimentally the truth of the\nproverb, \u2018a good hound is bred so,\u2019 he took every care that when the pups\nwere first taken into the field, they should receive no guidance from\nolder dogs; yet the very first day, one of the pups stood trembling with\nanxiety, having his eyes fixed and all his muscles strained _at the\npartridges which their parents had been trained to point_. A spaniel\nbelonging to a breed which had been trained to woodcock-shooting, knew\nperfectly well from the first how to act like an old dog, avoiding places\nwhere the ground was frozen, and where it was, therefore, useless to seek\nthe game, as there was no scent. Finally, a young polecat terrier was\nthrown into a state of great excitement the first time he ever saw one of\nthese animals, while a spaniel remained perfectly calm.\n\n\u201cIn South America, according to Roulin, dogs belonging to a breed that\nhas long been trained to the dangerous chase of the peccary, when taken\nfor the first time into the woods, know the tactics to adopt quite as\nwell as the old dogs, and that without any instruction. Dogs of other\nraces, and unacquainted with the tactics, are killed at once, no matter\nhow strong they may be. The American greyhound, instead of leaping at\nthe stag, attacks him by the belly, and throws him over, as his ancestors\nhad been trained to do in hunting the Indians.\n\n\u201cThus, then, heredity transmits modification no less than natural\ninstincts.\u201d\n\nShould not this rather be\u2014\u201cthus, then, we see that not only older and\nremoter habits, but habits which have been practised for a comparatively\nsmall number of generations, may be so deeply impressed on the individual\nthat they may dwell in his memory, surviving the so-called change of\npersonality which he undergoes in each successive generation\u201d?\n\n\u201cThere is, however, an important difference to be noted: the heredity of\ninstincts admits of no exceptions, while in that of modifications there\nare many.\u201d\n\nIt may be well doubted how far the heredity of instincts admits of no\nexceptions; on the contrary, it would seem probable that in many races\ngeniuses have from time to time arisen who remembered not only their past\nexperiences, as far as action and habit went, but have been able to rise\nin some degree above habit where they felt that improvement was possible,\nand who carried such improvement into further practice, by slightly\nmodifying their structure in the desired direction on the next occasion\nthat they had a chance of dealing with protoplasm at all. It is by these\nrare instances of intellectual genius (and I would add of moral genius,\nif many of the instincts and structures of plants and animals did not\nshow that they had got into a region as far above morals\u2014other than\nenlightened self-interest\u2014as they are above articulate consciousness of\ntheir own aims in many other respects)\u2014it is by these instances of either\nrare good luck or rare genius that many species have been, in all\nprobability, originated or modified. Nevertheless inappreciable\nmodification of instinct is, and ought to be, the rule.\n\nAs to M. Ribot\u2019s assertion, that to the heredity of modifications there\nare many exceptions, I readily agree with it, and can only say that it is\nexactly what I should expect; the lesson long since learnt by rote, and\nrepeated in an infinite number of generations, would be repeated\nunintelligently, and with little or no difference, save from a rare\naccidental slip, the effect of which would be the culling out of the\nbungler who was guilty of it, or from the still rarer appearance of an\nindividual of real genius; while the newer lesson would be repeated both\nwith more hesitation and uncertainty, and with more intelligence; and\nthis is well conveyed in M. Ribot\u2019s next sentence, for he says\u2014\u201cIt is\nonly when variations have been firmly rooted; when having become organic,\nthey constitute a second nature, which supplants the first; when, like\ninstinct, they have assumed a mechanical character, that they can be\ntransmitted.\u201d\n\nHow nearly M. Ribot comes to the opinion which I myself venture to\npropound will appear from the following further quotation. After dealing\nwith somnambulism, and saying, that if somnambulism were permanent and\ninnate, it would be impossible to distinguish it from instinct, he\ncontinues:\u2014\n\n\u201cHence it is less difficult than is generally supposed, to conceive how\nintelligence may become instinct; we might even say that, leaving out of\nconsideration the character of innateness, to which we will return, we\nhave seen the metamorphosis take place. _There can then be no ground for\nmaking instinct a faculty apart_, _sui generis_, a phenomenon so\nmysterious, so strange, that usually no other explanation of it is\noffered but that of attributing it to the direct act of the Deity. This\nwhole mistake is the result of a defective psychology which makes no\naccount of the unconscious activity of the soul.\u201d\n\nWe are tempted to add\u2014\u201cand which also makes no account of the _bon\u00e2 fide_\ncharacter of the continued personality of successive generations.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut we are so accustomed,\u201d he continues, \u201cto contrast the characters of\ninstinct with those of intelligence\u2014to say that instinct is innate,\ninvariable, automatic, while intelligence is something acquired,\nvariable, spontaneous\u2014that it looks at first paradoxical to assert that\ninstinct and intelligence are identical.\n\n\u201cIt is said that instinct is innate. But if, on the one hand, we bear in\nmind that many instincts are acquired, and that, according to a theory\nhereafter to be explained\u201d (which theory, I frankly confess, I never was\nable to get hold of), \u201c_all instincts are only hereditary habits_\u201d\n(italics mine); \u201cif, on the other hand, we observe that intelligence is\nin some sense held to be innate by all modern schools of philosophy,\nwhich agree to reject the theory of the _tabula rasa_\u201d (if there is no\n_tabula rasa_, there is continued psychological personality, or words\nhave lost their meaning), \u201cand to accept either latent ideas, or _\u00e0\npriori_ forms of thought\u201d (surely only a periphrasis for continued\npersonality and memory) \u201cor pre-ordination of the nervous system and of\nthe organism; _it will be seen that this character of innateness does not\nconstitute an absolute distinction between instinct and intelligence_.\n\n\u201cIt is true that intelligence is variable, but so also is instinct, as we\nhave seen. In winter, the Rhine beaver plasters his wall to windward;\nonce he was a builder, now a burrower; once he lived in society, now he\nis solitary. Intelligence itself can scarcely be more variable . . .\ninstinct may be modified, lost, reawakened.\n\n\u201cAlthough intelligence is, as a rule, conscious, it may also become\nunconscious and automatic, without losing its identity. Neither is\ninstinct always so blind, so mechanical, as is supposed, for at times it\nis at fault. The wasp that has faultily trimmed a leaf of its paper\nbegins again. The bee only gives the hexagonal form to its cell after\nmany attempts and alterations. It is difficult to believe that the\nloftier instincts\u201d (and surely, then, the more recent instincts) \u201cof the\nhigher animals are not accompanied _by at least a confused\nconsciousness_. There is, therefore, no absolute distinction between\ninstinct and intelligence; there is not a single characteristic which,\nseriously considered, remains the exclusive property of either. The\ncontrast established between instinctive acts and intellectual acts is,\nnevertheless, perfectly true, but only when we compare the extremes. _As\ninstinct rises it approaches intelligence\u2014as intelligence descends it\napproaches instinct_.\u201d\n\nM. Ribot and myself (if I may venture to say so) are continually on the\nverge of coming to an understanding, when, at the very moment that we\nseem most likely to do so, we fly, as it were, to opposite poles. Surely\nthe passage last quoted should be, \u201cAs instinct falls,\u201d _i.e._, becomes\nless and less certain of its ground, \u201cit approaches intelligence; as\nintelligence rises,\u201d _i.e._, becomes more and more convinced of the truth\nand expediency of its convictions\u2014\u201cit approaches instinct.\u201d\n\nEnough has been said to show that the opinions which I am advancing are\nnot new, but I have looked in vain for the conclusions which, it appears\nto me, M. Ribot should draw from his facts; throughout his interesting\nbook I find the facts which it would seem should have guided him to the\nconclusions, and sometimes almost the conclusions themselves, but he\nnever seems quite to have reached them, nor has he arranged his facts so\nthat others are likely to deduce them, unless they had already arrived at\nthem by another road. I cannot, however, sufficiently express my\nobligations to M. Ribot.\n\nI cannot refrain from bringing forward a few more instances of what I\nthink must be considered by every reader as hereditary memory. Sydney\nSmith writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cSir James Hall hatched some chickens in an oven. Within a few minutes\nafter the shell was broken, a spider was turned loose before this very\nyouthful brood; the destroyer of flies had hardly proceeded more than a\nfew inches, before he was descried by one of these oven-born chickens,\nand, at one peck of his bill, immediately devoured. This certainly was\nnot imitation. A female goat very near delivery died; Galen cut out the\nyoung kid, and placed before it a bundle of hay, a bunch of fruit, and a\npan of milk; the young kid smelt to them all very attentively, and then\nbegan to lap the milk. This was not imitation. And what is commonly and\nrightly called instinct, cannot be explained away, under the notion of\nits being imitation\u201d (Lecture xvii. on Moral Philosophy).\n\nIt cannot, indeed, be explained away under the notion of its being\nimitation, but I think it may well be so under that of its being memory.\n\nAgain, a little further on in the same lecture, as that above quoted\nfrom, we find:\u2014\n\n\u201cAnts and beavers lay up magazines. Where do they get their knowledge\nthat it will not be so easy to collect food in rainy weather, as it is in\nsummer? Men and women know these things, because their grandpapas and\ngrandmammas have told them so. Ants hatched from the egg artificially,\nor birds hatched in this manner, have all this knowledge by intuition,\nwithout the smallest communication with any of their relations. Now\nobserve what the solitary wasp does; she digs several holes in the sand,\nin each of which she deposits an egg, though she certainly knows not (?)\nthat an animal is deposited in that egg, and still less that this animal\nmust be nourished with other animals. She collects a few green flies,\nrolls them up neatly in several parcels (like Bologna sausages), and\nstuffs one parcel into each hole where an egg is deposited. When the\nwasp worm is hatched, it finds a store of provision ready made; and what\nis most curious, the quantity allotted to each is exactly sufficient to\nsupport it, till it attains the period of wasphood, and can provide for\nitself. This instinct of the parent wasp is the more remarkable as it\ndoes not feed upon flesh itself. Here the little creature has never seen\nits parent; for by the time it is born, the parent is always eaten by\nsparrows; and yet, without the slightest education, or previous\nexperience, it does everything that the parent did before it. Now the\nobjectors to the doctrine of instinct may say what they please, but young\ntailors have no intuitive method of making pantaloons; a new-born mercer\ncannot measure diaper; nature teaches a cook\u2019s daughter nothing about\nsippets. All these things require with us seven years\u2019 apprenticeship;\nbut insects are like Moli\u00e8re\u2019s persons of quality\u2014they know everything\n(as Moli\u00e8re says), without having learnt anything. \u2018Les gens de qualit\u00e9\nsavent tout, sans avoir rien appris.\u2019\u201d\n\nHow completely all difficulty vanishes from the facts so pleasantly told\nin this passage when we bear in mind the true nature of personal\nidentity, the ordinary working of memory, and the vanishing tendency of\nconsciousness concerning what we know exceedingly well.\n\nMy last instance I take from M. Ribot, who writes:\u2014\u201cGratiolet, in his\n_Anatomie Compar\u00e8e du Syst\u00e8me Nerveux_, states that an old piece of\nwolf\u2019s skin, with the hair all worn away, when set before a little dog,\nthrew the animal into convulsions of fear by the slight scent attaching\nto it. The dog had never seen a wolf, and we can only explain this alarm\nby the hereditary transmission of certain sentiments, coupled with a\ncertain perception of the sense of smell\u201d (\u201cHeredity,\u201d p. 43).\n\nI should prefer to say \u201cwe can only explain the alarm by supposing that\nthe smell of the wolf\u2019s skin\u201d\u2014the sense of smell being, as we all know,\nmore powerful to recall the ideas that have been associated with it than\nany other sense\u2014\u201cbrought up the ideas with which it had been associated\nin the dog\u2019s mind during many previous existences\u201d\u2014he on smelling the\nwolf\u2019s skin remembering all about wolves perfectly well.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\nINSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS.\n\n\nIN this chapter I will consider, as briefly as possible, the strongest\nargument that I have been able to discover against the supposition that\ninstinct is chiefly due to habit. I have said \u201cthe strongest argument;\u201d\nI should have said, the only argument that struck me as offering on the\nface of it serious difficulties.\n\nTurning, then, to Mr. Darwin\u2019s chapter on instinct (\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d\ned. 1876, p. 205), we find substantially much the same views as those\ntaken at a later date by M. Ribot, and referred to in the preceding\nchapter. Mr. Darwin writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cAn action, which we ourselves require experience to enable us to\nperform, when performed by an animal, more especially a very young one,\nwithout experience, and when performed by many animals in the same way\nwithout their knowing for what purpose it is performed, is usually said\nto be instinctive.\u201d\n\nThe above should strictly be, \u201cwithout their being conscious of their own\nknowledge concerning the purpose for which they act as they do;\u201d and\nthough some may say that the two phrases come to the same thing, I think\nthere is an important difference, as what I propose distinguishes\nignorance from over-familiarity, both which states are alike\nunself-conscious, though with widely different results.\n\n\u201cBut I could show,\u201d continues Mr. Darwin, \u201cthat none of these characters\nare universal. A little dose of judgement or reason, as Pierre Huber\nexpresses it, often comes into play even with animals low in the scale of\nnature.\n\n\u201cFrederick Cuvier and several of the older metaphysicians have compared\ninstinct with habit.\u201d\n\nI would go further and would say, that instinct, in the great majority of\ncases, is habit pure and simple, contracted originally by some one or\nmore individuals; practised, probably, in a consciously intelligent\nmanner during many successive lives, until the habit has acquired the\nhighest perfection which the circumstances admitted; and, finally, so\ndeeply impressed upon the memory as to survive that effacement of minor\nimpressions which generally takes place in every fresh life-wave or\ngeneration.\n\nI would say, that unless the identity of offspring with their parents be\nso far admitted that the children be allowed to remember the deeper\nimpressions engraved on the minds of those who begot them, it is little\nless than trilling to talk, as so many writers do, about inherited habit,\nor the experience of the race, or, indeed, accumulated variations of\ninstincts.\n\nWhen an instinct is not habit, as resulting from memory pure and simple,\nit is habit modified by some treatment, generally in the youth or\nembryonic stages of the individual, which disturbs his memory, and drives\nhim on to some unusual course, inasmuch as he cannot recognise and\nremember his usual one by reason of the change now made in it. Habits\nand instincts, again, may be modified by any important change in the\ncondition of the parents, which will then both affect the parent\u2019s sense\nof his own identity, and also create more or less fault, or dislocation\nof memory, in the offspring immediately behind the memory of his last\nlife. Change of food may at times be sufficient to create a specific\nmodification\u2014that is to say, to affect all the individuals whose food is\nso changed, in one and the same way\u2014whether as regards structure or\nhabit. Thus we see that certain changes in food (and domicile), from\nthose with which its ancestors have been familiar, will disturb the\nmemory of a queen bee\u2019s egg, and set it at such disadvantage as to make\nit make itself into a neuter bee; but yet we find that the larva thus\npartly aborted may have its memories restored to it, if not already too\nmuch disturbed, and may thus return to its condition as a queen bee, if\nit only again be restored to the food and domicile, which its past\nmemories can alone remember.\n\nSo we see that opium, tobacco, alcohol, hasheesh, and tea produce certain\neffects upon our own structure and instincts. But though capable of\nmodification, and of specific modification, which may in time become\ninherited, and hence resolve itself into a true instinct or settled\nquestion, yet I maintain that the main bulk of the instinct (whether as\naffecting structure or habits of life) will be derived from memory pure\nand simple; the individual growing up in the shape he does, and liking to\ndo this or that when he is grown up, simply from recollection of what he\ndid last time, and of what on the whole suited him.\n\nFor it must be remembered that a drug which should destroy some one part\nat an early embryonic stage, and thus prevent it from development, would\nprevent the creature from recognising the surroundings which affected\nthat part when he was last alive and unmutilated, as being the same as\nhis present surroundings. He would be puzzled, for he would be viewing\nthe position from a different standpoint. If any important item in a\nnumber of associated ideas disappears, the plot fails; and a great\ninternal change is an exceedingly important item. Life and things to a\ncreature so treated at an early embryonic stage would not be life and\nthings as he last remembered them; hence he would not be able to do the\nsame now as he did then; that is to say, he would vary both in structure\nand instinct; but if the creature were tolerably uniform to start with,\nand were treated in a tolerably uniform way, we might expect the effect\nproduced to be much the same in all ordinary cases.\n\nWe see, also, that any important change in treatment and surroundings, if\nnot sufficient to kill, would and does tend to produce not only\nvariability but sterility, as part of the same story and for the same\nreason\u2014namely, default of memory; this default will be of every degree of\nintensity, from total failure, to a slight disturbance of memory as\naffecting some one particular organ only; that is to say, from total\nsterility, to a slight variation in an unimportant part. So that even\n_the slightest conceivable variations should be referred to changed\nconditions_, _external or internal_, _and to their disturbing effects\nupon the memory_; and sterility, without any apparent disease of the\nreproductive system, may be referred not so much to special delicacy or\nsusceptibility of the organs of reproduction as to inability on the part\nof the creature to know where it is, and to recognise itself as the same\ncreature which it has been accustomed to reproduce.\n\nMr. Darwin thinks that the comparison of habit with instinct gives \u201can\naccurate notion of the frame of mind under which an instinctive action is\nperformed, but not,\u201d he thinks, \u201cof its origin.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow unconsciously,\u201d Mr. Darwin continues, \u201cmany habitual actions are\nperformed, indeed not rarely in direct opposition to our conscious will!\nYet they may be modified by the will or by reason. Habits easily become\nassociated with other habits, with certain periods of time and states of\nbody. When once acquired, they often remain constant throughout life.\nSeveral other points of resemblance between instincts and habits could be\npointed out. As in repeating a well-known song, so in instincts, one\naction follows another by a sort of rhythm. If a person be interrupted\nin a song or in repeating anything by rote, he is generally forced to go\nback to recover the habitual train of thought; so P. Huber found it was\nwith a caterpillar, which makes a very complicated hammock. For if he\ntook a caterpillar which had completed its hammock up to, say, the sixth\nstage of construction, and put it into a hammock completed up only to the\nthird stage, the caterpillar simply re-performed the fourth, fifth, and\nsixth stages of construction. If, however, a caterpillar were taken out\nof a hammock made up, for instance, to the third stage, and were put into\none finished up to the sixth stage, so that much of its work was already\ndone for it, far from deriving any benefit from this, it was much\nembarrassed, and in order to complete its hammock, seemed forced to start\nfrom the third stage, where it had left off, and thus tried to complete\nthe already finished work.\u201d\n\nI see I must have unconsciously taken my first chapter from this passage,\nbut it is immaterial. I owe Mr. Darwin much more than this. I owe it to\nhim that I believe in evolution at all. I owe him for almost all the\nfacts which have led me to differ from him, and which I feel absolutely\nsafe in taking for granted, if he has advanced them. Nevertheless, I\nbelieve that the conclusion arrived at in the passage which I will next\nquote is a mistaken one, and that not a little only, but fundamentally.\nI shall therefore venture to dispute it.\n\nThe passage runs:\u2014\n\n\u201cIf we suppose any habitual action to become inherited\u2014and it can be\nshown that this does sometimes happen\u2014then the resemblance between what\noriginally was a habit and an instinct becomes so close as not to be\ndistinguished. . . . _But it would be a serious error to suppose that the\ngreater number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one\ngeneration_, _and then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding\ngenerations_. _It can be clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts\nwith which we are acquainted\u2014namely_, _those of the hive-bee and of many\nants_, _could not possibly have been acquired by habit_.\u201d (\u201cOrigin of\nSpecies,\u201d p. 206, ed. 1876.) The italics in this passage are mine.\n\nNo difficulty is opposed to my view (as I call it, for the sake of\nbrevity) by such an instinct as that of ants to milk aphids. Such\ninstincts may be supposed to have been acquired in much the same way as\nthe instinct of a farmer to keep a cow. Accidental discovery of the fact\nthat the excretion was good, with \u201ca little dose of judgement or reason\u201d\nfrom time to time appearing in an exceptionally clever ant, and by him\ncommunicated to his fellows, till the habit was so confirmed as to be\ncapable of transmission in full unself-consciousness (if indeed the\ninstinct be unself-conscious in this case), would, I think, explain this\nas readily as the slow and gradual accumulations of instincts which had\nnever passed through the intelligent and self-conscious stage, but had\nalways prompted action without any idea of a why or a wherefore on the\npart of the creature itself.\n\nFor it must be remembered, as I am afraid I have already perhaps too\noften said, that even when we have got a slight variation of instinct,\ndue to some cause which we know nothing about, but which I will not even\nfor a moment call \u201cspontaneous\u201d\u2014a word that should be cut out of every\ndictionary, or in some way branded as perhaps the most misleading in the\nlanguage\u2014we cannot see how it comes to be repeated in successive\ngenerations, so as to be capable of being acted upon by \u201cnatural\nselection\u201d and accumulated, unless it be also capable of being remembered\nby the offspring of the varying creature. It may be answered that we\ncannot know anything about this, but that \u201clike father like son\u201d is an\nultimate fact in nature. I can only answer that I never observe any\n\u201clike father like son\u201d without the son\u2019s both having had every\nopportunity of remembering, and showing every symptom of having\nremembered, in which case I decline to go further than memory (whatever\nmemory may be) as the cause of the phenomenon.\n\nBut besides inheritance, teaching must be admitted as a means of at any\nrate modifying an instinct. We observe this in our own case; and we know\nthat animals have great powers of communicating their ideas to one\nanother, though their manner of doing this is as incomprehensible by us\nas a plant\u2019s knowledge of chemistry, or the manner in which an am\u0153ba\nmakes its test, or a spider its web, without having gone through a long\ncourse of mathematics. I think most readers will allow that our early\ntraining and the theological systems of the last eighteen hundred years\nare likely to have made us involuntarily under-estimate the powers of\nanimals low in the scale of life, both as regards intelligence and the\npower of communicating their ideas to one another; but even now we admit\nthat ants have great powers in this respect.\n\nA habit, however, which is taught to the young or each successive\ngeneration, by older members of the community who have themselves\nreceived it by instruction, should surely rank as an inherited habit, and\nbe considered as due to memory, though personal teaching be necessary to\ncomplete the inheritance.\n\nAn objection suggests itself that if such a habit as the flight of birds,\nwhich seems to require a little personal supervision and instruction\nbefore it is acquired perfectly, were really due to memory, the need of\ninstruction would after a time cease, inasmuch as the creature would\nremember its past method of procedure, and would thus come to need no\nmore teaching. The answer lies in the fact, that if a creature gets to\ndepend upon teaching and personal help for any matter, its memory will\nmake it look for such help on each repetition of the action; so we see\nthat no man\u2019s memory will exert itself much until he is thrown upon\nmemory as his only resource. We may read a page of a book a hundred\ntimes, but we do not remember it by heart unless we have either\ncultivated our powers of learning to repeat, or have taken pains to learn\nthis particular page.\n\nAnd whether we read from a book, or whether we repeat by heart, the\nrepetition is still due to memory; only in the one case the memory is\nexerted to recall something which one saw only half a second ago, and in\nthe other, to recall something not seen for a much longer period. So I\nimagine an instinct or habit may be called an inherited habit, and\nassigned to memory, even though the memory dates, not from the\nperformance of the action by the learner when he was actually part of the\npersonality of the teacher, but rather from a performance witnessed by,\nor explained by the teacher to, the pupil at a period subsequent to\nbirth. In either case the habit is inherited in the sense of being\nacquired in one generation, and transmitted with such modifications as\ngenius and experience may have suggested.\n\nMr. Darwin would probably admit this without hesitation; when, therefore,\nhe says that certain instincts could not possibly have been acquired by\nhabit, he must mean that they could not, under the circumstances, have\nbeen remembered by the pupil in the person of the teacher, and that it\nwould be a serious error to suppose that the greater number of instincts\ncan be thus remembered. To which I assent readily so far as that it is\ndifficult (though not impossible) to see how some of the most wonderful\ninstincts of neuter ants and bees can be due to the fact that the neuter\nant or bee was ever in part, or in some respects, another neuter ant or\nbee in a previous generation. At the same time I maintain that this does\nnot militate against the supposition that both instinct and structure are\nin the main due to memory. For the power of receiving any communication,\nand acting on it, is due to memory; and the neuter ant or bee may have\nreceived its lesson from another neuter ant or bee, who had it from\nanother and modified it; and so back and back, till the foundation of the\nhabit is reached, and is found to present little more than the faintest\nfamily likeness to its more complex descendant. Surely Mr. Darwin cannot\nmean that it can be shewn that the wonderful instincts of neuter ants and\nbees cannot have been acquired either, as above, by instruction, or by\nsome not immediately obvious form of inherited transmission, but that\nthey must be due to the fact that the ant or bee is, as it were, such and\nsuch a machine, of which if you touch such and such a spring, you will\nget a corresponding action. If he does, he will find, so far as I can\nsee, no escape from a position very similar to the one which I put into\nthe mouth of the first of the two professors, who dealt with the question\nof machinery in my earlier work, \u201cErewhon,\u201d and which I have since found\nthat my great namesake made fun of in the following lines:\u2014\n\n . . . \u201cThey now begun\n To spur their living engines on.\n For as whipped tops and bandy\u2019d balls,\n The learned hold are animals:\n So horses they affirm to be\n Mere engines made by geometry,\n And were invented first from engines\n As Indian Britons were from Penguins.\u201d\n\n \u2014_Hudibras_, Canto ii. line 53, &c.\n\nI can see, then, no difficulty in the development of the ordinary\nso-called instincts, whether of ants or bees, or the cuckoo, or any other\nanimal, on the supposition that they were, for the most part,\nintelligently acquired with more or less labour, as the case may be, in\nmuch the same way as we see any art or science now in process of\nacquisition among ourselves, but were ultimately remembered by offspring,\nor communicated to it. When the limits of the race\u2019s capacity had been\nattained (and most races seem to have their limits, unsatisfactory though\nthe expression may very fairly be considered), or when the creature had\ngot into a condition, so to speak, of equilibrium with its surroundings,\nthere would be no new development of instincts, and the old ones would\ncease to be improved, inasmuch as there would be no more reasoning or\ndifference of opinion concerning them. The race, therefore, or species\nwould remain in _statu quo_ till either domesticated, and so brought into\ncontact with new ideas and placed in changed conditions, or put under\nsuch pressure, in a wild state, as should force it to further invention,\nor extinguish it if incapable of rising to the occasion. That instinct\nand structure may be acquired by practice in one or more generations, and\nremembered in succeeding ones, is admitted by Mr. Darwin, for he allows\n(\u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d p. 206) that habitual action does sometimes become\ninherited, and, though he does not seem to conceive of such action as due\nto memory, yet it is inconceivable how it is inherited, if not as the\nresult of memory.\n\nIt must be admitted, however, that when we come to consider the\nstructures as well as the instincts of some of the neuter insects, our\ndifficulties seem greatly increased. The neuter hive-bees have a cavity\nin their thighs in which to keep the wax, which it is their business to\ncollect; but the drones and queen, which alone bear offspring, collect no\nwax, and therefore neither want, nor have, any such cavity. The neuter\nbees are also, if I understand rightly, furnished with a proboscis or\ntrunk for extracting honey from flowers, whereas the fertile bees, who\ngather no honey, have no such proboscis. Imagine, if the reader will,\nthat the neuter bees differ still more widely from the fertile ones; how,\nthen, can they in any sense be said to derive organs from their parents,\nwhich not one of their parents for millions of generations has ever had?\nHow, again, can it be supposed that they transmit these organs to the\nfuture neuter members of the community when they are perfectly sterile?\n\nOne can understand that the young neuter bee might be taught to make a\nhexagonal cell (though I have not found that any one has seen the lesson\nbeing given) inasmuch as it does not make the cell till after birth, and\ntill after it has seen other neuter bees who might tell it much in, _qu\u00e2_\nus, a very little time; but we can hardly understand its growing a\nproboscis before it could possibly want it, or preparing a cavity in its\nthigh, to have it ready to put wax into, when none of its predecessors\nhad ever done so, by supposing oral communication, during the larvahood.\nNevertheless, it must not be forgotten that bees seem to know secrets\nabout reproduction, which utterly baffle ourselves; for example, the\nqueen bee appears to know how to deposit male or female, eggs at will;\nand this is a matter of almost inconceivable sociological importance,\ndenoting a corresponding amount of sociological and physiological\nknowledge generally. It should not, then, surprise us if the race should\npossess other secrets, whose working we are unable to follow, or even\ndetect at all.\n\nSydney Smith, indeed, writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe warmest admirers of honey, and the greatest friends to bees, will\nnever, I presume, contend that the young swarm, who begin making honey\nthree or four months after they are born, and immediately construct these\nmathematical cells, should have gained their geometrical knowledge as we\ngain ours, and in three months\u2019 time outstrip Mr. Maclaurin in\nmathematics as much as they did in making honey. It would take a senior\nwrangler at Cambridge ten hours a day for three years together to know\nenough mathematics for the calculation of these problems, with which not\nonly every queen bee, but every undergraduate grub, is acquainted the\nmoment it is born.\u201d This last statement may be a little too strong, but\nit will at once occur to the reader, that as we know the bees _do_\nsurpass Mr. Maclaurin in the power of making honey, they may also surpass\nhim in capacity for those branches of mathematics with which it has been\ntheir business to be conversant during many millions of years, and also\nin knowledge of physiology and psychology in so far as the knowledge\nbears upon the interests of their own community.\n\nWe know that the larva which develops into a neuter bee, and that again\nwhich in time becomes a queen bee, are the same kind of larva to start\nwith; and that if you give one of these larv\u00e6 the food and treatment\nwhich all its foremothers have been accustomed to, it will turn out with\nall the structure and instincts of its foremothers\u2014and that it only fails\nto do this because it has been fed, and otherwise treated, in such a\nmanner as not one of its foremothers was ever yet fed or treated. So\nfar, this is exactly what we should expect, on the view that structure\nand instinct are alike mainly due to memory, or to medicined memory.\nGive the larva a fair chance of knowing where it is, and it shows that it\nremembers by doing exactly what it did before. Give it a different kind\nof food and house, and it cannot be expected to be anything else than\npuzzled. It remembers a great deal. It comes out a bee, and nothing but\na bee; but it is an aborted bee; it is, in fact, mutilated before birth\ninstead of after\u2014with instinct, as well as growth, correlated to its\nabortion, as we see happens frequently in the case of animals a good deal\nhigher than bees that have been mutilated at a stage much later than that\nat which the abortion of neuter bees commences.\n\nThe larv\u00e6 being similar to start with, and being similarly\nmutilated\u2014i.e., by change of food and dwelling, will naturally exhibit\nmuch similarity of instinct and structure on arriving at maturity. When\ndriven from their usual course, they must take _some_ new course or die.\nThere is nothing strange in the fact that similar beings puzzled\nsimilarly should take a similar line of action. I grant, however, that\nit is hard to see how change of food and treatment can puzzle an insect\ninto such \u201ccomplex growth\u201d as that it should make a cavity in its thigh,\ngrow an invaluable proboscis, and betray a practical knowledge of\ndifficult mathematical problems.\n\nBut it must be remembered that the memory of having been queen bees and\ndrones\u2014which is all that according to my supposition the larv\u00e6 can\nremember, (on a first view of the case), in their own proper\npersons\u2014would nevertheless carry with it a potential recollection of all\nthe social arrangements of the hive. They would thus potentially\nremember that the mass of the bees were always neuter bees; they would\nremember potentially the habits of these bees, so far as drones and\nqueens know anything about them; and this may be supposed to be a very\nthorough acquaintance; in like manner, and with the same limitation, they\nwould know from the very moment that they left the queen\u2019s body that\nneuter bees had a proboscis to gather honey with, and cavities in their\nthighs to put wax into, and that cells were to be made with certain\nangles\u2014for surely it is not crediting the queen with more knowledge than\nshe is likely to possess, if we suppose her to have a fair acquaintance\nwith the phenomena of wax and cells generally, even though she does not\nmake any; they would know (while still larv\u00e6\u2014and earlier) the kind of\ncells into which neuter bees were commonly put, and the kind of treatment\nthey commonly received\u2014they might therefore, as eggs\u2014immediately on\nfinding their recollection driven from its usual course, so that they\nmust either find some other course, or die\u2014know that they were being\ntreated as neuter bees are treated, and that they were expected to\ndevelop into neuter bees accordingly; they might know all this, and a\ngreat deal more into the bargain, inasmuch as even before being actually\ndeposited as eggs they would know and remember potentially, but\nunconsciously, all that their parents knew and remembered intensely. Is\nit, then, astonishing that they should adapt themselves so readily to the\nposition which they know it is for the social welfare of the community,\nand hence of themselves, that they should occupy, and that they should\nknow that they will want a cavity in their thighs and a proboscis, and\nhence make such implements out of their protoplasm as readily as they\nmake their wings?\n\nI admit that, under normal treatment, none of the above-mentioned\npotential memories would be kindled into such a state of activity that\naction would follow upon them, until the creature had attained a more or\nless similar condition to that in which its parent was when these\nmemories were active within its mind: but the essence of the matter is,\nthat these larv\u00e6 have been treated _abnormally_, so that if they do not\ndie, there is nothing for it but that they must vary. One cannot argue\nfrom the normal to the abnormal. It would not, then, be strange if the\npotential memories should (owing to the margin for premature or tardy\ndevelopment which association admits) serve to give the puzzled larv\u00e6 a\nhint as to the course which they had better take, or that, at any rate,\nit should greatly supplement the instruction of the \u201cnurse\u201d bees\nthemselves by rendering the larv\u00e6 so, as it were, inflammable on this\npoint, that a spark should set them in a blaze. Abortion is generally\npremature. Thus the scars referred to in the last chapter as having\nappeared on the children of men who had been correspondingly wounded,\nshould not, under normal circumstances, have appeared in the offspring\ntill the children had got fairly near the same condition generally as\nthat in which their fathers were when they were wounded, and even then,\nnormally, there should have been an instrument to wound them, much as\ntheir fathers had been wounded. Association, however, does not always\nstick to the letter of its bond.\n\nThe line, again, might certainly be taken that the difference in\nstructure and instincts between neuter and fertile bees is due to the\nspecific effects of certain food and treatment; yet, though one would be\nsorry to set limits to the convertibility of food and genius, it seems\nhard to believe that there can be any untutored food which should teach a\nbee to make a hexagonal cell as soon as it was born, or which, before it\nwas born, should teach it to prepare such structures as it would require\nin after life. If, then, food be considered as a direct agent in causing\nthe structures and instinct, and not an indirect agent, merely indicating\nto the larva itself that it is to make itself after the fashion of neuter\nbees, then we should bear in mind that, at any rate, it has been leavened\nand prepared in the stomachs of those neuter bees into which the larva is\nnow expected to develop itself, and may thus have in it more true\ngerminative matter\u2014gemmules, in fact\u2014than is commonly supposed. Food,\nwhen sufficiently assimilated (the whole question turning upon what _is_\n\u201csufficiently\u201d), becomes stored with all the experience and memories of\nthe assimilating creature; corn becomes hen, and knows nothing but hen,\nwhen hen has eaten it. We know also that the neuter working-bees inject\nmatter into the cell after the larva has been produced; nor would it seem\nharsh to suppose that though devoid of a reproductive system like that of\ntheir parents, they may yet be practically not so neuter as is commonly\nbelieved. One cannot say what gemmules of thigh and proboscis may not\nhave got into the neutral bees\u2019 stomachs, if they assimilate their food\nsufficiently, and thus into the larva.\n\nMr. Darwin will be the first to admit that though a creature have no\nreproductive system, in any ordinary sense of the word, yet every unit or\ncell of its body may throw off gemmules which may be free to move over\nevery part of the whole organism, and which \u201cnatural selection\u201d might in\ntime cause to stray into food which had been sufficiently prepared in the\nstomachs of the neuter bees.\n\nI cannot say, then, precisely in what way, but I can see no reason for\ndoubting that in some of the ways suggested above, or in some combination\nof them, the phenomena of the instincts of neuter ants and bees can be\nbrought into the same category as the instincts and structure of fertile\nanimals. At any rate, I see the great fact that when treated as they\nhave been accustomed to be treated, these neuters act as though they\nremembered, and accordingly become queen bees; and that they only depart\nfrom their ancestral course on being treated in such fashion as their\nancestors can never have remembered; also, that when they have been\nthrown off their accustomed line of thought and action, they only take\nthat of their nurses, who have been about them from the moment of their\nbeing deposited as eggs by the queen bee, who have fed them from their\nown bodies, and between whom and them there may have been all manner of\nphysical and mental communication, of which we know no more than we do of\nthe power which enables a bee to find its way home after infinite\nshifting and turning among flowers, which no human powers could\nsystematise so as to avoid confusion.\n\nOr take it thus: We know that mutilation at an early age produces an\neffect upon the structure and instincts of cattle, sheep, and horses; and\nit might be presumed that if feasible at an earlier age, it would produce\na still more marked effect. We observe that the effect produced is\nuniform, or nearly so. Suppose mutilation to produce a little more\neffect than it does, as we might easily do, if cattle, sheep, and horses\nhad been for ages accustomed to a mutilated class living among them,\nwhich class had been always a caste apart, and had fed the young neuters\nfrom their own bodies, from an early embryonic stage onwards; would any\none in this case dream of advancing the structure and instincts of this\nmutilated class against the doctrine that instinct is inherited habit?\nOr, if inclined to do this, would he not at once refrain, on remembering\nthat the process of mutilation might be arrested, and the embryo be\ndeveloped into an entire animal by simply treating it in the way to which\nall its ancestors had been accustomed? Surely he would not allow the\ndifficulty (which I must admit in some measure to remain) to outweigh the\nevidence derivable from these very neuter insects themselves, as well as\nfrom such a vast number of other sources\u2014all pointing in the direction of\ninstinct as inherited habit. {239}\n\nLastly, it must be remembered that the instinct to make cells and honey\nis one which has no very great hold upon its possessors. Bees _can_ make\ncells and honey, nor do they seem to have any very violent objection to\ndoing so; but it is quite clear that there is nothing in their structure\nand instincts which urges them on to do these things for the mere love of\ndoing them, as a hen is urged to sit upon a chalk stone, concerning which\nshe probably is at heart utterly sceptical, rather than not sit at all.\nThere is no honey and cell-making instinct so strong as the instinct to\neat, if they are hungry, or to grow wings, and make themselves into bees\nat all. Like ourselves, so long as they can get plenty to eat and drink,\nthey will do no work. Under these circumstances, not one drop of honey\nnor one particle of wax will they collect, except, I presume, to make\ncells for the rearing of their young.\n\nSydney Smith writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe most curious instance of a change of instinct is recorded by Darwin.\nThe bees carried over to Barbadoes and the Western Isles ceased to lay up\nany honey after the first year, as they found it not useful to them.\nThey found the weather so fine, and materials for making honey so\nplentiful, that they quitted their grave, prudent, and mercantile\ncharacter, became exceedingly profligate and debauched, ate up their\ncapital, resolved to work no more, and amused themselves by flying about\nthe sugar-houses and stinging the blacks\u201d (Lecture XVII. on Moral\nPhilosophy). The ease, then, with which the honey-gathering and\ncell-making habits are relinquished, would seem to point strongly in the\ndirection of their acquisition at a comparatively late period of\ndevelopment.\n\nI have dealt with bees only, and not with ants, which would perhaps seem\nto present greater difficulty, inasmuch as in some families of these\nthere are two, or even three, castes of neuters with well-marked and wide\ndifferences of structure and instinct; but I think the reader will agree\nwith me that the ants are sufficiently covered by the bees, and that\nenough, therefore, has been said already. Mr. Darwin supposes that these\nmodifications of structure and instinct have been effected by the\naccumulation of numerous slight, profitable, spontaneous variations on\nthe part of the fertile parents, which has caused them (so, at least, I\nunderstand him) to lay this or that particular kind of egg, which should\ndevelop into a kind of bee or ant, with this or that particular instinct,\nwhich instinct is merely a co-ordination with structure, and in no way\nattributable to use or habit in preceding generations.\n\nEven so, one cannot see that the habit of laying this particular kind of\negg might not be due to use and memory in previous generations on the\npart of the fertile parents, \u201cfor the numerous slight spontaneous\nvariations,\u201d on which \u201cnatural selection\u201d is to work, must have had some\ncause than which none more reasonable than sense of need and experience\npresents itself; and there seems hardly any limit to what long-continued\nfaith and desire, aided by intelligence, may be able to effect. But if\nsense of need and experience are denied, I see no escape from the view\nthat machines are new species of life.\n\nMr. Darwin concludes: \u201cI am surprised that no one has hitherto advanced\nthis demonstrative case of neuter insects against the well-known doctrine\nof inherited habit as advanced by Lamarck\u201d (\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d p. 233,\ned. 1876).\n\nAfter reading this, one feels as though there was no more to be said.\nThe well-known doctrine of inherited habit, as advanced by Lamarck, has\nindeed been long since so thoroughly exploded, that it is not worth while\nto go into an explanation of what it was, or to refute it in detail.\nHere, however, is an argument against it, which is so much better than\nanything advanced yet, that one is surprised it has never been made use\nof; so we will just advance it, as it were, to slay the slain, and pass\non. Such, at least, is the effect which the paragraph above quoted\nproduced upon myself, and would, I think, produce on the great majority\nof readers. When driven by the exigencies of my own position to examine\nthe value of the demonstration more closely, I conclude, either that I\nhave utterly failed to grasp Mr. Darwin\u2019s meaning, or that I have no less\ncompletely mistaken the value and bearing of the facts I have myself\nadvanced in these few last pages. Failing this, my surprise is, not that\n\u201cno one has hitherto advanced\u201d the instincts of neuter insects as a\ndemonstrative case against the doctrine of inherited habit, but rather\nthat Mr. Darwin should have thought the case demonstrative; or again,\nwhen I remember that the neuter working bee is only an aborted queen, and\nmay be turned back again into a queen, by giving it such treatment as it\ncan alone be expected to remember\u2014then I am surprised that the structure\nand instincts of neuter bees has never (if never) been brought forward in\nsupport of the doctrine of inherited habit as advanced by Lamarck, and\nagainst any theory which would rob such instincts of their foundation in\nintelligence, and of their connection with experience and memory.\n\nAs for the instinct to mutilate, that is as easily accounted for as any\nother inherited habit, whether of man to mutilate cattle, or of ants to\nmake slaves, or of birds to make their nests. I can see no way of\naccounting for the existence of any one of these instincts, except on the\nsupposition that they have arisen gradually, through perceptions of power\nand need on the part of the animal which exhibits them\u2014these two\nperceptions advancing hand in hand from generation to generation, and\nbeing accumulated in time and in the common course of nature.\n\nI have already sufficiently guarded against being supposed to maintain\nthat very long before an instinct or structure was developed, the\ncreature descried it in the far future, and made towards it. We do not\nobserve this to be the manner of human progress. Our mechanical\ninventions, which, as I ventured to say in \u201cErewhon,\u201d through the mouth\nof the second professor, are really nothing but extra-corporaneous\nlimbs\u2014a wooden leg being nothing but a bad kind of flesh leg, and a flesh\nleg being only a much better kind of wooden leg than any creature could\nbe expected to manufacture introspectively and consciously\u2014our mechanical\ninventions have almost invariably grown up from small beginnings, and\nwithout any very distant foresight on the part of the inventors. When\nWatt perfected the steam engine, he did not, it seems, foresee the\nlocomotive, much less would any one expect a savage to invent a steam\nengine. A child breathes automatically, because it has learnt to breathe\nlittle by little, and has now breathed for an incalculable length of\ntime; but it cannot open oysters at all, nor even conceive the idea of\nopening oysters for two or three years after it is born, for the simple\nreason that this lesson is one which it is only beginning to learn. All\nI maintain is, that, give a child as many generations of practice in\nopening oysters as it has had in breathing or sucking, and it would on\nbeing born, turn to the oyster-knife no less naturally than to the\nbreast. We observe that among certain families of men there has been a\ntendency to vary in the direction of the use and development of\nmachinery; and that in a certain still smaller number of families, there\nseems to be an almost infinitely great capacity for varying and inventing\nstill further, whether socially or mechanically; while other families,\nand perhaps the greater number, reach a certain point and stop; but we\nalso observe that not even the most inventive races ever see very far\nahead. I suppose the progress of plants and animals to be exactly\nanalogous to this.\n\nMr. Darwin has always maintained that the effects of use and disuse are\nhighly important in the development of structure, and if, as he has said,\nhabits are sometimes inherited\u2014then they should sometimes be important\nalso in the development of instinct, or habit. But what does the\ndevelopment of an instinct or structure, or, indeed, any effect upon the\norganism produced by \u201cuse and disuse,\u201d imply? It implies an effect\nproduced by a desire to do something for which the organism was not\noriginally well adapted or sufficient, but for which it has come to be\nsufficient in consequence of the desire. The wish has been father to the\npower; but this again opens up the whole theory of Lamarck, that the\ndevelopment of organs has been due to the wants or desires of the animal\nin which the organ appears. So far as I can see, I am insisting on\nlittle more than this.\n\nOnce grant that a blacksmith\u2019s arm grows thicker through hammering iron,\nand you have an organ modified in accordance with a need or wish. Let\nthe desire and the practice be remembered, and go on for long enough, and\nthe slight alterations of the organ will be accumulated, until they are\nchecked either by the creature\u2019s having got all that he cares about\nmaking serious further effort to obtain, or until his wants prove\ninconvenient to other creatures that are stronger than he, and he is\nhence brought to a standstill. Use and disuse, then, with me, and, as I\ngather also, with Lamarck, are the keys to the position, coupled, of\ncourse, with continued personality and memory. No sudden and striking\nchanges would be effected, except that occasionally a blunder might prove\na happy accident, as happens not unfrequently with painters, musicians,\nchemists, and inventors at the present day; or sometimes a creature, with\nexceptional powers of memory or reflection, would make his appearance in\nthis race or in that. We all profit by our accidents as well as by our\nmore cunning contrivances, so that analogy would point in the direction\nof thinking that many of the most happy thoughts in the animal and\nvegetable kingdom were originated much as certain discoveries that have\nbeen made by accident among ourselves. These would be originally blind\nvariations, though even so, probably less blind than we think, if we\ncould know the whole truth. When originated, they would be eagerly taken\nadvantage of and improved upon by the animal in whom they appeared; but\nit cannot be supposed that they would be very far in advance of the last\nstep gained, more than are those \u201cflukes\u201d which sometimes enable us to go\nso far beyond our own ordinary powers. For if they were, the animal\nwould despair of repeating them. No creature hopes, or even wishes, for\nvery much more than he has been accustomed to all his life, he and his\nfamily, and the others whom he can understand, around him. It has been\nwell said that \u201cenough\u201d is always \u201ca little more than one has.\u201d We do\nnot try for things which we believe to be beyond our reach, hence one\nwould expect that the fortunes, as it were, of animals should have been\nbuilt up gradually. Our own riches grow with our desires and the pains\nwe take in pursuit of them, and our desires vary and increase with our\nmeans of gratifying them; but unless with men of exceptional business\naptitude, wealth grows gradually by the adding field to field and farm to\nfarm; so with the limbs and instincts of animals; these are but the\nthings they have made or bought with their money, or with money that has\nbeen left them by their forefathers, which, though it is neither silver\nnor gold, but faith and protoplasm only, is good money and capital\nnotwithstanding.\n\nI have already admitted that instinct may be modified by food or drugs,\nwhich may affect a structure or habit as powerfully as we see certain\npoisons affect the structure of plants by producing, as Mr. Darwin tells\nus, very complex galls upon their leaves. I do not, therefore, for a\nmoment insist on habit as the sole cause of instinct. Every habit must\nhave had its originating cause, and the causes which have started one\nhabit will from time to time start or modify others; nor can I explain\nwhy some individuals of a race should be cleverer than others, any more\nthan I can explain why they should exist at all; nevertheless, I observe\nit to be a fact that differences in intelligence and power of growth are\nuniversal in the individuals of all those races which we can best watch.\nI also most readily admit that the common course of nature would both\ncause many variations to arise independently of any desire on the part of\nthe animal (much as we have lately seen that the moons of Mars were on\nthe point of being discovered three hundred years ago, merely through\nGalileo sending to Kepler a Latin anagram which Kepler could not\nunderstand, and arranged into the line\u2014\u201c_Salve umbistineum geminatum\nMartia prolem_,\u201d and interpreted to mean that Mars had two moons, whereas\nGalileo had meant to say \u201c_Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi_,\u201d\nmeaning that he had seen Saturn\u2019s ring), and would also preserve and\naccumulate such variations when they had arisen; but I can no more\nbelieve that the wonderful adaptation of structures to needs, which we\nsee around us in such an infinite number of plants and animals, can have\narisen without a perception of those needs on the part of the creature in\nwhom the structure appears, than I can believe that the form of the\ndray-horse or greyhound\u2014so well adapted both to the needs of the animal\nin his daily service to man, and to the desires of man, that the creature\nshould do him this daily service\u2014can have arisen without any desire on\nman\u2019s part to produce this particular structure, or without the inherited\nhabit of performing the corresponding actions for man, on the part of the\ngreyhound and dray-horse.\n\nAnd I believe that this will be felt as reasonable by the great majority\nof my readers. I believe that nine fairly intelligent and observant men\nout of ten, if they were asked which they thought most likely to have\nbeen the main cause of the development of the various phases either of\nstructure or instinct which we see around us, namely\u2014sense of need, or\neven whim, and hence occasional discovery, helped by an occasional piece\nof good luck, communicated, it may be, and generally adopted, long\npractised, remembered by offspring, modified by changed surroundings, and\naccumulated in the course of time\u2014or, the accumulation of small\ndivergent, indefinite, and perfectly unintelligent variations, preserved\nthrough the survival of their possessor in the struggle for existence,\nand hence in time leading to wide differences from the original\ntype\u2014would answer in favour of the former alternative; and if for no\nother cause yet for this\u2014that in the human race, which we are best able\nto watch, and between which and the lower animals no difference in kind\nwill, I think, be supposed, but only in degree, we observe that progress\nmust have an internal current setting in a definite direction, but\nwhither we know not for very long beforehand; and that without such\ninternal current there is stagnation. Our own progress\u2014or variation\u2014is\ndue not to small, fortuitous inventions or modifications which have\nenabled their fortunate possessors to survive in times of difficulty,\nnot, in fact, to strokes of luck (though these, of course, have had some\neffect\u2014but not more, probably, than strokes of ill luck have\ncounteracted) but to strokes of cunning\u2014to a sense of need, and to study\nof the past and present which have given shrewd people a key with which\nto unlock the chambers of the future.\n\nFurther, Mr. Darwin himself says (\u201cPlants and Animals under\nDomestication,\u201d ii. p. 237, ed. 1875):\u2014\n\n\u201cBut I think we must take a broader view and conclude that organic beings\nwhen subjected during several generations to any change whatever in their\nconditions tend to vary: _the kind of variation which ensues depending in\nmost cases in a far higher degree on the nature or constitution of the\nbeing_, _than on the nature of the changed conditions_.\u201d And this we\nobserve in man. The history of a man prior to his birth is more\nimportant as far as his success or failure goes than his surroundings\nafter birth, important though these may indeed be. The able man rises in\nspite of a thousand hindrances, the fool fails in spite of every\nadvantage. \u201cNatural selection,\u201d however, does not make either the able\nman or the fool. It only deals with him after other causes have made\nhim, and would seem in the end to amount to little more than to a\nstatement of the fact that when variations have arisen they will\naccumulate. One cannot look, as has already been said, for the origin of\nspecies in that part of the course of nature which settles the\npreservation or extinction of variations which have already arisen from\nsome unknown cause, but one must look for it in the causes that have led\nto variation at all. These causes must get, as it were, behind the back\nof \u201cnatural selection,\u201d which is rather a shield and hindrance to our\nperception of our own ignorance than an explanation of what these causes\nare.\n\nThe remarks made above will apply equally to plants such as the misletoe\nand red clover. For the sake of brevity I will deal only with the\nmisletoe, which seems to be the more striking case. Mr. Darwin writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cNaturalists continually refer to external conditions, such as climate,\nfood, &c., as the only possible cause of variation. In one limited\nsense, as we shall hereafter see, this may be true; but it is\npreposterous to attribute to mere external conditions, the structure, for\ninstance, of the woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak, and tongue, so\nadmirably adapted to catch insects under the bark of trees. In the case\nof the misletoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees, which\nhas seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which has\nflowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain\ninsects to bring pollen from one flower to another, it is equally\npreposterous to account for the structure of this parasite with its\nrelations to several distinct organic beings, by the effect of external\nconditions, or of habit, or of the volition of the plant itself\u201d\n(\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d p. 3, ed. 1876).\n\nI cannot see this. To me it seems still more preposterous to account for\nit by the action of \u201cnatural selection\u201d operating upon indefinite\nvariations. It would be preposterous to suppose that a bird very\ndifferent from a woodpecker should have had a conception of a woodpecker,\nand so by volition gradually grown towards it. So in like manner with\nthe misletoe. Neither plant nor bird knew how far they were going, or\nsaw more than a very little ahead as to the means of remedying this or\nthat with which they were dissatisfied, or of getting this or that which\nthey desired; but given perceptions at all, and thus a sense of needs and\nof the gratification of those needs, and thus hope and fear, and a sense\nof content and discontent\u2014given also the lowest power of gratifying those\nneeds\u2014given also that some individuals have these powers in a higher\ndegree than others\u2014given also continued personality and memory over a\nvast extent of time\u2014and the whole phenomena of species and genera resolve\nthemselves into an illustration of the old proverb, that what is one\nman\u2019s meat is another man\u2019s poison. Life in its lowest form under the\nabove conditions\u2014and we cannot conceive of life at all without them\u2014would\nbe bound to vary, and to result after not so very many millions of years\nin the infinite forms and instincts which we see around us.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\nLAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN.\n\n\nIT will have been seen that in the preceding pages the theory of\nevolution, as originally propounded by Lamarck, has been more than once\nsupported, as against the later theory concerning it put forward by Mr.\nDarwin, and now generally accepted.\n\nIt is not possible for me, within the limits at my command, to do\nanything like justice to the arguments that may be brought forward in\nfavour of either of these two theories. Mr. Darwin\u2019s books are at the\ncommand of every one; and so much has been discovered since Lamarck\u2019s\nday, that if he were living now, he would probably state his case very\ndifferently; I shall therefore content myself with a few brief remarks,\nwhich will hardly, however, aspire to the dignity of argument.\n\nAccording to Mr. Darwin, differentiations of structure and instinct have\nmainly come about through the accumulation of small, fortuitous\nvariations without intelligence or desire upon the part of the creature\nvarying; modification, however, through desire and sense of need, is not\ndenied entirely, inasmuch as considerable effect is ascribed by Mr.\nDarwin to use and disuse, which involves, as has been already said, the\nmodification of a structure in accordance with the wishes of its\npossessor.\n\nAccording to Lamarck, genera and species have been evolved, in the main,\nby exactly the same process as that by which human inventions and\ncivilisations are now progressing; and this involves that intelligence,\ningenuity, heroism, and all the elements of romance, should have had the\nmain share in the development of every herb and living creature around\nus.\n\nI take the following brief outline of the most important part of\nLamarck\u2019s theory from vol. xxxvi. of the Naturalist\u2019s Library (Edinburgh,\n1843):\u2014\n\n\u201cThe more simple bodies,\u201d says the editor, giving Lamarck\u2019s opinion\nwithout endorsing it, \u201care easily formed, and this being the case, it is\neasy to conceive how in the lapse of time animals of a more complex\nstructure should be produced, _for it must be admitted as a fundamental\nlaw_, _that the production of a new organ in an animal body results from\nany new want or desire it may experience_. The first effort of a being\njust beginning to develop itself must be to procure subsistence, and\nhence in time there comes to be produced a stomach or alimentary cavity.\u201d\n(Thus we saw that the am\u0153ba is in the habit of \u201cextemporising\u201d a stomach\nwhen it wants one.) \u201cOther wants occasioned by circumstances will lead\nto other efforts, which in their turn will generate new organs.\u201d\n\nLamarck\u2019s wonderful conception was hampered by an unnecessary adjunct,\nnamely, a belief in an inherent tendency towards progressive development\nin every low organism. He was thus driven to account for the presence of\nmany very low and very ancient organisms at the present day, and fell\nback upon the theory, which is not yet supported by evidence, that such\nlow forms are still continually coming into existence from inorganic\nmatter. But there seems no necessity to suppose that all low forms\nshould possess an inherent tendency towards progression. It would be\nenough that there should occasionally arise somewhat more gifted\nspecimens of one or more original forms. These would vary, and the ball\nwould be thus set rolling, while the less gifted would remain _in statu\nquo_, provided they were sufficiently gifted to escape extinction.\n\nNor do I gather that Lamarck insisted on continued personality and memory\nso as to account for heredity at all, and so as to see life as a single,\nor as at any rate, only a few, vast compound animals, but without the\nconnecting organism between each component item in the whole creature,\nwhich is found in animals that are strictly called compound. Until\ncontinued personality and memory are connected with the idea of heredity,\nheredity of any kind is little more than a term for something which one\ndoes not understand. But there seems little _\u00e0 priori_ difficulty as\nregards Lamarck\u2019s main idea, now that Mr. Darwin has familiarised us with\nevolution, and made us feel what a vast array of facts can be brought\nforward in support of it.\n\nMr. Darwin tells us, in the preface to his last edition of the \u201cOrigin of\nSpecies,\u201d that Lamarck was partly led to his conclusions by the analogy\nof domestic productions. It is rather hard to say what these words\nimply; they may mean anything from a baby to an apple dumpling, but if\nthey imply that Lamarck drew inspirations from the gradual development of\nthe mechanical inventions of man, and from the progress of man\u2019s ideas, I\nwould say that of all sources this would seem to be the safest and most\nfertile from which to draw.\n\nPlants and animals under domestication are indeed a suggestive field for\nstudy, but machines are the manner in which man is varying at this\nmoment. We know how our own minds work, and how our mechanical\norganisations\u2014for, in all sober seriousness, this is what it comes\nto\u2014have progressed hand in hand with our desires; sometimes the power a\nlittle ahead, and sometimes the desire; sometimes both combining to form\nan organ with almost infinite capacity for variation, and sometimes\ncomparatively early reaching the limit of utmost development in respect\nof any new conception, and accordingly coming to a full stop; sometimes\nmaking leaps and bounds, and sometimes advancing sluggishly. Here we are\nbehind the scenes, and can see how the whole thing works. We have man,\nthe very animal which we can best understand, caught in the very act of\nvariation, through his own needs, and not through the needs of others;\nthe whole process is a natural one; the varying of a creature as much in\na wild state as the ants and butterflies are wild. There is less\noccasion here for the continual \u201cmight be\u201d and \u201cmay be,\u201d which we are\ncompelled to put up with when dealing with plants and animals, of the\nworkings of whose minds we can only obscurely judge. Also, there is more\nprospect of pecuniary profit attaching to the careful study of machinery\nthan can be generally hoped for from the study of the lower animals; and\nthough I admit that this consideration should not be carried too far, a\ngreat deal of very unnecessary suffering will be spared to the lower\nanimals; for much that passes for natural history is little better than\nprying into other people\u2019s business, from no other motive than curiosity.\nI would, therefore, strongly advise the reader to use man, and the\npresent races of man, and the growing inventions and conceptions of man,\nas his guide, if he would seek to form an independent judgement on the\ndevelopment of organic life. For all growth is only somebody making\nsomething.\n\nLamarck\u2019s theories fell into disrepute, partly because they were too\nstartling to be capable of ready fusion with existing ideas; they were,\nin fact, too wide a cross for fertility; partly because they fell upon\nevil times, during the reaction that followed the French Revolution;\npartly because, unless I am mistaken, he did not sufficiently link on the\nexperience of the race to that of the individual, nor perceive the\nimportance of the principle that consciousness, memory, volition,\nintelligence, &c., vanish, or become latent, on becoming intense. He\nalso appears to have mixed up matter with his system, which was either\nplainly wrong, or so incapable of proof as to enable people to laugh at\nhim, and pooh-pooh him; but I believe it will come to be perceived, that\nhe has received somewhat scant justice at the hands of his successors,\nand that his \u201ccrude theories,\u201d as they have been somewhat cheaply called,\nare far from having had their last say.\n\nReturning to Mr. Darwin, we find, as we have already seen, that it is\nhard to say exactly how much Mr. Darwin differs from Lamarck, and how\nmuch he agrees with him. Mr. Darwin has always maintained that use and\ndisuse are highly important, and this implies that the effect produced on\nthe parent should be remembered by the offspring, in the same way as the\nmemory of a wound is transmitted by one set of cells to succeeding ones,\nwho long repeat the scar, though it may fade finally away. Also, after\ndealing with the manner in which one eye of a young flat-fish travels\nround the head till both eyes are on the same side of the fish, he gives\n(\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d p. 188, ed. 1875) an instance of a structure \u201cwhich\napparently owes its origin exclusively to use or habit.\u201d He refers to\nthe tail of some American monkeys \u201cwhich has been converted into a\nwonderfully perfect prehensile organ, and serves as a fifth hand. A\nreviewer,\u201d he continues, . . . \u201cremarks on this structure\u2014\u2018It is\nimpossible to believe that in any number of ages the first slight\nincipient tendency to grasp, could preserve the lives of the individuals\npossessing it, or favour their chance of having and of rearing\noffspring.\u2019 But there is no necessity for any such belief. Habit, and\nthis almost implies that some benefit, great or small, is thus derived,\nwould in all probability suffice for the work.\u201d If, then, habit can do\nthis\u2014and it is no small thing to develop a wonderfully perfect prehensile\norgan which can serve as a fifth hand\u2014how much more may not habit do,\neven though unaided, as Mr. Darwin supposes to have been the case in this\ninstance, by \u201cnatural selection\u201d? After attributing many of the\nstructural and instinctive differences of plants and animals to the\neffects of use\u2014as we may plainly do with Mr. Darwin\u2019s own consent\u2014after\nattributing a good deal more to unknown causes, and a good deal to\nchanged conditions, which are bound, if at all important, to result\neither in sterility or variation\u2014how much of the work of originating\nspecies is left for natural selection?\u2014which, as Mr. Darwin admits\n(\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d p. 63, ed. 1876), does not _induce variability_,\nbut \u201cimplies only the preservation of _such variations as arise_, and are\nbeneficial to the being under its conditions of life?\u201d An important part\nassuredly, and one which we can never sufficiently thank Mr. Darwin for\nhaving put so forcibly before us, but an indirect part only, like the\npart played by time and space, and not, I think, the one which Mr. Darwin\nwould assign to it.\n\nMr. Darwin himself has admitted that in the earlier editions of his\n\u201cOrigin of Species\u201d he \u201cunderrated, as it now seems probable, the\nfrequency and importance of modifications due to spontaneous\nvariability.\u201d And this involves the having over-rated the action of\n\u201cnatural selection\u201d as an agent in the evolution of species. But one\ngathers that he still believes the accumulation of small and fortuitous\nvariations through the agency of \u201cnatural selection\u201d to be the main cause\nof the present divergencies of structure and instinct. I do not,\nhowever, think that Mr. Darwin is clear about his own meaning. I think\nthe prominence given to \u201cnatural selection\u201d in connection with the\n\u201corigin of species\u201d has led him, in spite of himself, and in spite of his\nbeing on his guard (as is clearly shown by the paragraph on page 63\n\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d above referred to), to regard \u201cnatural selection\u201d as\nin some way accounting for variation, just as the use of the dangerous\nword \u201cspontaneous,\u201d\u2014though he is so often on his guard against it, and so\nfrequently prefaces it with the words \u201cso-called,\u201d\u2014would seem to have led\nhim into very serious confusion of thought in the passage quoted at the\nbeginning of this paragraph.\n\nFor after saying that he had underrated \u201cthe frequency and importance of\nmodifications due to spontaneous variability,\u201d he continues, \u201cbut it is\nimpossible to attribute to this cause the innumerable structures which\nare so well adapted to the habits of life of each species.\u201d That is to\nsay, it is impossible to attribute these innumerable structures to\nspontaneous variability.\n\nWhat _is_ spontaneous variability?\n\nClearly, from his preceding paragraph, Mr. Darwin means only \u201cso-called\nspontaneous variations,\u201d such as \u201cthe appearance of a moss-rose on a\ncommon rose, or of a nectarine on a peach-tree,\u201d which he gives as good\nexamples of so-called spontaneous variation.\n\nAnd these variations are, after all, due to causes, but to unknown\ncauses; spontaneous variation being, in fact, but another name for\nvariation due to causes which we know nothing about, but in no possible\nsense a _cause of variation_. So that when we come to put clearly before\nour minds exactly what the sentence we are considering amounts to, it\ncomes to this: that it is impossible to attribute the innumerable\nstructures which are so well adapted to the habits of life of each\nspecies to _unknown causes_.\n\n\u201cI can no more believe in _this_,\u201d continues Mr. Darwin, \u201cthan that the\nwell-adapted form of a race-horse or greyhound, which, before the\nprinciple of selection by man was well understood, excited so much\nsurprise in the minds of the older naturalists, can _thus_ be explained\u201d\n(\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d p. 171, ed. 1876).\n\nOr, in other words, \u201cI can no more believe that the well-adapted\nstructures of species are due to unknown causes, than I can believe that\nthe well-adapted form of a race-horse can be explained by being\nattributed to unknown causes.\u201d\n\nI have puzzled over this paragraph for several hours with the sincerest\ndesire to get at the precise idea which underlies it, but the more I have\nstudied it the more convinced I am that it does not contain, or at any\nrate convey, any clear or definite idea at all. If I thought it was a\nmere slip, I should not call attention to it; this book will probably\nhave slips enough of its own without introducing those of a great man\nunnecessarily; but I submit that it is necessary to call attention to it\nhere, inasmuch as it is impossible to believe that after years of\nreflection upon his subject, Mr. Darwin should have written as above,\nespecially in such a place, if his mind was really clear about his own\nposition. Immediately after the admission of a certain amount of\nmiscalculation, there comes a more or less exculpatory sentence which\nsounds so right that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would walk\nthrough it, unless led by some exigency of their own position to examine\nit closely but which yet upon examination proves to be as nearly\nmeaningless as a sentence can be.\n\nThe weak point in Mr. Darwin\u2019s theory would seem to be a deficiency, so\nto speak, of motive power to originate and direct the variations which\ntime is to accumulate. It deals admirably with the accumulation of\nvariations in creatures already varying, but it does not provide a\nsufficient number of sufficiently important variations to be accumulated.\nGiven the motive power which Lamarck suggested, and Mr. Darwin\u2019s\nmechanism would appear (with the help of memory, as bearing upon\nreproduction, of continued personality, and hence of inherited habit, and\nof the vanishing tendency of consciousness) to work with perfect ease.\nMr. Darwin has made us all feel that in some way or other variations _are\naccumulated_, and that evolution is the true solution of the present\nwidely different structures around us, whereas, before he wrote, hardly\nany one believed this. However we may differ from him in detail, the\npresent general acceptance of evolution must remain as his work, and a\nmore valuable work can hardly be imagined. Nevertheless, I cannot think\nthat \u201cnatural selection,\u201d working upon small, fortuitous, indefinite,\nunintelligent variations, would produce the results we see around us.\nOne wants something that will give a more definite aim to variations, and\nhence, at times, cause bolder leaps in advance. One cannot but doubt\nwhether so many plants and animals would be being so continually saved\n\u201cby the skin of their teeth,\u201d as must be so saved if the variations from\nwhich genera ultimately arise are as small in their commencement and at\neach successive stage as Mr. Darwin seems to believe. God\u2014to use the\nlanguage of the Bible\u2014is not extreme to mark what is done amiss, whether\nwith plant or beast or man; on the other hand, when towers of Siloam\nfall, they fall on the just as well as the unjust.\n\nOne feels, on considering Mr. Darwin\u2019s position, that if it be admitted\nthat there is in the lowest creature a power to vary, no matter how\nsmall, one has got in this power as near the \u201corigin of species\u201d as one\ncan ever hope to get. For no one professes to account for the origin of\nlife; but if a creature with a power to vary reproduces itself at all, it\nmust reproduce another creature _which shall also have the power to\nvary_; so that, given time and space enough, there is no knowing where\nsuch a creature could or would stop.\n\nIf the primordial cell had been only capable of reproducing itself once,\nthere would have followed a single line of descendants, the chain of\nwhich might at any moment have been broken by casualty. Doubtless the\nmillionth repetition would have differed very materially from the\noriginal\u2014as widely, perhaps, as we differ from the primordial cell; but\nit would only have differed by addition, and could no more in any\ngeneration resume its latest development without having passed through\nthe initial stage of being what its first forefather was, and doing what\nits first forefather did, and without going through all or a sufficient\nnumber of the steps whereby it had reached its latest differentiation,\nthan water can rise above its own level.\n\nThe very idea, then, of reproduction involves, unless I am mistaken,\nthat, no matter how much the creature reproducing itself may gain in\npower and versatility, it must still always begin _with itself again_ in\neach generation. The primordial cell being capable of reproducing itself\nnot only once, but many times over, each of the creatures which it\nproduces must be similarly gifted; hence the geometrical ratio of\nincrease and the existing divergence of type. In each generation it will\npass rapidly and unconsciously through all the earlier stages of which\nthere has been infinite experience, and for which the conditions are\nreproduced with sufficient similarity to cause no failure of memory or\nhesitation; but in each generation, when it comes to the part in which\nthe course is not so clear, it will become conscious; still, however,\nwhere the course is plain, as in breathing, digesting, &c., retaining\nunconsciousness. Thus organs which present all the appearance of being\ndesigned\u2014as, for example, the tip for its beak prepared by the embryo\nchicken\u2014would be prepared in the end, as it were, by rote, and without\nsense of design, though none the less owing their origin to design.\n\nThe question is not concerning evolution, but as to the main cause which\nhas led to evolution in such and such shapes. To me it seems that the\n\u201cOrigin of Variation,\u201d whatever it is, is the only true \u201cOrigin of\nSpecies,\u201d and that this must, as Lamarck insisted, be looked for in the\nneeds and experiences of the creatures varying. Unless we can explain\nthe origin of variations, we are met by the unexplained _at every step_\nin the progress of a creature from its original homogeneous condition to\nits differentiation, we will say, as an elephant; so that to say that an\nelephant has become an elephant through the accumulation of a vast number\nof small, fortuitous, but unexplained, variations in some lower\ncreatures, is really to say that it has become an elephant owing to a\nseries of causes about which we know nothing whatever, or, in other\nwords, that one does not know how it came to be an elephant. But to say\nthat an elephant has become an elephant owing to a series of variations,\nnine-tenths of which were caused by the wishes of the creature or\ncreatures from which the elephant is descended\u2014this is to offer a reason,\nand definitely put the insoluble one step further back. The question\nwill then turn upon the sufficiency of the reason\u2014that is to say, whether\nthe hypothesis is borne out by facts.\n\nThe effects of competition would, of course, have an extremely important\neffect upon any creature, in the same way as any other condition of\nnature under which it lived, must affect its sense of need and its\nopinions generally. The results of competition would be, as it were, the\ndecisions of an arbiter settling the question whether such and such\nvariation was really to the animal\u2019s advantage or not\u2014a matter on which\nthe animal will, on the whole, have formed a pretty fair judgement for\nitself. _Undoubtedly the past decisions of such an arbiter would affect\nthe conduct of the creature_, which would have doubtless had its\nshortcomings and blunders, and would amend them. The creature would\nshape its course according to its experience of the common course of\nevents, but it would be continually trying and often successfully, to\nevade the law by all manner of sharp practice. New precedents would thus\narise, so that the law would shift with time and circumstances; but the\nlaw would not otherwise direct the channels into which life would flow,\nthan as laws, whether natural or artificial, have affected the\ndevelopment of the widely differing trades and professions among mankind.\nThese have had their origin rather in the needs and experiences of\nmankind than in any laws.\n\nTo put much the same as the above in different words. Assume that small\nfavourable variations are preserved more commonly, in proportion to their\nnumbers, than is perhaps the case, and assume that considerable\nvariations occur more rarely than they probably do occur, how account for\nany variation at all? \u201cNatural selection\u201d cannot _create_ the smallest\nvariation unless it acts through perception of its mode of operation,\nrecognised inarticulately, but none the less clearly, by the creature\nvarying. \u201cNatural selection\u201d operates on what it finds, and not on what\nit has made. Animals that have been wise and lucky live longer and breed\nmore than others less wise and lucky. Assuredly. The wise and lucky\nanimals transmit their wisdom and luck. Assuredly. They add to their\npowers, and diverge into widely different directions. Assuredly. What\nis the cause of this? Surely the fact that they were capable of feeling\nneeds, and that they differed in their needs and manner of gratifying\nthem, and that they continued to live in successive generations, rather\nthan the fact that when lucky and wise they thrived and bred more\ndescendants. This last is an accessory hardly less important for the\n_development_ of species than the fact of the continuation of life at\nall; but it is an accessory of much the same kind as this, for if animals\ncontinue to live at all, they must live _in some way_, and will find that\nthere are good ways and bad ways of living. An animal which discovers\nthe good way will gradually develop further powers, and so species will\nget further and further apart; but the origin of this is to be looked\nfor, not in the power which decides whether this or that way was good,\nbut in the cause which determines the creature, consciously or\nunconsciously, to try this or that way.\n\nBut Mr. Darwin might say that this is not a fair way of stating the\nissue. He might say, \u201cYou beg the question; you assume that there is an\ninherent tendency in animals towards progressive development, whereas I\nsay that there is no good evidence of any such tendency. I maintain that\nthe differences that have from time to time arisen have come about mainly\nfrom causes so far beyond our ken, that we can only call them\nspontaneous; and if so, natural selection which you must allow to have at\nany rate played an important part in the _accumulation_ of variations,\nmust also be allowed to be the nearest thing to the cause of Specific\ndifferences, which we are able to arrive at.\u201d\n\nThus he writes (\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d p. 176, ed. 1876): \u201cAlthough we have\nno good evidence of the existence in organic beings of a tendency towards\nprogressive development, yet this necessarily follows, as I have\nattempted to show in the fourth chapter, through the continued action of\nnatural selection.\u201d Mr. Darwin does not say that organic beings have no\ntendency to vary at all, but only that there is no good evidence that\nthey have a tendency to progressive development, which, I take it, means,\nto see an ideal a long way off, and very different to their present\nselves, which ideal they think will suit them, and towards which they\naccordingly make. I would admit this as contrary to all experience. I\ndoubt whether plants and animals have any _innate tendency to vary_ at\nall, being led to question this by gathering from \u201cPlants and Animals\nunder Domestication\u201d that this is Mr. Darwin\u2019s own opinion. I am\ninclined rather to think that they have only an innate _power to vary_\nslightly, in accordance with changed conditions, and an innate capability\nof being affected both in structure and instinct, by causes similar to\nthose which we observe to affect ourselves. But however this may be,\nthey do vary somewhat, and unless they did, they would not in time have\ncome to be so widely different from each other as they now are. The\nquestion is as to the origin and character of these variations.\n\nWe say they mainly originate in a creature through a sense of its needs,\nand vary through the varying surroundings which will cause those needs to\nvary, and through the opening up of new desires in many creatures, as the\nconsequence of the gratification of old ones; they depend greatly on\ndifferences of individual capacity and temperament; they are\ncommunicated, and in the course of time transmitted, as what we call\nhereditary habits or structures, though these are only, in truth, intense\nand epitomised memories of how certain creatures liked to deal with\nprotoplasm. The question whether this or that is really good or ill, is\nsettled, as the proof of the pudding by the eating thereof, _i.e._, by\nthe rigorous competitive examinations through which most living organisms\nmust pass. Mr. Darwin says that there is no good evidence in support of\nany great principle, or tendency on the part of the creature itself,\nwhich would steer variation, as it were, and keep its head straight, but\nthat the most marvellous adaptations of structures to needs are simply\nthe result of small and blind variations, accumulated by the operation of\n\u201cnatural selection,\u201d which is thus the main cause of the origin of\nspecies.\n\nEnough has perhaps already been said to make the reader feel that the\nquestion wants reopening; I shall, therefore, here only remark that we\nmay assume no fundamental difference as regards intelligence, memory, and\nsense of needs to exist between man and the lowest animals, and that in\nman we do distinctly see a tendency towards progressive development,\noperating through his power of profiting by and transmitting his\nexperience, but operating in directions which man cannot foresee for any\nlong distance. We also see this in many of the higher animals under\ndomestication, as with horses which have learnt to canter and dogs which\npoint; more especially we observe it along the line of latest\ndevelopment, where equilibrium of settled convictions has not yet been\nfully attained. One neither finds nor expects much _a priori_ knowledge,\nwhether in man or beast; but one does find some little in the beginnings\nof, and throughout the development of, every habit, at the commencement\nof which, and on every successive improvement in which, deductive and\ninductive methods are, as it were, fused. Thus the effect, where we can\nbest watch its causes, seems mainly produced by a desire for a definite\nobject\u2014in some cases a serious and sensible desire, in others an idle\none, in others, again, a mistaken one; and sometimes by a blunder which,\nin the hands of an otherwise able creature, has turned up trumps. In\nwild animals and plants the divergences have been accumulated, if they\nanswered to the prolonged desires of the creature itself, and if these\ndesires were to its true ultimate good; with plants or animals under\ndomestication they have been accumulated if they answered a little to the\noriginal wishes of the creature, and much, to the wishes of man. As long\nas man continued to like them, they would be advantageous to the\ncreature; when he tired of them, they would be disadvantageous to it, and\nwould accumulate no longer. Surely the results produced in the\nadaptation of structure to need among many plants and insects are better\naccounted for on this, which I suppose to be Lamarck\u2019s view, namely, by\nsupposing that what goes on amongst ourselves has gone on amongst all\ncreatures, than by supposing that these adaptations are the results of\nperfectly blind and unintelligent variations.\n\nLet me give two examples of such adaptations, taken from Mr. St. George\nMivart\u2019s \u201cGenesis of Species,\u201d to which work I would wish particularly to\ncall the reader\u2019s attention. He should also read Mr. Darwin\u2019s answers to\nMr. Mivart (p. 176, \u201cNatural Selection,\u201d ed. 1876, and onwards).\n\nMr. Mivart writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cSome insects which imitate leaves extend the imitation even to the very\ninjuries on those leaves made by the attacks of insects or fungi. Thus\nspeaking of the walking-stick insects, Mr. Wallace says, \u2018One of these\ncreatures obtained by myself in Borneo (_ceroxylus laceratus_) was\ncovered over with foliaceous excrescences of a clear olive green colour,\nso as exactly to resemble a stick grown over by a creeping moss or\njungermannia. The Dyak who brought it me assured me it was grown over\nwith moss, though alive, and it was only after a most minute examination\nthat I could convince myself it was not so.\u2019 Again, as to the leaf\nbutterfly, he says, \u2018We come to a still more extraordinary part of the\nimitation, for we find representations of leaves in every stage of decay,\nvariously blotched, and mildewed, and pierced with holes, and in many\ncases irregularly covered with powdery black dots, gathered into patches\nand spots so closely resembling the various kinds of minute fungi that\ngrow on dead leaves, that it is impossible to avoid thinking at first\nsight that the butterflies themselves have been attacked by real fungi.\u2019\u201d\n\nI can no more believe that these artificial fungi in which the moth\narrays itself are due to the accumulation of minute, perfectly blind, and\nunintelligent variations, than I can believe that the artificial flowers\nwhich a woman wears in her hat can have got there without design; or that\na detective puts on plain clothes without the slightest intention of\nmaking his victim think that he is not a policeman.\n\nAgain Mr. Mivart writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cIn the work just referred to (\u2018The Fertilisation of Orchids\u2019), Mr.\nDarwin gives a series of the most wonderful and minute contrivances, by\nwhich the visits of insects are utilised for the fertilisation of\norchids\u2014structures so wonderful that nothing could well be more so,\nexcept the attribution of their origin to minute, fortuitous, and\nindefinite variations.\n\n\u201cThe instances are too numerous and too long to quote, but in his \u2018Origin\nof Species\u2019 he describes two which must not be passed over. In one\n(_coryanthes_) the orchid has its lower lip enlarged into a bucket, above\nwhich stand two water-secreting horns. These latter replenish the\nbucket, from which, when half-filled, the water overflows by a spout on\none side. Bees visiting the flower fall into the bucket and crawl out at\nthe spout. By the peculiar arrangement of the parts of the flower, the\nfirst bee which does so, carries away the pollen mass glued to his back,\nand then when he has his next involuntary bath in another flower, as he\ncrawls out, the pollen attached to him comes in contact with the stigma\nof that second flower and fertilises it. In the other example\n(_catasetum_), when a bee gnaws a certain part of the flower, he\ninevitably touches a long delicate projection which Mr. Darwin calls the\n\u2018antenna.\u2019 \u2018This antenna transmits a vibration to a membrane which is\ninstantly ruptured; this sets free a spring by which the pollen mass is\nshot forth like an arrow in the right direction, and adheres by its\nviscid extremity to the back of the bee\u2019\u201d (\u201cGenesis of Species,\u201d p. 63).\n\nNo one can tell a story so charmingly as Mr. Darwin, but I can no more\nbelieve that all this has come about without design on the part of the\norchid, and a gradual perception of the advantages it is able to take\nover the bee, and a righteous determination to enjoy them, than I can\nbelieve that a mousetrap or a steam-engine is the result of the\naccumulation of blind minute fortuitous variations in a creature called\nman, which creature has never wanted either mousetraps or steam-engines,\nbut has had a sort of promiscuous tendency to make them, and was\nbenefited by making them, so that those of the race who had a tendency to\nmake them survived and left issue, which issue would thus naturally tend\nto make more mousetraps and more steam-engines.\n\nPursuing this idea still further, can we for a moment believe that these\nadditions to our limbs\u2014for this is what they are\u2014have mainly come about\nthrough the occasional birth of individuals, who, without design on their\nown parts, nevertheless made them better or worse, and who, accordingly,\neither survived and transmitted their improvement, or perished, they and\ntheir incapacity together?\n\nWhen I can believe in this, then\u2014and not till then\u2014can I believe in an\norigin of species which does not resolve itself mainly into sense of\nneed, faith, intelligence, and memory. Then, and not till then, can I\nbelieve that such organs as the eye and ear can have arisen in any other\nway than as the result of that kind of mental ingenuity, and of moral as\nwell as physical capacity, without which, till then, I should have\nconsidered such an invention as the steam-engine to be impossible.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\nMR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN.\n\n\n\u201cA DISTINGUISHED zoologist, Mr. St. George Mivart,\u201d writes Mr. Darwin,\n\u201chas recently collected all the objections which have ever been advanced\nby myself and others against the theory of natural selection, as\npropounded by Mr. Wallace and myself, and has illustrated them with\nadmirable art and force\u201d (\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d p. 176, ed. 1876). I have\nalready referred the reader to Mr. Mivart\u2019s work, but quote the above\npassage as showing that Mr. Mivart will not, probably, be found to have\nleft much unsaid that would appear to make against Mr. Darwin\u2019s theory.\nIt is incumbent upon me both to see how far Mr. Mivart\u2019s objections are\nweighty as against Mr. Darwin, and also whether or not they tell with\nequal force against the view which I am myself advocating. I will\ntherefore touch briefly upon the most important of them, with the purpose\nof showing that they are serious as against the doctrine that small\nfortuitous variations are the origin of species, but that they have no\nforce against evolution as guided by intelligence and memory.\n\nBut before doing this, I would demur to the words used by Mr. Darwin, and\njust quoted above, namely, \u201cthe theory of natural selection.\u201d I imagine\nthat I see in them the fallacy which I believe to run through almost all\nMr. Darwin\u2019s work, namely, that \u201cnatural selection\u201d is a theory (if,\nindeed, it can be a theory at all), in some way accounting for the origin\nof variation, and so of species\u2014\u201cnatural selection,\u201d as we have already\nseen, being unable to \u201cinduce variability,\u201d and being only able to\naccumulate what\u2014on the occasion of each successive variation, and so\nduring the whole process\u2014must have been originated by something else.\n\nAgain, Mr. Darwin writes\u2014\u201cIn considering the origin of species it is\nquite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities\nof organic beings, or their embryological relations, their geographical\ndistribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to\nthe conclusion that species had not been independently created, but had\ndescended, like varieties from other species. Nevertheless, such a\nconclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until it could\nbe shown how the innumerable species inhabiting this world had been\nmodified, so as to acquire that perfection of structure and co-adaptation\nwhich justly excites our admiration\u201d (\u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d p. 2, ed.\n1876).\n\nAfter reading the above we feel that nothing more satisfactory could be\ndesired. We are sure that we are in the hands of one who can indeed tell\nus \u201chow the innumerable species inhabiting this world have been\nmodified,\u201d and we are no less sure that though others may have written\nupon the subject before, there has been, as yet, no satisfactory\nexplanation put forward of the grand principle upon which modification\nhas proceeded. Then follows a delightful volume, with facts upon facts\nconcerning animals, all showing that species is due to successive small\nmodifications accumulated in the course of nature. But one cannot\nsuppose that Lamarck ever doubted this; for he can never have meant to\nsay, that a low form of life made itself into an elephant at one or two\ngreat bounds; and if he did not mean this, he must have meant that it\nmade itself into an elephant through the accumulation of small successive\nmodifications; these, he must have seen, were capable of accumulation in\nthe scheme of nature, though he may not have dwelt on the manner in which\nthis is accomplished, inasmuch as it is obviously a matter of secondary\nimportance in comparison with the origin of the variations themselves.\nWe believe, however, throughout Mr. Darwin\u2019s book, that we are being told\nwhat we expected to be told; and so convinced are we, by the facts\nadduced, that in some way or other evolution must be true, and so\ngrateful are we for being allowed to think this, that we put down the\nvolume without perceiving that, whereas Lamarck _did_ adduce a great and\ngeneral cause of variation, the insufficiency of which, in spite of\nerrors of detail, has yet to be shown, Mr. Darwin\u2019s main cause of\nvariation resolves itself into a confession of ignorance.\n\nThis, however, should detract but little from our admiration for Mr.\nDarwin\u2019s achievement. Any one can make people see a thing if he puts it\nin the right way, but Mr. Darwin made us see evolution, in spite of his\nhaving put it, in what seems to not a few, an exceedingly mistaken way.\nYet his triumph is complete, for no matter how much any one now moves the\nfoundation, he cannot shake the superstructure, which has become so\ncurrently accepted as to be above the need of any support from reason,\nand to be as difficult to destroy as it was originally difficult of\nconstruction. Less than twenty years ago, we never met with, or heard\nof, any one who accepted evolution; we did not even know that such a\ndoctrine had been ever broached; unless it was that some one now and\nagain said that there was a very dreadful book going about like a rampant\nlion, called \u201cVestiges of Creation,\u201d whereon we said that we would on no\naccount read it, lest it should shake our faith; then we would shake our\nheads and talk of the preposterous folly and wickedness of such shallow\nspeculations. Had not the book of Genesis been written for our learning?\nYet, now, who seriously disputes the main principles of evolution? I\ncannot believe that there is a bishop on the bench at this moment who\ndoes not accept them; even the \u201choly priests\u201d themselves bless evolution\nas their predecessors blessed Cleopatra\u2014when they ought not. It is not\nhe who first conceives an idea, nor he who sets it on its legs and makes\nit go on all fours, but he who makes other people accept the main\nconclusion, whether on right grounds or on wrong ones, who has done the\ngreatest work as regards the promulgation of an opinion. And this is\nwhat Mr. Darwin has done for evolution. He has made us think that we\nknow the origin of species, and so of genera, in spite of his utmost\nefforts to assure us that we know nothing of the causes from which the\nvast majority of modifications have arisen\u2014that is to say, he has made us\nthink we know the whole road, though he has almost ostentatiously\nblindfolded us at every step of the journey. But to the end of time, if\nthe question be asked, \u201cWho taught people to believe in evolution?\u201d there\ncan only be one answer\u2014that it was Mr. Darwin.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMr. Mivart urges with much force the difficulty of _starting_ any\nmodification on which \u201cnatural selection\u201d is to work, and of getting a\ncreature to vary in any definite direction. Thus, after quoting from Mr.\nWallace some of the wonderful cases of \u201cmimicry\u201d which are to be found\namong insects, he writes:\u2014\n\n\u201cNow, let us suppose that the ancestors of these various animals were all\ndestitute of the very special protection they at present possess, as on\nthe Darwinian hypothesis we must do. Let it be also conceded that small\ndeviations from the antecedent colouring or form would tend to make some\nof their ancestors escape destruction, by causing them more or less\nfrequently to be passed over or mistaken by their persecutors. Yet the\ndeviation must, as the event has shown, in each case, be in some definite\ndirection, whether it be towards some other animal or plant, or towards\nsome dead or inorganic matter. But as, according to Mr. Darwin\u2019s theory,\nthere is a constant tendency to indefinite variation, and as the minute\nincipient variations will be _in all directions_, they must tend to\nneutralise each other, and at first to form such unstable modifications,\nthat it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how such indefinite\nmodifications of insignificant beginnings can ever build up a\nsufficiently appreciable resemblance to a leaf, bamboo, or other object\nfor \u201cnatural selection,\u201d to seize upon and perpetuate. This difficulty\nis augmented when we consider\u2014a point to be dwelt upon hereafter\u2014how\nnecessary it is that many individuals should be similarly modified\nsimultaneously. This has been insisted on in an able article in the\n\u2018North British Review\u2019 for June 1867, p. 286, and the consideration of\nthe article has occasioned Mr. Darwin\u201d (\u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d 5th ed., p.\n104) \u201cto make an important modification in his views\u201d (\u201cGenesis of\nSpecies,\u201d p. 38).\n\nTo this Mr. Darwin rejoins:\u2014\n\n\u201cBut in all the foregoing cases the insects in their original state, no\ndoubt, presented some rude and accidental resemblance to an object\ncommonly found in the stations frequented by them. Nor is this\nimprobable, considering the almost infinite number of surrounding\nobjects, and the diversity of form and colour of the host of insects that\nexist\u201d (\u201cNatural Selection,\u201d p. 182, ed. 1876).\n\nMr. Mivart has just said: \u201cIt is difficult to see how such indefinite\nmodifications of insignificant beginnings _can ever build up a\nsufficiently appreciable resemblance to a leaf_, _bamboo_, _or other\nobject_, _for_ \u2018_natural selection_\u2019 _to work upon_.\u201d\n\nThe answer is, that \u201cnatural selection\u201d did not begin to work _until_,\n_from unknown causes_, _an appreciable resemblance had nevertheless been\npresented_. I think the reader will agree with me that the development\nof the lowest life into a creature which bears even \u201ca rude resemblance\u201d\nto the objects commonly found in the station in which it is moving in its\npresent differentiation, requires more explanation than is given by the\nword \u201caccidental.\u201d\n\nMr. Darwin continues: \u201cAs some rude resemblance is necessary for the\nfirst start,\u201d &c.; and a little lower he writes: \u201cAssuming that an insect\noriginally happened to resemble in some degree a dead twig or a decayed\nleaf, and that it varied slightly in many ways, then all the variations\nwhich rendered the insect at all more like any such object, and thus\nfavoured its escape, would be preserved, while other variations would be\nneglected, and ultimately lost, or if they rendered the insect at all\nless like the imitated object, they would be eliminated.\u201d\n\nBut here, again, we are required to begin with Natural Selection when the\nwork is already in great part done, owing to causes about which we are\nleft completely in the dark; we may, I think, fairly demur to the insects\n_originally_ happening to resemble in some degree a dead twig or a\ndecayed leaf. And when we bear in mind that the variations, being\nsupposed by Mr. Darwin to be indefinite, or devoid of aim, will appear in\nevery direction, we cannot forget what Mr. Mivart insists upon, namely,\nthat the chances of many favourable variations being counteracted by\nother unfavourable ones in the same creature are not inconsiderable.\nNor, again, is it likely that the favourable variation would make its\nmark upon the race, and escape being absorbed in the course of a few\ngenerations, unless\u2014as Mr. Mivart elsewhere points out, in a passage to\nwhich I shall call the reader\u2019s attention presently\u2014a larger number of\nsimilarly varying creatures made their appearance at the same time than\nthere seems sufficient reason to anticipate, if the variations can be\ncalled fortuitous.\n\n\u201cThere would,\u201d continues Mr. Darwin, \u201cindeed be force in Mr. Mivart\u2019s\nobjection if we were to attempt to account for the above resemblances,\nindependently of \u2018natural selection,\u2019 through mere fluctuating\nvariability; but as the case stands, there is none.\u201d\n\nThis comes to saying that, if there was no power in nature which operates\nso that of all the many fluctuating variations, those only are preserved\nwhich tend to the resemblance which is beneficial to the creature, then\nindeed there would be difficulty in understanding how the resemblance\ncould have come about; but that as there is a beneficial resemblance to\nstart with, and as there is a power in nature which would preserve and\naccumulate further beneficial resemblance, should it arise from this\ncause or that, the difficulty is removed. But Mr. Mivart does not, I\ntake it, deny the existence of such a power in nature, as Mr. Darwin\nsupposes, though, if I understand him rightly, he does not see that its\noperation _upon small fortuitous variations_ is at all the simple and\nobvious process, which on a superficial view of the case it would appear\nto be. He thinks\u2014and I believe the reader will agree with him\u2014that this\nprocess is too slow and too risky. What he wants to know is, how the\ninsect came even rudely to resemble the object, and how, if its\nvariations are indefinite, we are ever to get into such a condition as to\nbe able to report progress, owing to the constant liability of the\ncreature which has varied favourably, to play the part of Penelope and\nundo its work, by varying in some one of the infinite number of other\ndirections which are open to it\u2014all of which, except this one, tend to\ndestroy the resemblance, and yet may be in some other respect even more\nadvantageous to the creature, and so tend to its preservation. Moreover,\nhere, too, I think (though I cannot be sure), we have a recurrence of the\noriginal fallacy in the words\u2014\u201cIf we were to account for the above\nresemblances, independently of \u2018natural selection,\u2019 through mere\nfluctuating variability.\u201d Surely Mr. Darwin does, after all, \u201caccount\nfor the resemblances through mere fluctuating variability,\u201d for \u201cnatural\nselection\u201d does not account for one single variation in the whole list of\nthem from first to last, other than indirectly, as shewn in the preceding\nchapter.\n\nIt is impossible for me to continue this subject further; but I would beg\nthe reader to refer to other paragraphs in the neighbourhood of the one\njust quoted, in which he may\u2014though I do not think he will\u2014see reason to\nthink that I should have given Mr. Darwin\u2019s answer more fully. I do not\nquote Mr. Darwin\u2019s next paragraph, inasmuch as I see no great difficulty\nabout \u201cthe last touches of perfection in mimicry,\u201d provided Mr. Darwin\u2019s\ntheory will account for any mimicry at all. If it could do this, it\nmight as well do more; but a strong impression is left on my mind, that\nwithout the help of something over and above the power to vary, which\nshould give a definite aim to variations, all the \u201cnatural selection\u201d in\nthe world would not have prevented stagnation and self-stultification,\nowing to the indefinite tendency of the variations, which thus could not\nhave developed either a preyer or a preyee, but would have gone round and\nround and round the primordial cell till they were weary of it.\n\nAs against Mr. Darwin, therefore, I think that the objection just given\nfrom Mr. Mivart is fatal. I believe, also, that the reader will feel the\nforce of it much more strongly if he will turn to Mr. Mivart\u2019s own pages.\nAgainst the view which I am myself supporting, the objection breaks down\nentirely, for grant \u201ca little dose of judgement and reason\u201d on the part\nof the creature itself\u2014grant also continued personality and memory\u2014and a\ndefinite tendency is at once given to the variations. The process is\nthus started, and is kept straight, and helped forward through every\nstage by \u201cthe little dose of reason,\u201d &c., which enabled it to take its\nfirst step. We are, in fact, no longer without a helm, but can steer\neach creature that is so discontented with its condition, as to make a\nserious effort to better itself, into _some_\u2014and into a very\ndistant\u2014harbour.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt has been objected against Mr. Darwin\u2019s theory that if all species and\ngenera have come to differ through the accumulation of minute but\u2014as a\ngeneral rule\u2014fortuitous variations, there has not been time enough, so\nfar as we are able to gather, for the evolution of all existing forms by\nso slow a process. On this subject I would again refer the reader to Mr.\nMivart\u2019s book, from which I take the following:\u2014\n\n\u201cSir William Thompson has lately advanced arguments from three distinct\nlines of inquiry agreeing in one approximate result. The three lines of\ninquiry are\u2014(1) the action of the tides upon the earth\u2019s rotation; (2)\nthe probable length of time during which the sun has illuminated this\nplanet; and (3) the temperature of the interior of the earth. The result\narrived at by these investigations is a conclusion that the existing\nstate of things on the earth, life on the earth, all geological history\nshowing continuity of life, must be limited within some such period of\npast time as one hundred million years. The first question which\nsuggests itself, supposing Sir W. Thompson\u2019s views to be correct, is: Has\nthis period been anything like enough for the evolution of all organic\nforms by \u2018natural selection\u2019? The second is: Has the period been\nanything like enough for the deposition of the strata which must have\nbeen deposited if all organic forms have been evolved by minute steps,\naccording to the Darwinian theory?\u201d (\u201cGenesis of Species,\u201d p. 154).\n\nMr. Mivart then quotes from Mr. Murphy\u2014whose work I have not seen\u2014the\nfollowing passage:\u2014\n\n\u201cDarwin justly mentions the greyhound as being equal to any natural\nspecies in the perfect co-ordination of its parts, \u2018all adapted for\nextreme fleetness and for running down weak prey.\u2019 Yet it is an\nartificial species (and not physiologically a species at all) formed by a\nlong-continued selection under domestication; and there is no reason to\nsuppose that any of the variations which have been selected to form it\nhave been other than gradual and almost imperceptible. Suppose that it\nhas taken five hundred years to form the greyhound out of his wolf-like\nancestor. This is a mere guess, but it gives the order of magnitude.\nNow, if so, how long would it take to obtain an elephant from a protozoon\nor even from a tadpole-like fish? Ought it not to take much more than a\nmillion times as long?\u201d (\u201cGenesis of Species,\u201d p. 155).\n\nI should be very sorry to pronounce any opinion upon the foregoing data;\nbut a general impression is left upon my mind, that if the differences\nbetween an elephant and a tadpole-like fish have arisen from the\naccumulation of small variations that have had no direction given them by\nintelligence and sense of needs, then no time conceivable by man would\nsuffice for their development. But grant \u201ca little dose of reason and\njudgement,\u201d even to animals low down in the scale of nature, and grant\nthis, not only during their later life, but during their embryological\nexistence, and see with what infinitely greater precision of aim and with\nwhat increased speed the variations would arise. Evolution entirely\nunaided by inherent intelligence must be a very slow, if not quite\ninconceivable, process. Evolution helped by intelligence would still be\nslow, but not so desperately slow. One can conceive that there has been\nsufficient time for the second, but one cannot conceive it for the first.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI find from Mr. Mivart that objection has been taken to Mr. Darwin\u2019s\nviews, on account of the great odds that exist against the appearance of\nany given variation at one and the same time, in a sufficient number of\nindividuals, to prevent its being obliterated almost as soon as produced\nby the admixture of unvaried blood which would so greatly preponderate\naround it; and indeed the necessity for a nearly simultaneous and similar\nvariation, or readiness so to vary on the part of many individuals, seems\nalmost a postulate for evolution at all. On this subject Mr. Mivart\nwrites:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe \u2018North British Review\u2019 (speaking of the supposition that species is\nchanged by the survival of a few individuals in a century through a\nsimilar and favourable variation) says\u2014\n\n\u201c\u2018It is very difficult to see how this can be accomplished, even when the\nvariation is eminently favourable indeed; and still more, when the\nadvantage gained is very slight, as must generally be the case. The\nadvantage, whatever it may be, is utterly outbalanced by numerical\ninferiority. A million creatures are born; ten thousand survive to\nproduce offspring. One of the million has twice as good a chance as any\nother of surviving, but the chances are fifty to one against the gifted\nindividuals being one of the hundred survivors. No doubt the chances are\ntwice as great against any other individual, but this does not prevent\ntheir being enormously in favour of _some_ average individual. However\nslight the advantage may be, if it is shared by half the individuals\nproduced, it will probably be present in at least fifty-one of the\nsurvivors, and in a larger proportion of their offspring; but the chances\nare against the preservation of any one \u201csport\u201d (_i.e._, sudden marked\nvariation) in a numerous tribe. The vague use of an\nimperfectly-understood doctrine of chance, has led Darwinian supporters,\nfirst, to confuse the two cases above distinguished, and secondly, to\nimagine that a very slight balance in favour of some individual sport\nmust lead to its perpetuation. All that can be said is that in the above\nexample the favoured sport would be preserved once in fifty times. Let\nus consider what will be its influence on the main stock when preserved.\nIt will breed and have a progeny of say 100; now this progeny will, on\nthe whole, be intermediate between the average individual and the sport.\nThe odds in favour of one of this generation of the new breed will be,\nsay one and a half to one, as compared with the average individual; the\nodds in their favour will, therefore, be less than that of their parents;\nbut owing to their greater number the chances are that about one and a\nhalf of them would survive. Unless these breed together\u2014a most\nimprobable event\u2014their progeny would again approach the average\nindividual; there would be 150 of them, and their superiority would be,\nsay in the ratio of one and a quarter to one; the probability would now\nbe that nearly two of them would survive, and have 200 children with an\neighth superiority. Rather more than two of these would survive; but the\nsuperiority would again dwindle; until after a few generations it would\nno longer be observed, and would count for no more in the struggle for\nlife than any of the hundred trifling advantages which occur in the\nordinary organs.\n\n\u201c\u2018An illustration will bring this conception home. Suppose a white man\nto have been wrecked on an island inhabited by negroes, and to have\nestablished himself in friendly relations with a powerful tribe, whose\ncustoms he has learnt. Suppose him to possess the physical strength,\nenergy, and ability of a dominant white race, and let the food of the\nisland suit his constitution; grant him every advantage which we can\nconceive a white to possess over the native; concede that in the struggle\nfor existence, his chance of a long life will be much superior to that of\nthe native chiefs; yet from all these admissions there does not follow\nthe conclusion, that after a limited or unlimited number of generations,\nthe inhabitants of the island will be white. Our shipwrecked hero would\nprobably become king; he would kill a great many blacks in the struggle\nfor existence; he would have a great many wives and children . . . In the\nfirst generation there will be some dozens of intelligent young\nmulattoes, much superior in average intelligence to the negroes. We\nmight expect the throne for some generations to be occupied by a more or\nless yellow king; but can any one believe that the whole island will\ngradually acquire a white, or even a yellow population? . . . Darwin\nsays, that in the struggle for life a grain may turn the balance in\nfavour of a given structure, which will then be preserved. But one of\nthe weights in the scale of nature is due to the number of a given tribe.\nLet there be 7000 A\u2019s and 7000 B\u2019s representing two varieties of a given\nanimal, and let all the B\u2019s, in virtue of a slight difference of\nstructure, have the better chance by one-thousandth part. We must allow\nthat there is a slight probability that the descendants of B will\nsupplant the descendants of A; but let there be 7001 A\u2019s against 7000 B\u2019s\nat first, and the chances are once more equal, while if there be 7002 A\u2019s\nto start, the odds would be laid on the A\u2019s. Thus they stand a greater\nchance of being killed; but, then, they can better afford to be killed.\nThe grain will only turn the scales when these are very nicely balanced,\nand an advantage in numbers counts for weight, even as an advantage in\nstructure. As the numbers of the favoured variety diminish, so must its\nrelative advantages increase, if the chance of its existence is to\nsurpass the chance of its extinction, until hardly any conceivable\nadvantage would enable the descendants of a single pair to exterminate\nthe descendants of many thousands, if they and their descendants are\nsupposed to breed freely with the inferior variety, and so gradually lose\ntheir ascendancy,\u2019\u201d (\u201cNorth British Review,\u201d June 1867, p. 286 \u201cGenesis\nof Species,\u201d p. 64, and onwards).\n\nAgainst this it should be remembered that there is always an antecedent\nprobability that several specimens of a given variation would appear at\none time and place. This would probably be the case even on Mr. Darwin\u2019s\nhypothesis, that the variations are fortuitous; if they are mainly guided\nby sense of need and intelligence, it would almost certainly be so, for\nall would have much the same idea as to their well-being, and the same\ncause which would lead one to vary in this direction would lead not a few\nothers to do so at the same time, or to follow suit. Thus we see that\nmany human ideas and inventions have been conceived independently but\nsimultaneously. The chances, moreover, of specimens that have varied\nsuccessfully, intermarrying, are, I think, greater than the reviewer\nabove quoted from would admit. I believe that on the hypothesis that the\nvariations are fortuitous, and certainly on the supposition that they are\nintelligent, they might be looked for in members of the same family, who\nwould hence have a better chance of finding each other out. Serious as\nis the difficulty advanced by the reviewer as against Mr. Darwin\u2019s\ntheory, it may be in great measure parried without departing from Mr.\nDarwin\u2019s own position, but the \u201clittle dose of judgement and reason\u201d\nremoves it, absolutely and entirely. As for the reviewer\u2019s shipwrecked\nhero, surely the reviewer must know that Mr. Darwin would no more expect\nan island of black men to be turned white, or even perceptibly whitened\nafter a few generations, than the reviewer himself would do so. But if\nwe turn from what \u201cmight\u201d or what \u201cwould\u201d happen to what \u201cdoes\u201d happen,\nwe find that a few white families have nearly driven the Indian from the\nUnited States, the Australian natives from Australia, and the Maories\nfrom New Zealand. True, these few families have been helped by\nimmigration; but it will be admitted that this has only accelerated a\nresult which would otherwise, none the less surely, have been effected.\n\nThere is all the difference between a sudden sport, or even a variety\nintroduced from a foreign source, and the gradual, intelligent, and, in\nthe main, steady, growth of a race towards ends always a little, but not\nmuch, in advance of what it can at present compass, until it has reached\nequilibrium with its surroundings. So far as Mr. Darwin\u2019s variations are\nof the nature of \u201csport,\u201d _i.e._, rare, and owing to nothing that we can\nin the least assign to any known cause, the reviewer\u2019s objections carry\nmuch weight. Against the view here advocated, they are powerless.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI cannot here go into the difficulties of the geologic record, but they\ntoo will, I believe, be felt to be almost infinitely simplified by\nsupposing the development of structure and instinct to be guided by\nintelligence and memory, which, even under unstable conditions, would be\nable to meet in some measure the demands made upon them.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen Mr. Mivart deals with evolution and ethics, I am afraid that I\ndiffer from him even more widely than I have done from Mr. Darwin. He\nwrites (\u201cGenesis of Species,\u201d p. 234): \u201cThat \u2018natural selection\u2019 could\nnot have produced from the sensations of pleasure and pain experienced by\nbrutes a higher degree of morality than was useful; therefore it could\nhave produced any amount of \u2018beneficial habits,\u2019 but not abhorrence of\ncertain acts as impure and sinful.\u201d\n\nPossibly \u201cnatural selection\u201d may not be able to do much in the way of\naccumulating variations that do not arise; but that, according to the\nviews supported in this volume, all that is highest and most beautiful in\nthe soul, as well as in the body, could be, and has been, developed from\nbeings lower than man, I do not greatly doubt. Mr. Mivart and myself\nshould probably differ as to what is and what is not beautiful. Thus he\nwrites of \u201cthe noble virtue of a Marcus Aurelius\u201d (p. 235), than whom,\nfor my own part, I know few respectable figures in history to whom I am\nless attracted. I cannot but think that Mr. Mivart has taken his\nestimate of this emperor at second-hand, and without reference to the\nwritings which happily enable us to form a fair estimate of his real\ncharacter.\n\nTake the opening paragraphs of the \u201cThoughts\u201d of Marcus Aurelius, as\ntranslated by Mr. Long:\u2014\n\n\u201cFrom the reputation and remembrance of my father [I learned] modesty and\na manly character; from my mother, piety and beneficence, abstinence not\nonly from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts. . . . From my\ngreat-grandfather, not to have frequented public schools, and to have had\ngood teachers at home, and to know that on such things a man should spend\nliberally . . . From Diognetus . . . [I learned] to have become intimate\nwith philosophy, . . . and to have written dialogues in my youth, and to\nhave desired a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs\nto the Greek discipline. . . . From Rusticus I received the impression\nthat my character required improvement and discipline;\u201d and so on to the\nend of the chapter, near which, however, it is right to say that there\nappears a redeeming touch, in so far as that he thanks the gods that he\ncould not write poetry, and that he had never occupied himself about the\nappearance of things in the heavens.\n\nOr, again, opening Mr. Long\u2019s translation at random I find (p. 37):\u2014\n\n\u201cAs physicians have always their instruments and knives ready for cases\nwhich suddenly require their skill, so do thou have principles ready for\nthe understanding of things divine and human, and for doing everything,\neven the smallest, with a recollection of the bond that unites the divine\nand human to one another. For neither wilt thou do anything well which\npertains to man without at the same time having a reference to things\ndivine; nor the contrary.\u201d\n\nUnhappy one! No wonder the Roman empire went to pieces soon after him.\nIf I remember rightly, he established and subsidised professorships in\nall parts of his dominions. Whereon the same befell the arts and\nliterature of Rome as befell Italian painting after the Academic system\nhad taken root at Bologna under the Caracci. Mr. Martin Tupper, again,\nis an amiable and well-meaning man, but we should hardly like to see him\nin Lord Beaconsfield\u2019s place. The Athenians poisoned Socrates; and\nAristophanes\u2014than whom few more profoundly religious men have ever been\nborn\u2014did not, so far as we can gather, think the worse of his countrymen\non that account. It is not improbable that if they had poisoned Plato\ntoo, Aristophanes would have been well enough pleased; but I think he\nwould have preferred either of these two men to Marcus Aurelius.\n\nI know nothing about the loving but manly devotion of a St. Lewis, but I\nstrongly suspect that Mr. Mivart has taken him, too, upon hearsay.\n\nOn the other hand, among dogs we find examples of every heroic quality,\nand of all that is most perfectly charming to us in man.\n\nAs for the possible development of the more brutal human natures from the\nmore brutal instincts of the lower animals, those who read a horrible\nstory told in a note, pp. 233, 234 of Mr. Mivart\u2019s \u201cGenesis of Species,\u201d\nwill feel no difficulty on that score. I must admit, however, that the\ntelling of that story seems to me to be a mistake in a philosophical\nwork, which should not, I think, unless under compulsion, deal either\nwith the horrors of the French Revolution\u2014or of the Spanish or Italian\nInquisition.\n\nFor the rest of Mr. Mivart\u2019s objections, I must refer the reader to his\nown work. I have been unable to find a single one, which I do not\nbelieve to be easily met by the Lamarckian view, with the additions (if\nindeed they are additions, for I must own to no very profound knowledge\nof what Lamarck did or did not say), which I have in this volume proposed\nto make to it. At the same time I admit, that as against the Darwinian\nview, many of them seem quite unanswerable.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\nCONCLUDING REMARKS.\n\n\nHERE, then, I leave my case, though well aware that I have crossed the\nthreshold only of my subject. My work is of a tentative character, put\nbefore the public as a sketch or design for a, possibly, further\nendeavour, in which I hope to derive assistance from the criticisms which\nthis present volume may elicit. Such as it is, however, for the present\nI must leave it.\n\nWe have seen that we cannot do anything thoroughly till we can do it\nunconsciously, and that we cannot do anything unconsciously till we can\ndo it thoroughly; this at first seems illogical; but logic and\nconsistency are luxuries for the gods, and the lower animals, only. Thus\na boy cannot really know how to swim till he can swim, but he cannot swim\ntill he knows how to swim. Conscious effort is but the process of\nrubbing off the rough corners from these two contradictory statements,\ntill they eventually fit into one another so closely that it is\nimpossible to disjoin them.\n\nWhenever, therefore, we see any creature able to go through any\ncomplicated and difficult process with little or no effort\u2014whether it be\na bird building her nest, or a hen\u2019s egg making itself into a chicken, or\nan ovum turning itself into a baby\u2014we may conclude that the creature has\ndone the same thing on a very great number of past occasions.\n\nWe found the phenomena exhibited by heredity to be so like those of\nmemory, and to be so utterly inexplicable on any other supposition, that\nit was easier to suppose them due to memory in spite of the fact that we\ncannot remember having recollected, than to believe that because we\ncannot so remember, therefore the phenomena cannot be due to memory.\n\nWe were thus led to consider \u201cpersonal identity,\u201d in order to see whether\nthere was sufficient reason for denying that the experience, which we\nmust have clearly gained somewhere, was gained by us when we were in the\npersons of our forefathers; we found, not without surprise, that unless\nwe admitted that it might be so gained, in so far as that we once\n_actually were_ our remotest ancestor, we must change our ideas\nconcerning personality altogether.\n\nWe therefore assumed that the phenomena of heredity, whether as regards\ninstinct or structure were mainly due to memory of past experiences,\naccumulated and fused till they had become automatic, or quasi automatic,\nmuch in the same way as after a long life\u2014\n\n . . . \u201cOld experience do attain\n To something like prophetic strain.\u201d\n\nAfter dealing with certain phenomena of memory, but more especially with\nits abeyance and revival, we inquired what the principal corresponding\nphenomena of life and species should be, on the hypothesis that they were\nmainly due to memory.\n\nI think I may say that we found the hypothesis fit in with actual facts\nin a sufficiently satisfactory manner. We found not a few matters, as,\nfor example, the sterility of hybrids, the phenomena of old age, and\npuberty as generally near the end of development, explain themselves with\nmore completeness than I have yet heard of their being explained on any\nother hypothesis.\n\nWe considered the most important difficulty in the way of instinct as\nhereditary habit, namely, the structure and instincts of neuter insects;\nthese are very unlike those of their parents, and cannot apparently be\ntransmitted to offspring by individuals of the previous generation, in\nwhom such structure and instincts appeared, inasmuch as these creatures\nare sterile. I do not say that the difficulty is wholly removed,\ninasmuch as some obscurity must be admitted to remain as to the manner in\nwhich the structure of the larva is aborted; this obscurity is likely to\nremain till we know more of the early history of civilisation among bees\nthan I can find that we know at present; but I believe the difficulty was\nreduced to such proportions as to make it little likely to be felt in\ncomparison with that of attributing instinct to any other cause than\ninherited habit, or inherited habit modified by changed conditions.\n\nWe then inquired what was the great principle underlying variation, and\nanswered, with Lamarck, that it must be \u201csense of need;\u201d and though not\nwithout being haunted by suspicion of a vicious circle, and also well\naware that we were not much nearer the origin of life than when we\nstarted, we still concluded that here was the truest origin of species,\nand hence of genera; and that the accumulation of variations, which in\ntime amounted to specific and generic differences, was due to\nintelligence and memory on the part of the creature varying, rather than\nto the operation of what Mr. Darwin has called \u201cnatural selection.\u201d At\nthe same time we admitted that the course of nature is very much as Mr.\nDarwin has represented it, in this respect, in so far as that there is a\nstruggle for existence, and that the weaker must go to the wall. But we\ndenied that this part of the course of nature would lead to much, if any,\naccumulation of variation, unless the variation was directed mainly by\nintelligent sense of need, with continued personality and memory.\n\nWe conclude, therefore, that the small, structureless, impregnate ovum\nfrom which we have each one of us sprung, has a potential recollection of\nall that has happened to each one of its ancestors prior to the period at\nwhich any such ancestor has issued from the bodies of its\nprogenitors\u2014provided, that is to say, a sufficiently deep, or\nsufficiently often-repeated, impression has been made to admit of its\nbeing remembered at all.\n\nEach step of normal development will lead the impregnate ovum up to, and\nremind it of, its next ordinary course of action, in the same way as we,\nwhen we recite a well-known passage, are led up to each successive\nsentence by the sentence which has immediately preceded it.\n\nAnd for this reason, namely, that as it takes two people \u201cto tell\u201d a\nthing\u2014a speaker and a comprehending listener, without which last, though\nmuch may have been said, there has been nothing told\u2014so also it takes two\npeople, as it were, to \u201cremember\u201d a thing\u2014the creature remembering, and\nthe surroundings of the creature at the time it last remembered. Hence,\nthough the ovum immediately after impregnation is instinct with all the\nmemories of both parents, not one of these memories can normally become\nactive till both the ovum itself, and its surroundings, are sufficiently\nlike what they respectively were, when the occurrence now to be\nremembered last took place. The memory will then immediately return, and\nthe creature will do as it did on the last occasion that it was in like\ncase as now. This ensures that similarity of order shall be preserved in\nall the stages of development, in successive generations.\n\nLife, then, is faith founded upon experience, which experience is in its\nturn founded upon faith\u2014or more simply, it is memory. Plants and animals\nonly differ from one another because they remember different things;\nplants and animals only grow up in the shapes they assume because this\nshape is their memory, their idea concerning their own past history.\n\nHence the term \u201cNatural History,\u201d as applied to the different plants and\nanimals around us. For surely the study of natural history means only\nthe study of plants and animals themselves, which, at the moment of using\nthe words \u201cNatural History,\u201d we assume to be the most important part of\nnature.\n\nA living creature well supported by a mass of healthy ancestral memory is\na young and growing creature, free from ache or pain, and thoroughly\nacquainted with its business so far, but with much yet to be reminded of.\nA creature which finds itself and its surroundings not so unlike those of\nits parents about the time of their begetting it, as to be compelled to\nrecognise that it never yet was in any such position, is a creature in\nthe heyday of life. A creature which begins to be aware of itself is one\nwhich is beginning to recognise that the situation is a new one.\n\nIt is the young and fair, then, who are the truly old and the truly\nexperienced; it is they who alone have a trustworthy memory to guide\nthem; they alone know things as they are, and it is from them that, as we\ngrow older, we must study if we would still cling to truth. The whole\ncharm of youth lies in its advantage over age in respect of experience,\nand where this has for some reason failed, or been misapplied, the charm\nis broken. When we say that we are getting old, we should say rather\nthat we are getting new or young, and are suffering from inexperience,\nwhich drives us into doing things which we do not understand, and lands\nus, eventually, in the utter impotence of death. The kingdom of heaven\nis the kingdom of little children.\n\nA living creature bereft of all memory dies. If bereft of a great part\nof memory, it swoons or sleeps; and when its memory returns, we say it\nhas returned to life.\n\nLife and death, then, should be memory and forgetfulness, for we are dead\nto all that we have forgotten.\n\nLife is that property of matter whereby it can remember. Matter which\ncan remember is living; matter which cannot remember is dead.\n\n_Life_, _then_, _is memory_. The life of a creature is the memory of a\ncreature. We are all the same stuff to start with, but we remember\ndifferent things, and if we did not remember different things we should\nbe absolutely like each other. As for the stuff itself of which we are\nmade, we know nothing save only that it is \u201csuch as dreams are made of.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nI am aware that there are many expressions throughout this book, which\nare not scientifically accurate. Thus I imply that we tend towards the\ncentre of the earth, when, I believe, I should say we tend towards to the\ncentre of gravity of the earth. I speak of \u201cthe primordial cell,\u201d when I\nmean only the earliest form of life, and I thus not only assume a single\norigin of life when there is no necessity for doing so, and perhaps no\nevidence to this effect, but I do so in spite of the fact that the am\u0153ba,\nwhich seems to be \u201cthe simplest form of life,\u201d does not appear to be a\ncell at all. I have used the word \u201cbeget,\u201d of what, I am told, is\nasexual generation, whereas the word should be confined to sexual\ngeneration only. Many more such errors have been pointed out to me, and\nI doubt not that a larger number remain of which I know nothing now, but\nof which I may perhaps be told presently.\n\nI did not, however, think that in a work of this description the\nadditional words which would have been required for scientific accuracy\nwere worth the paper and ink and loss of breadth which their introduction\nwould entail. Besides, I know nothing about science, and it is as well\nthat there should be no mistake on this head; I neither know, nor want to\nknow, more detail than is necessary to enable me to give a fairly broad\nand comprehensive view of my subject. When for the purpose of giving\nthis, a matter importunately insisted on being made out, I endeavoured to\nmake it out as well as I could; otherwise\u2014that is to say, if it did not\ninsist on being looked into, in spite of a good deal of snubbing, I held\nthat, as it was blurred and indistinct in nature, I had better so render\nit in my work.\n\nNevertheless, if one has gone for some time through a wood full of burrs,\nsome of them are bound to stick. I am afraid that I have left more such\nburrs in one part and another of my book, than the kind of reader whom I\nalone wish to please will perhaps put up with. Fortunately, this kind of\nreader is the best-natured critic in the world, and is long suffering of\na good deal that the more consciously scientific will not tolerate; I\nwish, however, that I had not used such expressions as \u201ccentres of\nthought and action\u201d quite so often.\n\nAs for the kind of inaccuracy already alluded to, my reader will not, I\ntake it, as a general rule, know, or wish to know, much more about\nscience than I do, sometimes perhaps even less; so that he and I shall\ncommonly be wrong in the same places, and our two wrongs will make a\nsufficiently satisfactory right for practical purposes.\n\nOf course, if I were a specialist writing a treatise or primer on such\nand such a point of detail, I admit that scientific accuracy would be _de\nrigueur_; but I have been trying to paint a picture rather than to make a\ndiagram, and I claim the painter\u2019s license \u201c_quidlibet audendi_.\u201d I have\ndone my utmost to give the spirit of my subject, but if the letter\ninterfered with the spirit, I have sacrificed it without remorse.\n\nMay not what is commonly called a scientific subject have artistic value\nwhich it is a pity to neglect? But if a subject is to be treated\nartistically\u2014that is to say, with a desire to consider not only the\nfacts, but the way in which the reader will feel concerning those facts,\nand the way in which he will wish to see them rendered, thus making his\nmind a factor of the intention, over and above the subject itself\u2014then\nthe writer must not be denied a painter\u2019s license. If one is painting a\nhillside at a sufficient distance, and cannot see whether it is covered\nwith chestnut-trees or walnuts, one is not bound to go across the valley\nto see. If one is painting a city, it is not necessary that one should\nknow the names of the streets. If a house or tree stands inconveniently\nfor one\u2019s purpose, it must go without more ado; if two important\nfeatures, neither of which can be left out, want a little bringing\ntogether or separating before the spirit of the place can be well given,\nthey must be brought together, or separated. Which is a more truthful\nview, of Shrewsbury, for example, from a spot where St. Alkmund\u2019s spire\nis in parallax with St. Mary\u2019s\u2014a view which should give only the one\nspire which can be seen, or one which should give them both, although the\none is hidden? There would be, I take it, more representation in the\nmisrepresentation than in the representation\u2014\u201cthe half would be greater\nthan the whole,\u201d unless, that is to say, one expressly told the spectator\nthat St. Alkmund\u2019s spire was hidden behind St. Mary\u2019s\u2014a sort of\nexplanation which seldom adds to the poetical value of any work of art.\nDo what one may, and no matter how scientific one may be, one cannot\nattain absolute truth. The question is rather, how do people like to\nhave their error? than, will they go without any error at all? All truth\nand no error cannot be given by the scientist more than by the artist;\neach has to sacrifice truth in one way or another; and even if perfect\ntruth could be given, it is doubtful whether it would not resolve itself\ninto unconsciousness pure and simple, consciousness being, as it were,\nthe clash of small conflicting perceptions, without which there is\nneither intelligence nor recollection possible. It is not, then, what a\nman has said, nor what he has put down with actual paint upon his\ncanvass, which speaks to us with living language\u2014_it is what he has\nthought to us_ (as is so well put in the letter quoted on page 83), by\nwhich our opinion should be guided;\u2014what has he made us feel that he had\nit in him, and wished to do? If he has said or painted enough to make us\nfeel that he meant and felt as we should wish him to have done, he has\ndone the utmost that man can hope to do.\n\nI feel sure that no additional amount of technical accuracy would make me\nmore likely to succeed, in this respect, if I have otherwise failed; and\nas this is the only success about which I greatly care, I have left my\nscientific inaccuracies uncorrected, even when aware of them. At the\nsame time, I should say that I have taken all possible pains as regards\nanything which I thought could materially affect the argument one way or\nanother.\n\nIt may be said that I have fallen between two stools, and that the\nsubject is one which, in my hands, has shown neither artistic nor\nscientific value. This would be serious. To fall between two stools,\nand to be hanged for a lamb, are the two crimes which\u2014\n\n \u201cNor gods, nor men, nor any schools allow.\u201d\n\nOf the latter, I go in but little danger; about the former, I shall know\nbetter when the public have enlightened me.\n\nThe practical value of the views here advanced (if they be admitted as\ntrue at all) would appear to be not inconsiderable, alike as regards\npolitics or the well-being of the community, and medicine which deals\nwith that of the individual. In the first case we see the rationale of\ncompromise, and the equal folly of making experiments upon too large a\nscale, and of not making them at all. We see that new ideas cannot be\nfused with old, save gradually and by patiently leading up to them in\nsuch a way as to admit of a sense of continued identity between the old\nand the new. This should teach us moderation. For even though nature\nwishes to travel in a certain direction, she insists on being allowed to\ntake her own time; she will not be hurried, and will cull a creature out\neven more surely for forestalling her wishes too readily, than for\nlagging a little behind them. So the greatest musicians, painters, and\npoets owe their greatness rather to their fusion and assimilation of all\nthe good that has been done up to, and especially near about, their own\ntime, than to any very startling steps they have taken in advance. Such\nmen will be sure to take some, and important, steps forward; for unless\nthey have this power, they will not be able to assimilate well what has\nbeen done already, and if they have it, their study of older work will\nalmost indefinitely assist it; but, on the whole, they owe their\ngreatness to their completer fusion and assimilation of older ideas; for\nnature is distinctly a fairly liberal conservative rather than a\nconservative liberal. All which is well said in the old couplet\u2014\n\n \u201cBe not the first by whom the new is tried,\n Nor yet the last to throw the old aside.\u201d\n\n_Mutatis mutandis_, the above would seem to hold as truly about medicine\nas about politics. We cannot reason with our cells, for they know so\nmuch more than we do that they cannot understand us;\u2014but though we cannot\nreason with them, we can find out what they have been most accustomed to,\nand what, therefore, they are most likely to expect; we can see that they\nget this, as far as it is in our power to give it them, and may then\ngenerally leave the rest to them, only bearing in mind that they will\nrebel equally against too sudden a change of treatment, and no change at\nall.\n\nFriends have complained to me that they can never tell whether I am in\njest or earnest. I think, however, it should be sufficiently apparent\nthat I am in very serious earnest, perhaps too much so, from the first\npage of my book to the last. I am not aware of a single argument put\nforward which is not a _bon\u00e2 fide_ argument, although, perhaps, sometimes\nadmitting of a humorous side. If a grain of corn looks like a piece of\nchaff, I confess I prefer it occasionally to something which looks like a\ngrain, but which turns out to be a piece of chaff only. There is no lack\nof matter of this description going about in some very decorous volumes;\nI have, therefore, endeavoured, for a third time, to furnish the public\nwith a book whose fault should lie rather in the direction of seeming\nless serious than it is, than of being less so than it seems.\n\nAt the same time, I admit that when I began to write upon my subject I\ndid not seriously believe in it. I saw, as it were, a pebble upon the\nground, with a sheen that pleased me; taking it up, I turned it over and\nover for my amusement, and found it always grow brighter and brighter the\nmore I examined it. At length I became fascinated, and gave loose rein\nto self-illusion. The aspect of the world seemed changed; the trifle\nwhich I had picked up idly had proved to be a talisman of inestimable\nvalue, and had opened a door through which I caught glimpses of a strange\nand interesting transformation. Then came one who told me that the stone\nwas not mine, but that it had been dropped by Lamarck, to whom it\nbelonged rightfully, but who had lost it; whereon I said I cared not who\nwas the owner, if only I might use it and enjoy it. Now, therefore,\nhaving polished it with what art and care one who is no jeweller could\nbestow upon it, I return it, as best I may, to its possessor.\n\nWhat am I to think or say? That I tried to deceive others till I have\nfallen a victim to my own falsehood? Surely this is the most reasonable\nconclusion to arrive at. Or that I have really found Lamarck\u2019s talisman,\nwhich had been for some time lost sight of?\n\nWill the reader bid me wake with him to a world of chance and blindness?\nOr can I persuade him to dream with me of a more living faith than either\nhe or I had as yet conceived as possible? As I have said, reason points\nremorselessly to an awakening, but faith and hope still beckon to the\ndream.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\nAUTHOR\u2019S ADDENDA\n\n\nI\n_See Page_ 13\n\n\nBUT I may say in passing that though articulate speech and the power to\nmaintain the upright position come much about the same time, yet the\npower of making gestures of more or less significance is prior to that of\nwalking uprightly, and therefore to that of speech. Not only is\ngesticulation the earlier faculty in the individual, but it was so also\nin the history of our race. Our semi-simious ancestors could gesticulate\nlong before they could talk articulately. It is significant of this that\ngesture is still found easier than speech even by adults, as may be\nobserved on our river steamers, where the captain moves his hand but does\nnot speak, a boy interpreting his gesture into language. To develop this\nhere would complicate the argument; let us be content to note it and pass\non.\n\n\n\nII\n_See Page_ 18\n\n\nNevertheless, the smallness of the effort touches upon the deepest\nmystery of organic life\u2014the power to originate, to err, to sport, the\npower which differentiates the living organism from the machine, however\ncomplicated. The action and working of this power is found to be like\nthe action of any other mental and, therefore, physical power (for all\nphysical action of living beings is but the expression of a mental\naction), but I can throw no light upon its origin any more than upon the\norigin of life. This, too, must be noted and passed over.\n\n\n\nIII\n_See Page_ 25\n\n\nHow different from the above uncertain sound is the full clear note of\none who truly believes:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe Church of England is commonly called a Lutheran church, but whoever\ncompares it with the Lutheran churches on the Continent will have reason\nto congratulate himself on its superiority. It is in fact a church _sui\ngeneris_, yielding in point of dignity, purity and decency of its\ndoctrines, establishment and ceremonies, to no congregation of christians\nin the world; modelled to a certain and considerable extent, but not\nentirely, by our great and wise pious reformers on the doctrines of\nLuther, so far as they are in conformity with the sure and solid\nfoundation on which it rests, and we trust for ever will rest\u2014the\nauthority of the Holy Scriptures, Jesus Christ himself being the chief\ncorner stone.\u201d (\u201cSketch of Modern and Ancient Geography,\u201d by Dr. Samuel\nButler, of Shrewsbury. Ed. 1813.)\n\nThis is the language of faith, compelled by the exigencies of the\noccasion to be for a short time conscious of its own existence, but\nsurely very little likely to become so to the extent of feeling the need\nof any assistance from reason. It is the language of one whose\nconvictions are securely founded upon the current opinion of those among\nwhom he has been born and bred; and of all merely post-natal faiths a\nfaith so founded is the strongest. It is pleasing to see that the only\nalterations in the edition of 1838 consist in spelling Christians with a\ncapital C and the omission of the epithet \u201cwise\u201d as applied to the\nreformers, an omission more probably suggested by a desire for euphony\nthan by any nascent doubts concerning the applicability of the epithet\nitself.\n\n\n\nIV.\n_See Page_ 239\n\n\nOR take, again, the constitution of the Church of England. The bishops\nare the spiritual queens, the clergy are the neuter workers. They differ\nwidely in structure (for dress must be considered as a part of\nstructure), in the delicacy of the food they eat and the kind of house\nthey inhabit, and also in many of their instincts, from the bishops, who\nare their spiritual parents. Not only this, but there are two distinct\nkinds of neuter workers\u2014priests and deacons; and of the former there are\ndeans, archdeacons, prebends, canons, rural deans, vicars, rectors,\ncurates, yet all spiritually sterile. In spite of this sterility,\nhowever, is there anyone who will maintain that the widely differing\nstructures and instincts of these castes are not due to inherited\nspiritual habit? Still less will he be inclined to do so when he\nreflects that by such slight modification of treatment as consecration\nand endowment any one of them can be rendered spiritually fertile.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n{vii} Although the original edition of \u201cLife and Habit\u201d is dated 1878,\nthe book was actually published in December, 1877.\n\n{13} See Appendix (_note for page_ 13).\n\n{18} See Appendix (_note for page_ 18).\n\n{25} See Appendix (_note for page_ 25).\n\n{239} See Appendix (_note for page_ 239).","title":"Life and Habit","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":85126}