{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6605/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6605","id":"gutenberg_6605","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6605","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science - Biology","Evolution","Memory","Psychology","Subconsciousness"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1910 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\n Unconscious Memory\n\n\n By\n Samuel Butler\n\n Author of \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d \u201cErewhon,\u201d \u201cThe Way of All Flesh,\u201d etc.\n\n * * * * *\n\n New Edition, entirely reset, with an Introduction\n by Marcus Hartog, M.A., D.SC., F.L.S., F.R.H.S., Pro-\n fessor of Zoology in University College, Cork.\n\n * * * * *\n\n OP. 5\n\n * * * * *\n\n London\n A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford\u2019s Inn, E.C.\n 1910\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cAs this paper contains nothing which deserves the name either of\n experiment or discovery, and as it is, in fact, destitute of every\n species of merit, we should have allowed it to pass among the\n multitude of those articles which must always find their way into the\n collections of a society which is pledged to publish two or three\n volumes every year. . . . We wish to raise our feeble voice against\n innovations, that can have no other effect than to check the progress\n of science, and renew all those wild phantoms of the imagination\n which Bacon and Newton put to flight from her temple.\u201d\u2014_Opening\n Paragraph of a Review of Dr. Young\u2019s Bakerian Lecture_. _Edinburgh\n Review_, _January_ 1803, p. 450.\n\n \u201cYoung\u2019s work was laid before the Royal society, and was made the\n 1801 Bakerian Lecture. But he was before his time. The second\n number of the _Edinburgh Review_ contained an article levelled\n against him by Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, and this was so\n severe an attack that Young\u2019s ideas were absolutely quenched for\n fifteen years. Brougham was then only twenty-four years of age.\n Young\u2019s theory was reproduced in France by Fresnel. In our days it\n is the accepted theory, and is found to explain all the phenomena of\n light.\u201d\u2014_Times Report of a Lecture by Professor Tyndall on Light_,\n _April_ 27, 1880.\n\n * * * * *\n\n This Book\n\n Is inscribed to\n\n RICHARD GARNETT, ESQ.\n\n (Of the British Museum)\n\n In grateful acknowledgment of the unwearying kindness\n with which he has so often placed at my disposal\n his varied store of information.\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n PAGE\nNOTE. By R. A. Streatfeild viii\nINTRODUCTION. By Professor Marcus Hartog ix\nAUTHOR\u2019S PREFACE xxxvii\nCHAPTER I. Introduction\u2014General ignorance on the subject 1\nof evolution at the time the \u201cOrigin of Species\u201d was\npublished in 1859\nCHAPTER II. How I came to write \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d and 12\nthe circumstances of its completion\nCHAPTER III. How I came to write \u201cEvolution, Old and 26\nNew\u201d\u2014Mr Darwin\u2019s \u201cbrief but imperfect\u201d sketch of the\nopinions of the writers on evolution who had preceded\nhim\u2014The reception which \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d met\nwith\nCHAPTER IV. The manner in which Mr. Darwin met 38\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New\u201d\nCHAPTER V. Introduction to Professor Hering\u2019s lecture 52\nCHAPTER VI. Professor Ewald Hering \u201cOn Memory\u201d 63\nCHAPTER VII. Introduction to a translation of the 87\nchapter upon instinct in Von Hartmann\u2019s \u201cPhilosophy of\nthe Unconscious\u201d\nCHAPTER VIII. Translation of the chapter on \u201cThe 92\nUnconscious in Instinct,\u201d from Von Hartmann\u2019s \u201cPhilosophy\nof the Unconscious\u201d\nCHAPTER IX. Remarks upon Von Hartmann\u2019s position in 137\nregard to instinct\nCHAPTER X. Recapitulation and statement of an objection 146\nCHAPTER XI. On Cycles 156\nCHAPTER XII. Refutation\u2014Memory at once a promoter and a 161\ndisturber of uniformity of action and structure\nCHAPTER XIII. Conclusion 173\n\n\n\nNote\n\n\nFOR many years a link in the chain of Samuel Butler\u2019s biological works\nhas been missing. \u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d was originally published thirty\nyears ago, but for fully half that period it has been out of print, owing\nto the destruction of a large number of the unbound sheets in a fire at\nthe premises of the printers some years ago. The present reprint comes,\nI think, at a peculiarly fortunate moment, since the attention of the\ngeneral public has of late been drawn to Butler\u2019s biological theories in\na marked manner by several distinguished men of science, notably by Dr.\nFrancis Darwin, who, in his presidential address to the British\nAssociation in 1908, quoted from the translation of Hering\u2019s address on\n\u201cMemory as a Universal Function of Original Matter,\u201d which Butler\nincorporated into \u201cUnconscious Memory,\u201d and spoke in the highest terms of\nButler himself. It is not necessary for me to do more than refer to the\nchanged attitude of scientific authorities with regard to Butler and his\ntheories, since Professor Marcus Hartog has most kindly consented to\ncontribute an introduction to the present edition of \u201cUnconscious\nMemory,\u201d summarising Butler\u2019s views upon biology, and defining his\nposition in the world of science. A word must be said as to the\ncontroversy between Butler and Darwin, with which Chapter IV is\nconcerned. I have been told that in reissuing the book at all I am\ncommitting a grievous error of taste, that the world is no longer\ninterested in these \u201cold, unhappy far-off things and battles long ago,\u201d\nand that Butler himself, by refraining from republishing \u201cUnconscious\nMemory,\u201d tacitly admitted that he wished the controversy to be consigned\nto oblivion. This last suggestion, at any rate, has no foundation in\nfact. Butler desired nothing less than that his vindication of himself\nagainst what he considered unfair treatment should be forgotten. He\nwould have republished \u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d himself, had not the latter\nyears of his life been devoted to all-engrossing work in other fields.\nIn issuing the present edition I am fulfilling a wish that he expressed\nto me shortly before his death.\n\n R. A. STREATFEILD.\n\n_April_, 1910.\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction\nBy Marcus Hartog, M.A., D.Sc., F.L.S., F.R.H.S.\n\n\nIN reviewing Samuel Butler\u2019s works, \u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d gives us an\ninvaluable lead; for it tells us (Chaps. II, III) how the author came to\nwrite the Book of the Machines in \u201cErewhon\u201d (1872), with its\nforeshadowing of the later theory, \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d (1878), \u201cEvolution,\nOld and New\u201d (1879), as well as \u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d (1880) itself. His\nfourth book on biological theory was \u201cLuck? or Cunning?\u201d (1887). {0a}\n\nBesides these books, his contributions to biology comprise several\nessays: \u201cRemarks on Romanes\u2019 _Mental Evolution in Animals_, contained in\n\u201cSelections from Previous Works\u201d (1884) incorporated into \u201cLuck? or\nCunning,\u201d \u201cThe Deadlock in Darwinism\u201d (_Universal Review_, April-June,\n1890), republished in the posthumous volume of \u201cEssays on Life, Art, and\nScience\u201d (1904), and, finally, some of the \u201cExtracts from the Notebooks\nof the late Samuel Butler,\u201d edited by Mr. H. Festing Jones, now in course\nof publication in the _New Quarterly Review_.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOf all these, \u201cLIFE AND HABIT\u201d (1878) is the most important, the main\nbuilding to which the other writings are buttresses or, at most, annexes.\nIts teaching has been summarised in \u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d in four main\nprinciples: \u201c(1) the oneness of personality between parent and offspring;\n(2) memory on the part of the offspring of certain actions which it did\nwhen in the persons of its forefathers; (3) the latency of that memory\nuntil it is rekindled by a recurrence of the associated ideas; (4) the\nunconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be performed.\u201d To\nthese we must add a fifth: the purposiveness of the actions of living\nbeings, as of the machines which they make or select.\n\nButler tells (\u201cLife and Habit,\u201d p. 33) that he sometimes hoped \u201cthat this\nbook would be regarded as a valuable adjunct to Darwinism.\u201d He was\nbitterly disappointed in the event, for the book, as a whole, was\nreceived by professional biologists as a gigantic joke\u2014a joke, moreover,\nnot in the best possible taste. True, its central ideas, largely those\nof Lamarck, had been presented by Hering in 1870 (as Butler found shortly\nafter his publication); they had been favourably received, developed by\nHaeckel, expounded and praised by Ray Lankester. Coming from Butler,\nthey met with contumely, even from such men as Romanes, who, as Butler\nhad no difficulty in proving, were unconsciously inspired by the same\nideas\u2014\u201c_Nur mit ein bischen ander\u2019n W\u00f6rter_.\u201d\n\nIt is easy, looking back, to see why \u201cLife and Habit\u201d so missed its mark.\nCharles Darwin\u2019s presentation of the evolution theory had, for the first\ntime, rendered it possible for a \u201csound naturalist\u201d to accept the\ndoctrine of common descent with divergence; and so given a real meaning\nto the term \u201cnatural relationship,\u201d which had forced itself upon the\nolder naturalists, despite their belief in special and independent\ncreations. The immediate aim of the naturalists of the day was now to\nfill up the gaps in their knowledge, so as to strengthen the fabric of a\nunified biology. For this purpose they found their actual scientific\nequipment so inadequate that they were fully occupied in inventing fresh\ntechnique, and working therewith at facts\u2014save a few critics, such as St.\nGeorge Mivart, who was regarded as negligible, since he evidently held a\nbrief for a party standing outside the scientific world.\n\nButler introduced himself as what we now call \u201cThe Man in the Street,\u201d\nfar too bare of scientific clothing to satisfy the Mrs. Grundy of the\ndomain: lacking all recognised tools of science and all sense of the\ndifficulties in his way, he proceeded to tackle the problems of science\nwith little save the deft pen of the literary expert in his hand. His\nvery failure to appreciate the difficulties gave greater power to his\nwork\u2014much as Tartarin of Tarascon ascended the Jungfrau and faced\nsuccessfully all dangers of Alpine travel, so long as he believed them to\nbe the mere \u201cblagues de r\u00e9clame\u201d of the wily Swiss host. His brilliant\nqualities of style and irony themselves told heavily against him. Was he\nnot already known for having written the most trenchant satire that had\nappeared since \u201cGulliver\u2019s Travels\u201d? Had he not sneered therein at the\nvery foundations of society, and followed up its success by a\npseudo-biography that had taken in the \u201cRecord\u201d and the \u201cRock\u201d? In \u201cLife\nand Habit,\u201d at the very start, he goes out of his way to heap scorn at\nthe respected names of Marcus Aurelius, Lord Bacon, Goethe, Arnold of\nRugby, and Dr. W. B. Carpenter. He expressed the lowest opinion of the\nFellows of the Royal Society. To him the professional man of science,\nwith self-conscious knowledge for his ideal and aim, was a medicine-man,\npriest, augur\u2014useful, perhaps, in his way, but to be carefully watched by\nall who value freedom of thought and person, lest with opportunity he\ndevelop into a persecutor of the worst type. Not content with\nblackguarding the audience to whom his work should most appeal, he went\non to depreciate that work itself and its author in his finest vein of\nirony. Having argued that our best and highest knowledge is that of\nwhose possession we are most ignorant, he proceeds: \u201cAbove all, let no\nunwary reader do me the injustice of believing in me. In that I write at\nall I am among the damned.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nHis writing of \u201cEVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW\u201d (1879) was due to his conviction\nthat scant justice had been done by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace and\ntheir admirers to the pioneering work of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and\nLamarck. To repair this he gives a brilliant exposition of what seemed\nto him the most valuable portion of their teachings on evolution. His\nanalysis of Buffon\u2019s true meaning, veiled by the reticences due to the\nconditions under which he wrote, is as masterly as the English in which\nhe develops it. His sense of wounded justice explains the vigorous\npolemic which here, as in all his later writings, he carries to the\nextreme.\n\nAs a matter of fact, he never realised Charles Darwin\u2019s utter lack of\nsympathetic understanding of the work of his French precursors, let alone\nhis own grandfather, Erasmus. Yet this practical ignorance, which to\nButler was so strange as to transcend belief, was altogether genuine, and\neasy to realise when we recall the position of Natural Science in the\nearly thirties in Darwin\u2019s student days at Cambridge, and for a decade or\ntwo later. Catastropharianism was the tenet of the day: to the last it\ncommended itself to his Professors of Botany and Geology,\u2014for whom Darwin\nheld the fervent allegiance of the Indian scholar, or _chela_, to his\n_guru_. As Geikie has recently pointed out, it was only later, when\nLyell had shown that the breaks in the succession of the rocks were only\npartial and local, without involving the universal catastrophes that\ndestroyed all life and rendered fresh creations thereof necessary, that\nany general acceptance of a descent theory could be expected. We may be\nvery sure that Darwin must have received many solemn warnings against the\ndangerous speculations of the \u201cFrench Revolutionary School.\u201d He himself\nwas far too busy at the time with the reception and assimilation of new\nfacts to be awake to the deeper interest of far-reaching theories.\n\nIt is the more unfortunate that Butler\u2019s lack of appreciation on these\npoints should have led to the enormous proportion of bitter personal\ncontroversy that we find in the remainder of his biological writings.\nPossibly, as suggested by George Bernard Shaw, his acquaintance and\nadmirer, he was also swayed by philosophical resentment at that\nbanishment of mind from the organic universe, which was generally thought\nto have been achieved by Charles Darwin\u2019s theory. Still, we must\nremember that this mindless view is not implicit in Charles Darwin\u2019s\npresentment of his own theory, nor was it accepted by him as it has been\nby so many of his professed disciples.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cUNCONSCIOUS MEMORY\u201d (1880).\u2014We have already alluded to an anticipation\nof Butler\u2019s main theses. In 1870 Dr. Ewald Hering, one of the most\neminent physiologists of the day, Professor at Vienna, gave an Inaugural\nAddress to the Imperial Royal Academy of Sciences: \u201cDas Ged\u00e4chtniss als\nallgemeine Funktion der organisirter Substanz\u201d (\u201cMemory as a Universal\nFunction of Organised Matter\u201d). When \u201cLife and Habit\u201d was well advanced,\nFrancis Darwin, at the time a frequent visitor, called Butler\u2019s attention\nto this essay, which he himself only knew from an article in \u201cNature.\u201d\nHerein Professor E. Ray Lankester had referred to it with admiring\nsympathy in connection with its further development by Haeckel in a\npamphlet entitled \u201cDie Perigenese der Plastidule.\u201d We may note, however,\nthat in his collected Essays, \u201cThe Advancement of Science\u201d (1890), Sir\nRay Lankester, while including this Essay, inserts on the blank page\n{0b}\u2014we had almost written \u201cthe white sheet\u201d\u2014at the back of it an apology\nfor having ever advocated the possibility of the transmission of acquired\ncharacters.\n\n\u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d was largely written to show the relation of Butler\u2019s\nviews to Hering\u2019s, and contains an exquisitely written translation of the\nAddress. Hering does, indeed, anticipate Butler, and that in language\nfar more suitable to the persuasion of the scientific public. It\ncontains a subsidiary hypothesis that memory has for its mechanism\nspecial vibrations of the protoplasm, and the acquired capacity to\nrespond to such vibrations once felt upon their repetition. I do not\nthink that the theory gains anything by the introduction of this even as\na mere formal hypothesis; and there is no evidence for its being anything\nmore. Butler, however, gives it a warm, nay, enthusiastic, reception in\nChapter V (Introduction to Professor Hering\u2019s lecture), and in his notes\nto the translation of the Address, which bulks so large in this book, but\npoints out that he was \u201cnot committed to this hypothesis, though inclined\nto accept it on a _prima facie_ view.\u201d Later on, as we shall see, he\nattached more importance to it.\n\nThe Hering Address is followed in \u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d by translations of\nselected passages from Von Hartmann\u2019s \u201cPhilosophy of the Unconscious,\u201d\nand annotations to explain the difference from this personification of\n\u201c_The Unconscious_\u201d as a mighty all-ruling, all-creating personality, and\nhis own scientific recognition of the great part played by _unconscious\nprocesses_ in the region of mind and memory.\n\nThese are the essentials of the book as a contribution to biological\nphilosophy. The closing chapters contain a lucid statement of objections\nto his theory as they might be put by a rigid necessitarian, and a\nrefutation of that interpretation as applied to human action.\n\nBut in the second chapter Butler states his recession from the strong\nlogical position he had hitherto developed in his writings from \u201cErewhon\u201d\nonwards; so far he had not only distinguished the living from the\nnon-living, but distinguished among the latter _machines_ or _tools_ from\n_things at large_. {0c} Machines or tools are the external organs of\nliving beings, as organs are their internal machines: they are fashioned,\nassembled, or selected by the beings for a purposes so they have a\n_future purpose_, as well as a _past history_. \u201cThings at large\u201d have a\npast history, but no purpose (so long as some being does not convert them\ninto tools and give them a purpose): Machines have a Why? as well as a\nHow?: \u201cthings at large\u201d have a How? only.\n\nIn \u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d the allurements of unitary or monistic views have\ngained the upper hand, and Butler writes (p. 23):\u2014\n\n \u201cThe only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between\n the organic and inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with\n our other ideas, and therefore more acceptable, to start with every\n molecule as a living thing, and then deduce death as the breaking up\n of an association or corporation, than to start with inanimate\n molecules and smuggle life into them; and that, therefore, what we\n call the inorganic world must be regarded as up to a certain point\n living, and instinct, within certain limits, with consciousness,\n volition, and power of concerted action. _It is only of late_,\n _however_, _that I have come to this opinion_.\u201d\n\nI have italicised the last sentence, to show that Butler was more or less\nconscious of its irreconcilability with much of his most characteristic\ndoctrine. Again, in the closing chapter, Butler writes (p. 275):\u2014\n\n \u201cWe should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living in\n respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather\n than the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in\n common with the inorganic.\u201d\n\nWe conclude our survey of this book by mentioning the literary\ncontroversial part chiefly to be found in Chapter IV, but cropping up\nelsewhere. It refers to interpolations made in the authorised\ntranslation of Krause\u2019s \u201cLife of Erasmus Darwin.\u201d Only one side is\npresented; and we are not called upon, here or elsewhere, to discuss the\nmerits of the question.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cLUCK, OR CUNNING, as the Main Means of Organic Modification? an Attempt\nto throw Additional Light upon the late Mr. Charles Darwin\u2019s Theory of\nNatural Selection\u201d (1887), completes the series of biological books.\nThis is mainly a book of strenuous polemic. It brings out still more\nforcibly the Hering-Butler doctrine of continued personality from\ngeneration to generation, and of the working of unconscious memory\nthroughout; and points out that, while this is implicit in much of the\nteaching of Herbert Spencer, Romanes, and others, it was nowhere\u2014even\nafter the appearance of \u201cLife and Habit\u201d\u2014explicitly recognised by them,\nbut, on the contrary, masked by inconsistent statements and teaching.\nNot Luck but Cunning, not the uninspired weeding out by Natural Selection\nbut the intelligent striving of the organism, is at the bottom of the\nuseful variety of organic life. And the parallel is drawn that not the\nhappy accident of time and place, but the Machiavellian cunning of\nCharles Darwin, succeeded in imposing, as entirely his own, on the\ncivilised world an uninspired and inadequate theory of evolution wherein\nluck played the leading part; while the more inspired and inspiring views\nof the older evolutionists had failed by the inferiority of their luck.\nOn this controversy I am bound to say that I do not in the very least\nshare Butler\u2019s opinions; and I must ascribe them to his lack of personal\nfamiliarity with the biologists of the day and their modes of thought and\nof work. Butler everywhere undervalues the important work of elimination\nplayed by Natural Selection in its widest sense.\n\nThe \u201cConclusion\u201d of \u201cLuck, or Cunning?\u201d shows a strong advance in\nmonistic views, and a yet more marked development in the vibration\nhypothesis of memory given by Hering and only adopted with the greatest\nreserve in \u201cUnconscious Memory.\u201d\n\n \u201cOur conception, then, concerning the nature of any matter depends\n solely upon its kind and degree of unrest, that is to say, on the\n characteristics of the vibrations that are going on within it. The\n exterior object vibrating in a certain way imparts some of its\n vibrations to our brain; but if the state of the thing itself depends\n upon its vibrations, it [the thing] must be considered as to all\n intents and purposes the vibrations themselves\u2014plus, of course, the\n underlying substance that is vibrating. . . . The same vibrations,\n therefore, form the substance remembered, introduce an infinitesimal\n dose of it within the brain, modify the substance remembering, and,\n in the course of time, create and further modify the mechanism of\n both the sensory and the motor nerves. Thought and thing are one.\n\n \u201cI commend these two last speculations to the reader\u2019s charitable\n consideration, as feeling that I am here travelling beyond the ground\n on which I can safely venture. . . . I believe they are both\n substantially true.\u201d\n\nIn 1885 he had written an abstract of these ideas in his notebooks (see\n_New Quarterly Review_, 1910, p. 116), and as in \u201cLuck, or Cunning?\u201d\nassociated them vaguely with the unitary conceptions introduced into\nchemistry by Newlands and Mendelejeff. Judging himself as an outsider,\nthe author of \u201cLife and Habit\u201d would certainly have considered the mild\nexpression of faith, \u201cI believe they are both substantially true,\u201d\nequivalent to one of extreme doubt. Thus \u201cthe fact of the Archbishop\u2019s\nrecognising this as among the number of his beliefs is conclusive\nevidence, with those who have devoted attention to the laws of thought,\nthat his mind is not yet clear\u201d on the matter of the belief avowed (see\n\u201cLife and Habit,\u201d pp. 24, 25).\n\nTo sum up: Butler\u2019s fundamental attitude to the vibration hypothesis was\nall through that taken in \u201cUnconscious Memory\u201d; he played with it as a\npretty pet, and fancied it more and more as time went on; but instead of\nbacking it for all he was worth, like the main theses of \u201cLife and\nHabit,\u201d he put a big stake on it\u2014and then hedged.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe last of Butler\u2019s biological writings is the Essay, \u201cTHE DEADLOCK IN\nDARWINISM,\u201d containing much valuable criticism on Wallace and Weismann.\nIt is in allusion to the misnomer of Wallace\u2019s book, \u201cDarwinism,\u201d that he\nintroduces the term \u201cWallaceism\u201d {0d} for a theory of descent that\nexcludes the transmission of acquired characters. This was, indeed, the\nchief factor that led Charles Darwin to invent his hypothesis of\npangenesis, which, unacceptable as it has proved, had far more to\nrecommend it as a formal hypothesis than the equally formal germ-plasm\nhypothesis of Weismann.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe chief difficulty in accepting the main theses of Butler and Hering is\none familiar to every biologist, and not at all difficult to understand\nby the layman. Everyone knows that the complicated beings that we term\n\u201cAnimals\u201d and \u201cPlants,\u201d consist of a number of more or less\nindividualised units, the cells, each analogous to a simpler being, a\nProtist\u2014save in so far as the character of the cell unit of the Higher\nbeing is modified in accordance with the part it plays in that complex\nbeing as a whole. Most people, too, are familiar with the fact that the\ncomplex being starts as a single cell, separated from its parent; or,\nwhere bisexual reproduction occurs, from a cell due to the fusion of two\ncells, each detached from its parent. Such cells are called\n\u201cGerm-cells.\u201d The germ-cell, whether of single or of dual origin, starts\nby dividing repeatedly, so as to form the _primary embryonic cells_, a\ncomplex mass of cells, at first essentially similar, which, however, as\nthey go on multiplying, undergo differentiations and migrations, losing\ntheir simplicity as they do so. Those cells that are modified to take\npart in the proper work of the whole are called tissue-cells. In virtue\nof their activities, their growth and reproductive power are limited\u2014much\nmore in Animals than in Plants, in Higher than in Lower beings. It is\nthese tissues, or some of them, that receive the impressions from the\noutside which leave the imprint of memory. Other cells, which may be\nclosely associated into a continuous organ, or more or less surrounded by\ntissue-cells, whose part it is to nourish them, are called \u201csecondary\nembryonic cells,\u201d or \u201cgerm-cells.\u201d The germ-cells may be differentiated\nin the young organism at a very early stage, but in Plants they are\nseparated at a much later date from the less isolated embryonic regions\nthat provide for the Plant\u2019s branching; in all cases we find embryonic\nand germ-cells screened from the life processes of the complex organism,\nor taking no very obvious part in it, save to form new tissues or new\norgans, notably in Plants.\n\nAgain, in ourselves, and to a greater or less extent in all Animals, we\nfind a system of special tissues set apart for the reception and storage\nof impressions from the outer world, and for guiding the other organs in\ntheir appropriate responses\u2014the \u201cNervous System\u201d; and when this system is\nill-developed or out of gear the remaining organs work badly from lack of\nproper skilled guidance and co-ordination. How can we, then, speak of\n\u201cmemory\u201d in a germ-cell which has been screened from the experiences of\nthe organism, which is too simple in structure to realise them if it were\nexposed to them? My own answer is that we cannot form any theory on the\nsubject, the only question is whether we have any right to _infer_ this\n\u201cmemory\u201d from the _behaviour_ of living beings; and Butler, like Hering,\nHaeckel, and some more modern authors, has shown that the inference is a\nvery strong presumption. Again, it is easy to over-value such complex\ninstruments as we possess. The possessor of an up-to-date camera, well\ninstructed in the function and manipulation of every part, but ignorant\nof all optics save a hand-to-mouth knowledge of the properties of his own\nlens, might say that _a priori_ no picture could be taken with a\ncigar-box perforated by a pin-hole; and our ignorance of the mechanism of\nthe Psychology of any organism is greater by many times than that of my\nsupposed photographer. We know that Plants are able to do many things\nthat can only be accounted for by ascribing to them a \u201cpsyche,\u201d and these\nco-ordinated enough to satisfy their needs; and yet they possess no\ncentral organ comparable to the brain, no highly specialised system for\nintercommunication like our nerve trunks and fibres. As Oscar Hertwig\nsays, we are as ignorant of the mechanism of the development of the\nindividual as we are of that of hereditary transmission of acquired\ncharacters, and the absence of such mechanism in either case is no reason\nfor rejecting the proven fact.\n\nHowever, the relations of germ and body just described led J\u00e4ger,\nNussbaum, Galton, Lankester, and, above all, Weismann, to the view that\nthe germ-cells or \u201cstirp\u201d (Galton) were _in_ the body, but not _of_ it.\nIndeed, in the body and out of it, whether as reproductive cells set\nfree, or in the developing embryo, they are regarded as forming one\ncontinuous homogeneity, in contrast to the differentiation of the body;\nand it is to these cells, regarded as a continuum, that the terms stirp,\ngerm-plasm, are especially applied. Yet on this view, so eagerly\nadvocated by its supporters, we have to substitute for the hypothesis of\nmemory, which they declare to have no real meaning here, the far more\nfantastic hypotheses of Weismann: by these they explain the process of\ndifferentiation in the young embryo into new germ and body; and in the\nyoung body the differentiation of its cells, each in due time and place,\ninto the varied tissue cells and organs. Such views might perhaps be\nacceptable if it could be shown that over each cell-division there\npresided a wise all-guiding genie of transcending intellect, to which\nClerk-Maxwell\u2019s sorting demons were mere infants. Yet these views have\nso enchanted many distinguished biologists, that in dealing with the\nsubject they have actually ignored the existence of equally able workers\nwho hesitate to share the extremest of their views. The phenomenon is\none well known in hypnotic practice. So long as the non-Weismannians\ndeal with matters outside this discussion, their existence and their work\nis rated at its just value; but any work of theirs on this point so\naffects the orthodox Weismannite (whether he accept this label or reject\nit does not matter), that for the time being their existence and the good\nwork they have done are alike non-existent. {0e}\n\nButler founded no school, and wished to found none. He desired that what\nwas true in his work should prevail, and he looked forward calmly to the\ntime when the recognition of that truth and of his share in advancing it\nshould give him in the lives of others that immortality for which alone\nhe craved.\n\nLamarckian views have never lacked defenders here and in America. Of the\nEnglish, Herbert Spencer, who however, was averse to the vitalistic\nattitude, Vines and Henslow among botanists, Cunningham among zoologists,\nhave always resisted Weismannism; but, I think, none of these was\ndistinctly influenced by Hering and Butler. In America the majority of\nthe great school of pal\u00e6ontologists have been strong Lamarckians, notably\nCope, who has pointed out, moreover, that the transformations of energy\nin living beings are peculiar to them.\n\nWe have already adverted to Haeckel\u2019s acceptance and development of\nHering\u2019s ideas in his \u201cPerigenese der Plastidule.\u201d Oscar Hertwig has\nbeen a consistent Lamarckian, like Yves Delage of the Sorbonne, and these\noccupy pre-eminent positions not only as observers, but as discriminating\ntheorists and historians of the recent progress of biology. We may also\ncite as a Lamarckian\u2014of a sort\u2014Felix Le Dantec, the leader of the\nchemico-physical school of the present day.\n\nBut we must seek elsewhere for special attention to the points which\nButler regarded as the essentials of \u201cLife and Habit.\u201d In 1893 Henry P.\nOrr, Professor of Biology in the University of Louisiana, published a\nlittle book entitled \u201cA Theory of Heredity.\u201d Herein he insists on the\nnervous control of the whole body, and on the transmission to the\nreproductive cells of such stimuli, received by the body, as will guide\nthem on their path until they shall have acquired adequate experience of\ntheir own in the new body they have formed. I have found the name of\nneither Butler nor Hering, but the treatment is essentially on their\nlines, and is both clear and interesting.\n\nIn 1896 I wrote an essay on \u201cThe Fundamental Principles of Heredity,\u201d\nprimarily directed to the man in the street. This, after being held over\nfor more than a year by one leading review, was \u201cdeclined with regret,\u201d\nand again after some weeks met the same fate from another editor. It\nappeared in the pages of \u201cNatural Science\u201d for October, 1897, and in the\n\u201cBiologisches Centralblatt\u201d for the same year. I reproduce its closing\nparagraph:\u2014\n\n \u201cThis theory [Hering-Butler\u2019s] has, indeed, a tentative character,\n and lacks symmetrical completeness, but is the more welcome as not\n aiming at the impossible. A whole series of phenomena in organic\n beings are correlated under the term of _memory_, _conscious and\n unconscious_, _patent and latent_. . . . Of the order of unconscious\n memory, latent till the arrival of the appropriate stimulus, is all\n the co-operative growth and work of the organism, including its\n development from the reproductive cells. Concerning the _modus\n operandi_ we know nothing: the phenomena may be due, as Hering\n suggests, to molecular vibrations, which must be at least as distinct\n from ordinary physical disturbances as R\u00f6ntgen\u2019s rays are from\n ordinary light; or it may be correlated, as we ourselves are inclined\n to think, with complex chemical changes in an intricate but orderly\n succession. For the present, at least, the problem of heredity can\n only be elucidated by the light of mental, and not material\n processes.\u201d\n\nIt will be seen that I express doubts as to the validity of Hering\u2019s\ninvocation of molecular vibrations as the mechanism of memory, and\nsuggest as an alternative rhythmic chemical changes. This view has\nrecently been put forth in detail by J. J. Cunningham in his essay on the\n\u201cHormone {0f} Theory of Heredity,\u201d in the _Archiv f\u00fcr\nEntwicklungsmechanik_ (1909), but I have failed to note any direct effect\nof my essay on the trend of biological thought.\n\nAmong post-Darwinian controversies the one that has latterly assumed the\ngreatest prominence is that of the relative importance of small\nvariations in the way of more or less \u201cfluctuations,\u201d and of\n\u201cdiscontinuous variations,\u201d or \u201cmutations,\u201d as De Vries has called them.\nDarwin, in the first four editions of the \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d attached\nmore importance to the latter than in subsequent editions; he was swayed\nin his attitude, as is well known, by an article of the physicist,\nFleeming Jenkin, which appeared in the _North British Review_. The\nmathematics of this article were unimpeachable, but they were founded on\nthe assumption that exceptional variations would only occur in single\nindividuals, which is, indeed, often the case among those domesticated\nraces on which Darwin especially studied the phenomena of variation.\nDarwin was no mathematician or physicist, and we are told in his\nbiography that he regarded every tool-shop rule or optician\u2019s thermometer\nas an instrument of precision: so he appears to have regarded Fleeming\nJenkin\u2019s demonstration as a mathematical deduction which he was bound to\naccept without criticism.\n\nMr. William Bateson, late Professor of Biology in the University of\nCambridge, as early as 1894 laid great stress on the importance of\ndiscontinuous variations, collecting and collating the known facts in his\n\u201cMaterials for the Study of Variations\u201d; but this important work, now\nbecome rare and valuable, at the time excited so little interest as to be\n\u2018remaindered\u2019 within a very few years after publication.\n\nIn 1901 Hugo De Vries, Professor of Botany in the University of\nAmsterdam, published \u201cDie Mutationstheorie,\u201d wherein he showed that\nmutations or discontinuous variations in various directions may appear\nsimultaneously in many individuals, and in various directions. In the\ngardener\u2019s phrase, the species may take to sporting in various directions\nat the same time, and each sport may be represented by numerous\nspecimens.\n\nDe Vries shows the probability that species go on for long periods\nshowing only fluctuations, and then suddenly take to sporting in the way\ndescribed, short periods of mutation alternating with long intervals of\nrelative constancy. It is to mutations that De Vries and his school, as\nwell as Luther Burbank, the great former of new fruit- and flower-plants,\nlook for those variations which form the material of Natural Selection.\nIn \u201cGod the Known and God the Unknown,\u201d which appeared in the _Examiner_\n(May, June, and July), 1879, but though then revised was only published\nposthumously in 1909, Butler anticipates this distinction:\u2014\n\n \u201cUnder these circumstances organism must act in one or other of these\n two ways: it must either change slowly and continuously with the\n surroundings, paying cash for everything, meeting the smallest change\n with a corresponding modification, so far as is found convenient, or\n it must put off change as long as possible, and then make larger and\n more sweeping changes.\n\n \u201cBoth these courses are the same in principle, the difference being\n one of scale, and the one being a miniature of the other, as a ripple\n is an Atlantic wave in little; both have their advantages and\n disadvantages, so that most organisms will take the one course for\n one set of things and the other for another. They will deal promptly\n with things which they can get at easily, and which lie more upon the\n surface; _those_, _however_, _which are more troublesome to reach_,\n _and lie deeper_, _will be handled upon more cataclysmic principles_,\n _being allowed longer periods of repose followed by short periods of\n greater activity_ . . . it may be questioned whether what is called a\n sport is not the organic expression of discontent which has been long\n felt, but which has not been attended to, nor been met step by step\n by as much small remedial modification as was found practicable: so\n that when a change does come it comes by way of revolution. Or,\n again (only that it comes to much the same thing), it may be compared\n to one of those happy thoughts which sometimes come to us unbidden\n after we have been thinking for a long time what to do, or how to\n arrange our ideas, and have yet been unable to come to any\n conclusion\u201d (pp. 14, 15). {0g}\n\nWe come to another order of mind in Hans Driesch. At the time he began\nhis work biologists were largely busy in a region indicated by Darwin,\nand roughly mapped out by Haeckel\u2014that of phylogeny. From the facts of\ndevelopment of the individual, from the comparison of fossils in\nsuccessive strata, they set to work at the construction of pedigrees, and\nstrove to bring into line the principles of classification with the more\nor less hypothetical \u201cstemtrees.\u201d Driesch considered this futile, since\nwe never could reconstruct from such evidence anything certain in the\nhistory of the past. He therefore asserted that a more complete\nknowledge of the physics and chemistry of the organic world might give a\nscientific explanation of the phenomena, and maintained that the proper\nwork of the biologist was to deepen our knowledge in these respects. He\nembodied his views, seeking the explanation on this track, filling up\ngaps and tracing projected roads along lines of probable truth in his\n\u201cAnalytische Theorie der organische Entwicklung.\u201d But his own work\nconvinced him of the hopelessness of the task he had undertaken, and he\nhas become as strenuous a vitalist as Butler. The most complete\nstatement of his present views is to be found in \u201cThe Philosophy of Life\u201d\n(1908\u20139), being the Giffold Lectures for 1907\u20138. Herein he postulates a\nquality (\u201cpsychoid\u201d) in all living beings, directing energy and matter\nfor the purpose of the organism, and to this he applies the Aristotelian\ndesignation \u201cEntelechy.\u201d The question of the transmission of acquired\ncharacters is regarded as doubtful, and he does not emphasise\u2014if he\naccepts\u2014the doctrine of continuous personality. His early youthful\nimpatience with descent theories and hypotheses has, however,\ndisappeared.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn the next work the influence of Hering and Butler is definitely present\nand recognised. In 1906 Signor Eugenio Rignano, an engineer keenly\ninterested in all branches of science, and a little later the founder of\nthe international review, _Rivist\u00e0 di Scienza_ (now simply called\n_Scientia_), published in French a volume entitled \u201cSur la\ntransmissibilit\u00e9 des Caract\u00e8res acquis\u2014Hypoth\u00e8se d\u2019un Centro-\u00e9pigen\u00e8se.\u201d\nInto the details of the author\u2019s work we will not enter fully. Suffice\nit to know that he accepts the Hering-Butler theory, and makes a distinct\nadvance on Hering\u2019s rather crude hypothesis of persistent vibrations by\nsuggesting that the remembering centres store slightly different forms of\nenergy, to give out energy of the same kind as they have received, like\nelectrical accumulators. The last chapter, \u201cLe Ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne mn\u00e9monique et\nle Ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne vital,\u201d is frankly based on Hering.\n\nIn \u201cThe Lesson of Evolution\u201d (1907, posthumous, and only published for\nprivate circulation) Frederick Wollaston Hutton, F.R.S., late Professor\nof Biology and Geology, first at Dunedin and after at Christchurch, New\nZealand, puts forward a strongly vitalistic view, and adopts Hering\u2019s\nteaching. After stating this he adds, \u201cThe same idea of heredity being\ndue to unconscious memory was advocated by Mr. Samuel Butler in his \u201cLife\nand Habit.\u201d\n\nDr. James Mark Baldwin, Stuart Professor of Psychology in Princeton\nUniversity, U.S.A., called attention early in the 90\u2019s to a reaction\ncharacteristic of all living beings, which he terms the \u201cCircular\nReaction.\u201d We take his most recent account of this from his \u201cDevelopment\nand Evolution\u201d (1902):\u2014{0h}\n\n \u201cThe general fact is that the organism reacts by concentration upon\n the locality stimulated for the _continuance_ of the conditions,\n movements, stimulations, _which are vitally beneficial_, and for the\n cessation of the conditions, movements, stimulations _which are\n vitally depressing_.\u201d\n\nThis amounts to saying in the terminology of Jenning (see below) that the\nliving organism alters its \u201cphysiological states\u201d either for its direct\nbenefit, or for its indirect benefit in the reduction of harmful\nconditions.\n\nAgain:\u2014\n\n \u201cThis form of concentration of energy on stimulated localities, with\n the resulting renewal through movement of conditions that are\n pleasure-giving and beneficial, and the consequent repetition of the\n movements is called \u2018circular reaction.\u2019\u201d\n\nOf course, the inhibition of such movements as would be painful on\nrepetition is merely the negative case of the circular reaction. We must\nnot put too much of our own ideas into the author\u2019s mind; he nowhere says\nexplicitly that the animal or plant shows its sense and does this because\nit likes the one thing and wants it repeated, or dislikes the other and\nstops its repetition, as Butler would have said. Baldwin is very strong\nin insisting that no full explanation can be given of living processes,\nany more than of history, on purely chemico-physical grounds.\n\nThe same view is put differently and independently by H. S. Jennings,\n{0i} who started his investigations of living Protista, the simplest of\nliving beings, with the idea that only accurate and ample observation was\nneeded to enable us to explain all their activities on a mechanical\nbasis, and devised ingenious models of protoplastic movements. He was\nled, like Driesch, to renounce such efforts as illusory, and has come to\nthe conviction that in the behaviour of these lowly beings there is a\npurposive and a tentative character\u2014a method of \u201ctrial and error\u201d\u2014that\ncan only be interpreted by the invocation of psychology. He points out\nthat after stimulation the \u201cstate\u201d of the organism may be altered, so\nthat the response to the same stimulus on repetition is other. Or, as he\nputs it, the first stimulus has caused the organism to pass into a new\n\u201cphysiological state.\u201d As the change of state from what we may call the\n\u201cprimary indifferent state\u201d is advantageous to the organism, we may\nregard this as equivalent to the doctrine of the \u201ccircular reaction,\u201d and\nalso as containing the essence of Semon\u2019s doctrine of \u201cengrams\u201d or\nimprints which we are about to consider. We cite one passage which for\naudacity of thought (underlying, it is true, most guarded expression) may\nwell compare with many of the boldest flights in \u201cLife and Habit\u201d:\u2014\n\n \u201cIt may be noted that regulation in the manner we have set forth is\n what, in the behaviour of higher organisms, at least, is called\n intelligence [the examples have been taken from Protista, Corals, and\n the Lowest Worms]. If the same method of regulation is found in\n other fields, there is no reason for refusing to compare the action\n to intelligence. Comparison of the regulatory processes that are\n shown in internal physiological changes and in regeneration to\n intelligence seems to be looked upon sometimes as heretical and\n unscientific. Yet intelligence is a name applied to processes that\n actually exist in the regulation of movements, and there is, _a\n priori_, no reason why similar processes should not occur in\n regulation in other fields. When we analyse regulation objectively\n there seems indeed reason to think that the processes are of the same\n character in behaviour as elsewhere. If the term intelligence be\n reserved for the subjective accompaniments of such regulation, then\n of course we have no direct knowledge of its existence in any of the\n fields of regulation outside of the self, and in the self perhaps\n only in behaviour. But in a purely objective consideration there\n seems no reason to suppose that regulation in behaviour\n (intelligence) is of a fundamentally different character from\n regulation elsewhere.\u201d (\u201cMethod of Regulation,\u201d p. 492.)\n\nJennings makes no mention of questions of the theory of heredity. He has\nmade some experiments on the transmission of an acquired character in\nProtozoa; but it was a mutilation-character, which is, as has been often\nshown, {0j} not to the point.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOne of the most obvious criticisms of Hering\u2019s exposition is based upon\nthe extended use he makes of the word \u201cMemory\u201d: this he had foreseen and\ndeprecated.\n\n \u201cWe have a perfect right,\u201d he says, \u201cto extend our conception of\n memory so as to make it embrace involuntary [and also unconscious]\n reproductions of sensations, ideas, perceptions, and efforts; but we\n find, on having done so, that we have so far enlarged her boundaries\n that she proves to be an ultimate and original power, the source and,\n at the same time, the unifying bond, of our whole conscious life.\u201d\n (\u201cUnconscious Memory,\u201d p. 68.)\n\nThis sentence, coupled with Hering\u2019s omission to give to the concept of\nmemory so enlarged a new name, clear alike of the limitations and of the\nstains of habitual use, may well have been the inspiration of the next\nwork on our list. Richard Semon is a professional zoologist and\nanthropologist of such high status for his original observations and\nresearches in the mere technical sense, that in these countries he would\nassuredly have been acclaimed as one of the Fellows of the Royal Society\nwho were Samuel Butler\u2019s special aversion. The full title of his book is\n\u201cDIE MNEME als erhaltende Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens\u201d\n(Munich, Ed. 1, 1904; Ed. 2, 1908). We may translate it \u201cMNEME, a\nPrinciple of Conservation in the Transformations of Organic Existence.\u201d\n\nFrom this I quote in free translation the opening passage of Chapter II:\u2014\n\n \u201cWe have shown that in very many cases, whether in Protist, Plant, or\n Animal, when an organism has passed into an indifferent state after\n the reaction to a stimulus has ceased, its irritable substance has\n suffered a lasting change: I call this after-action of the stimulus\n its \u2018imprint\u2019 or \u2018engraphic\u2019 action, since it penetrates and imprints\n itself in the organic substance; and I term the change so effected an\n \u2018imprint\u2019 or \u2018engram\u2019 of the stimulus; and the sum of all the\n imprints possessed by the organism may be called its \u2018store of\n imprints,\u2019 wherein we must distinguish between those which it has\n inherited from its forbears and those which it has acquired itself.\n Any phenomenon displayed by an organism as the result either of a\n single imprint or of a sum of them, I term a \u2018mnemic phenomenon\u2019; and\n the mnemic possibilities of an organism may be termed, collectively,\n its \u2018MNEME.\u2019\n\n \u201cI have selected my own terms for the concepts that I have just\n defined. On many grounds I refrain from making any use of the good\n German terms \u2018Ged\u00e4chtniss, Erinnerungsbild.\u2019 The first and chiefest\n ground is that for my purpose I should have to employ the German\n words in a much wider sense than what they usually convey, and thus\n leave the door open to countless misunderstandings and idle\n controversies. It would, indeed, even amount to an error of fact to\n give to the wider concept the name already current in the narrower\n sense\u2014nay, actually limited, like \u2018Erinnerungsbild,\u2019 to phenomena of\n consciousness. . . . In Animals, during the course of history, one\n set of organs has, so to speak, specialised itself for the reception\n and transmission of stimuli\u2014the Nervous System. But from this\n specialisation we are not justified in ascribing to the nervous\n system any monopoly of the function, even when it is as highly\n developed as in Man. . . . Just as the direct excitability of the\n nervous system has progressed in the history of the race, so has its\n capacity for receiving imprints; but neither susceptibility nor\n retentiveness is its monopoly; and, indeed, retentiveness seems\n inseparable from susceptibility in living matter.\u201d\n\nSemen here takes the instance of stimulus and imprint actions affecting\nthe nervous system of a dog\n\n \u201cwho has up till now never experienced aught but kindness from the\n Lord of Creation, and then one day that he is out alone is pelted\n with stones by a boy. . . . Here he is affected at once by two sets\n of stimuli: (1) the optic stimulus of seeing the boy stoop for stones\n and throw them, and (2) the skin stimulus of the pain felt when they\n hit him. Here both stimuli leave their imprints; and the organism is\n permanently changed in relation to the recurrence of the stimuli.\n Hitherto the sight of a human figure quickly stooping had produced no\n constant special reaction. Now the reaction is constant, and may\n remain so till death. . . . The dog tucks in its tail between its\n legs and takes flight, often with a howl [as of] pain.\u201d\n\n \u201cHere we gain on one side a deeper insight into the imprint action of\n stimuli. It reposes on the lasting change in the conditions of the\n living matter, so that the repetition of the immediate or synchronous\n reaction to its first stimulus (in this case the stooping of the boy,\n the flying stones, and the pain on the ribs), no longer demands, as\n in the original state of indifference, the full stimulus _a_, but may\n be called forth by a partial or different stimulus, _b_ (in this case\n the mere stooping to the ground). I term the influences by which\n such changed reaction are rendered possible, \u2018outcome-reactions,\u2019 and\n when such influences assume the form of stimuli, \u2018outcome-stimuli.\u2019\u201d\n\nThey are termed \u201coutcome\u201d (\u201cecphoria\u201d) stimuli, because the author\nregards them and would have us regard them as the outcome, manifestation,\nor efference of an imprint of a previous stimulus. We have noted that\nthe imprint is equivalent to the changed \u201cphysiological state\u201d of\nJennings. Again, the capacity for gaining imprints and revealing them by\noutcomes favourable to the individual is the \u201ccircular reaction\u201d of\nBaldwin, but Semon gives no reference to either author. {0k}\n\nIn the preface to his first edition (reprinted in the second) Semon\nwrites, after discussing the work of Hering and Haeckel:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe problem received a more detailed treatment in Samuel Butler\u2019s\n book, \u2018Life and Habit,\u2019 published in 1878. Though he only made\n acquaintance with Hering\u2019s essay after this publication, Butler gave\n what was in many respects a more detailed view of the coincidences of\n these different phenomena of organic reproduction than did Hering.\n With much that is untenable, Butler\u2019s writings present many a\n brilliant idea; yet, on the whole, they are rather a retrogression\n than an advance upon Hering. Evidently they failed to exercise any\n marked influence upon the literature of the day.\u201d\n\nThis judgment needs a little examination. Butler claimed, justly, that\nhis \u201cLife and Habit\u201d was an advance on Hering in its dealing with\nquestions of hybridity, and of longevity puberty and sterility. Since\nSemon\u2019s extended treatment of the phenomena of crosses might almost be\nregarded as the rewriting of the corresponding section of \u201cLife and\nHabit\u201d in the \u201cMneme\u201d terminology, we may infer that this view of the\nquestion was one of Butler\u2019s \u201cbrilliant ideas.\u201d That Butler shrank from\naccepting such a formal explanation of memory as Hering did with his\nhypothesis should certainly be counted as a distinct \u201cadvance upon\nHering,\u201d for Semon also avoids any attempt at an explanation of \u201cMneme.\u201d\nI think, however, we may gather the real meaning of Semon\u2019s strictures\nfrom the following passages:\u2014\n\n \u201cI refrain here from a discussion of the development of this theory\n of Lamarck\u2019s by those Neo-Lamarckians who would ascribe to the\n individual elementary organism an equipment of complex psychical\n powers\u2014so to say, anthropomorphic perception and volitions. This\n treatment is no longer directed by the scientific principle of\n referring complex phenomena to simpler laws, of deducing even human\n intellect and will from simpler elements. On the contrary, they\n follow that most abhorrent method of taking the most complex and\n unresolved as a datum, and employing it as an explanation. The\n adoption of such a method, as formerly by Samuel Butler, and recently\n by Pauly, I regard as a big and dangerous step backward\u201d (ed. 2, pp.\n 380\u20131, note).\n\nThus Butler\u2019s alleged retrogressions belong to the same order of thinking\nthat we have seen shared by Driesch, Baldwin, and Jennings, and most\nexplicitly avowed, as we shall see, by Francis Darwin. Semon makes one\nrather candid admission, \u201cThe impossibility of interpreting the phenomena\nof physiological stimulation by those of direct reaction, and the\nundeception of those who had put faith in this being possible, have led\nmany on the _backward path of vitalism_.\u201d Semon assuredly will never be\nable to complete his theory of \u201cMneme\u201d until, guided by the experience of\nJennings and Driesch, he forsakes the blind alley of mechanisticism and\nretraces his steps to reasonable vitalism.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBut the most notable publications bearing on our matter are incidental to\nthe Darwin Celebrations of 1908\u20139. Dr. Francis Darwin, son,\ncollaborator, and biographer of Charles Darwin, was selected to preside\nover the Meeting of the British Association held in Dublin in 1908, the\njubilee of the first publications on Natural Selection by his father and\nAlfred Russel Wallace. In this address we find the theory of Hering,\nButler, Rignano, and Semon taking its proper place as a _vera causa_ of\nthat variation which Natural Selection must find before it can act, and\nrecognised as the basis of a rational theory of the development of the\nindividual and of the race. The organism is essentially purposive: the\nimpossibility of devising any adequate accounts of organic form and\nfunction without taking account of the psychical side is most strenuously\nasserted. And with our regret that past misunderstandings should be so\nprominent in Butler\u2019s works, it was very pleasant to hear Francis\nDarwin\u2019s quotation from Butler\u2019s translation of Hering {0l} followed by a\npersonal tribute to Butler himself.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of\nthe fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d\nat the suggestion of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the University\nPress published during the current year a volume entitled \u201cDarwin and\nModern Science,\u201d edited by Mr. A. C. Seward, Professor of Botany in the\nUniversity. Of the twenty-nine essays by men of science of the highest\ndistinction, one is of peculiar interest to the readers of Samuel Butler:\n\u201cHeredity and Variation in Modern Lights,\u201d by Professor W. Bateson,\nF.R.S., to whose work on \u201cDiscontinuous Variations\u201d we have already\nreferred. Here once more Butler receives from an official biologist of\nthe first rank full recognition for his wonderful insight and keen\ncritical power. This is the more noteworthy because Bateson has\napparently no faith in the transmission of acquired characters; but such\na passage as this would have commended itself to Butler\u2019s admiration:\u2014\n\n \u201cAll this indicates a definiteness and specific order in heredity,\n and therefore in variation. This order cannot by the nature of the\n case be dependent on Natural Selection for its existence, but must be\n a consequence of the fundamental chemical and physical nature of\n living things. The study of Variation had from the first shown that\n an orderliness of this kind was present. The bodies and properties\n of living things are cosmic, not chaotic. No matter how low in the\n scale we go, never do we find the slightest hint of a diminution in\n that all-pervading orderliness, nor can we conceive an organism\n existing for one moment in any other state.\u201d\n\nWe have now before us the materials to determine the problem of Butler\u2019s\nrelation to biology and to biologists. He was, we have seen, anticipated\nby Hering; but his attitude was his own, fresh and original. He did not\nhamper his exposition, like Hering, by a subsidiary hypothesis of\nvibrations which may or may not be true, which burdens the theory without\ngiving it greater carrying power or persuasiveness, which is based on no\nobjective facts, and which, as Semon has practically demonstrated, is\nneedless for the detailed working out of the theory. Butler failed to\nimpress the biologists of his day, even those on whom, like Romanes, he\nmight have reasonably counted for understanding and for support. But he\nkept alive Hering\u2019s work when it bade fair to sink into the limbo of\nobsolete hypotheses. To use Oliver Wendell Holmes\u2019s phrase, he\n\u201cdepolarised\u201d evolutionary thought. We quote the words of a young\nbiologist, who, when an ardent and dogmatic Weismannist of the most\npronounced type, was induced to read \u201cLife and Habit\u201d: \u201cThe book was to\nme a transformation and an inspiration.\u201d Such learned writings as\nSemon\u2019s or Hering\u2019s could never produce such an effect: they do not\npenetrate to the heart of man; they cannot carry conviction to the\nintellect already filled full with rival theories, and with the\nunreasoned faith that to-morrow or next day a new discovery will\nobliterate all distinction between Man and his makings. The mind must\nneeds be open for the reception of truth, for the rejection of prejudice;\nand the violence of a Samuel Butler may in the future as in the past be\nneeded to shatter the coat of mail forged by too exclusively professional\na training.\n\n MARCUS HARTOG\n\n_Cork_, _April_, 1910\n\n\n\n\nAuthor\u2019s Preface\n\n\nNOT finding the \u201cwell-known German scientific journal _Kosmos_\u201d {0m}\nentered in the British Museum Catalogue, I have presented the Museum with\na copy of the number for February 1879, which contains the article by Dr.\nKrause of which Mr. Charles Darwin has given a translation, the accuracy\nof which is guaranteed\u2014so he informs us\u2014by the translator\u2019s \u201cscientific\nreputation together with his knowledge of German.\u201d {0n}\n\nI have marked the copy, so that the reader can see at a glance what\npassages has been suppressed and where matter has been interpolated.\n\nI have also present a copy of \u201cErasmus Darwin.\u201d I have marked this too,\nso that the genuine and spurious passages can be easily distinguished.\n\nI understand that both the \u201cErasmus Darwin\u201d and the number of _Kosmos_\nhave been sent to the Keeper of Printed Books, with instructions that\nthey shall be at once catalogued and made accessible to readers, and do\nnot doubt that this will have been done before the present volume is\npublished. The reader, therefore, who may be sufficiently interested in\nthe matter to care to see exactly what has been done will now have an\nopportunity of doing so.\n\n_October_ 25, 1880.\n\n\n\n\nChapter I\n\n\nIntroduction\u2014General ignorance on the subject of evolution at the time\nthe \u201cOrigin of Species\u201d was published in 1859.\n\nTHERE are few things which strike us with more surprise, when we review\nthe course taken by opinion in the last century, than the suddenness with\nwhich belief in witchcraft and demoniacal possession came to an end.\nThis has been often remarked upon, but I am not acquainted with any\nrecord of the fact as it appeared to those under whose eyes the change\nwas taking place, nor have I seen any contemporary explanation of the\nreasons which led to the apparently sudden overthrow of a belief which\nhad seemed hitherto to be deeply rooted in the minds of almost all men.\nAs a parallel to this, though in respect of the rapid spread of an\nopinion, and not its decadence, it is probable that those of our\ndescendants who take an interest in ourselves will note the suddenness\nwith which the theory of evolution, from having been generally ridiculed\nduring a period of over a hundred years, came into popularity and almost\nuniversal acceptance among educated people.\n\nIt is indisputable that this has been the case; nor is it less\nindisputable that the works of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace have been the\nmain agents in the change that has been brought about in our opinions.\nThe names of Cobden and Bright do not stand more prominently forward in\nconnection with the repeal of the Corn Laws than do those of Mr. Darwin\nand Mr. Wallace in connection with the general acceptance of the theory\nof evolution. There is no living philosopher who has anything like Mr.\nDarwin\u2019s popularity with Englishmen generally; and not only this, but his\npower of fascination extends all over Europe, and indeed in every country\nin which civilisation has obtained footing: not among the illiterate\nmasses, though these are rapidly following the suit of the educated\nclasses, but among experts and those who are most capable of judging.\nFrance, indeed\u2014the country of Buffon and Lamarck\u2014must be counted an\nexception to the general rule, but in England and Germany there are few\nmen of scientific reputation who do not accept Mr. Darwin as the founder\nof what is commonly called \u201cDarwinism,\u201d and regard him as perhaps the\nmost penetrative and profound philosopher of modern times.\n\nTo quote an example from the last few weeks only, {2} I have observed\nthat Professor Huxley has celebrated the twenty-first year since the\n\u201cOrigin of Species\u201d was published by a lecture at the Royal Institution,\nand am told that he described Mr. Darwin\u2019s candour as something actually\n\u201cterrible\u201d (I give Professor Huxley\u2019s own word, as reported by one who\nheard it); and on opening a small book entitled \u201cDegeneration,\u201d by\nProfessor Ray Lankester, published a few days before these lines were\nwritten, I find the following passage amid more that is to the same\npurport:\u2014\n\n \u201cSuddenly one of those great guesses which occasionally appear in the\n history of science was given to the science of biology by the\n imaginative insight of that greatest of living naturalists\u2014I would\n say that greatest of living men\u2014Charles Darwin.\u201d\u2014_Degeneration_, p.\n 10.\n\nThis is very strong language, but it is hardly stronger than that\nhabitually employed by the leading men of science when they speak of Mr.\nDarwin. To go farther afield, in February 1879 the Germans devoted an\nentire number of one of their scientific periodicals {3} to the\ncelebration of Mr. Darwin\u2019s seventieth birthday. There is no other\nEnglishman now living who has been able to win such a compliment as this\nfrom foreigners, who should be disinterested judges.\n\nUnder these circumstances, it must seem the height of presumption to\ndiffer from so great an authority, and to join the small band of\nmalcontents who hold that Mr. Darwin\u2019s reputation as a philosopher,\nthough it has grown up with the rapidity of Jonah\u2019s gourd, will yet not\nbe permanent. I believe, however, that though we must always gladly and\ngratefully owe it to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace that the public mind has\nbeen brought to accept evolution, the admiration now generally felt for\nthe \u201cOrigin of Species\u201d will appear as unaccountable to our descendants\nsome fifty or eighty years hence as the enthusiasm of our grandfathers\nfor the poetry of Dr. Erasmus Darwin does to ourselves; and as one who\nhas yielded to none in respect of the fascination Mr. Darwin has\nexercised over him, I would fain say a few words of explanation which may\nmake the matter clearer to our future historians. I do this the more\nreadily because I can at the same time explain thus better than in any\nother way the steps which led me to the theory which I afterwards\nadvanced in \u201cLife and Habit.\u201d\n\nThis last, indeed, is perhaps the main purpose of the earlier chapters of\nthis book. I shall presently give a translation of a lecture by\nProfessor Ewald Hering of Prague, which appeared ten years ago, and which\ncontains so exactly the theory I subsequently advocated myself, that I am\nhalf uneasy lest it should be supposed that I knew of Professor Hering\u2019s\nwork and made no reference to it. A friend to whom I submitted my\ntranslation in MS., asking him how closely he thought it resembled \u201cLife\nand Habit,\u201d wrote back that it gave my own ideas almost in my own words.\nAs far as the ideas are concerned this is certainly the case, and\nconsidering that Professor Hering wrote between seven and eight years\nbefore I did, I think it due to him, and to my readers as well as to\nmyself, to explain the steps which led me to my conclusions, and, while\nputting Professor Hering\u2019s lecture before them, to show cause for\nthinking that I arrived at an almost identical conclusion, as it would\nappear, by an almost identical road, yet, nevertheless, quite\nindependently, I must ask the reader, therefore, to regard these earlier\nchapters as in some measure a personal explanation, as well as a\ncontribution to the history of an important feature in the developments\nof the last twenty years. I hope also, by showing the steps by which I\nwas led to my conclusions, to make the conclusions themselves more\nacceptable and easy of comprehension.\n\nBeing on my way to New Zealand when the \u201cOrigin of Species\u201d appeared, I\ndid not get it till 1860 or 1861. When I read it, I found \u201cthe theory of\nnatural selection\u201d repeatedly spoken of as though it were a synonym for\n\u201cthe theory of descent with modification\u201d; this is especially the case in\nthe recapitulation chapter of the work. I failed to see how important it\nwas that these two theories\u2014if indeed \u201cnatural selection\u201d can be called a\ntheory\u2014should not be confounded together, and that a \u201ctheory of descent\nwith modification\u201d might be true, while a \u201ctheory of descent with\nmodification through natural selection\u201d {4} might not stand being looked\ninto.\n\nIf any one had asked me to state in brief what Mr. Darwin\u2019s theory was, I\nam afraid I might have answered \u201cnatural selection,\u201d or \u201cdescent with\nmodification,\u201d whichever came first, as though the one meant much the\nsame as the other. I observe that most of the leading writers on the\nsubject are still unable to catch sight of the distinction here alluded\nto, and console myself for my want of acumen by reflecting that, if I was\nmisled, I was misled in good company.\n\nI\u2014and I may add, the public generally\u2014failed also to see what the unaided\nreader who was new to the subject would be almost certain to overlook. I\nmean, that, according to Mr. Darwin, the variations whose accumulation\nresulted in diversity of species and genus were indefinite, fortuitous,\nattributable but in small degree to any known causes, and without a\ngeneral principle underlying them which would cause them to appear\nsteadily in a given direction for many successive generations and in a\nconsiderable number of individuals at the same time. We did not know\nthat the theory of evolution was one that had been quietly but steadily\ngaining ground during the last hundred years. Buffon we knew by name,\nbut he sounded too like \u201cbuffoon\u201d for any good to come from him. We had\nheard also of Lamarck, and held him to be a kind of French Lord Monboddo;\nbut we knew nothing of his doctrine save through the caricatures\npromulgated by his opponents, or the misrepresentations of those who had\nanother kind of interest in disparaging him. Dr. Erasmus Darwin we\nbelieved to be a forgotten minor poet, but ninety-nine out of every\nhundred of us had never so much as heard of the \u201cZoonomia.\u201d We were\nlittle likely, therefore, to know that Lamarck drew very largely from\nBuffon, and probably also from Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and that this\nlast-named writer, though essentially original, was founded upon Buffon,\nwho was greatly more in advance of any predecessor than any successor has\nbeen in advance of him.\n\nWe did not know, then, that according to the earlier writers the\nvariations whose accumulation results in species were not fortuitous and\ndefinite, but were due to a known principle of universal\napplication\u2014namely, \u201csense of need\u201d\u2014or apprehend the difference between a\ntheory of evolution which has a backbone, as it were, in the tolerably\nconstant or slowly varying needs of large numbers of individuals for long\nperiods together, and one which has no such backbone, but according to\nwhich the progress of one generation is always liable to be cancelled and\nobliterated by that of the next. We did not know that the new theory in\na quiet way professed to tell us less than the old had done, and declared\nthat it could throw little if any light upon the matter which the earlier\nwriters had endeavoured to illuminate as the central point in their\nsystem. We took it for granted that more light must be being thrown\ninstead of less; and reading in perfect good faith, we rose from our\nperusal with the impression that Mr. Darwin was advocating the descent of\nall existing forms of life from a single, or from, at any rate, a very\nfew primordial types; that no one else had done this hitherto, or that,\nif they had, they had got the whole subject into a mess, which mess,\nwhatever it was\u2014for we were never told this\u2014was now being removed once\nfor all by Mr. Darwin.\n\nThe evolution part of the story, that is to say, the fact of evolution,\nremained in our minds as by far the most prominent feature in Mr.\nDarwin\u2019s book; and being grateful for it, we were very ready to take Mr.\nDarwin\u2019s work at the estimate tacitly claimed for it by himself, and\nvehemently insisted upon by reviewers in influential journals, who took\nmuch the same line towards the earlier writers on evolution as Mr. Darwin\nhimself had taken. But perhaps nothing more prepossessed us in Mr.\nDarwin\u2019s favour than the air of candour that was omnipresent throughout\nhis work. The prominence given to the arguments of opponents completely\ncarried us away; it was this which threw us off our guard. It never\noccurred to us that there might be other and more dangerous opponents who\nwere not brought forward. Mr. Darwin did not tell us what his\ngrandfather and Lamarck would have had to say to this or that. Moreover,\nthere was an unobtrusive parade of hidden learning and of difficulties at\nlast overcome which was particularly grateful to us. Whatever opinion\nmight be ultimately come to concerning the value of his theory, there\ncould be but one about the value of the example he had set to men of\nscience generally by the perfect frankness and unselfishness of his work.\nFriends and foes alike combined to do homage to Mr. Darwin in this\nrespect.\n\nFor, brilliant as the reception of the \u201cOrigin of Species\u201d was, it met in\nthe first instance with hardly less hostile than friendly criticism. But\nthe attacks were ill-directed; they came from a suspected quarter, and\nthose who led them did not detect more than the general public had done\nwhat were the really weak places in Mr. Darwin\u2019s armour. They attacked\nhim where he was strongest; and above all, they were, as a general rule,\nstamped with a disingenuousness which at that time we believed to be\npeculiar to theological writers and alien to the spirit of science.\nSeeing, therefore, that the men of science ranged themselves more and\nmore decidedly on Mr. Darwin\u2019s side, while his opponents had\nmanifestly\u2014so far as I can remember, all the more prominent among them\u2014a\nbias to which their hostility was attributable, we left off looking at\nthe arguments against \u201cDarwinism,\u201d as we now began to call it, and\npigeon-holed the matter to the effect that there was one evolution, and\nthat Mr. Darwin was its prophet.\n\nThe blame of our errors and oversights rests primarily with Mr. Darwin\nhimself. The first, and far the most important, edition of the \u201cOrigin\nof Species\u201d came out as a kind of literary Melchisedec, without father\nand without mother in the works of other people. Here is its opening\nparagraph:\u2014\n\n \u201cWhen on board H.M.S. \u2018Beagle\u2019 as naturalist, I was much struck with\n certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South\n America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past\n inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw\n some light on the origin of species\u2014that mystery of mysteries, as it\n has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return\n home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might be made out on\n this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting upon all sorts\n of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five\n years\u2019 work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up\n some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the\n conclusions which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the\n present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I\n may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them\n to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.\u201d {8a}\n\nIn the latest edition this passage remains unaltered, except in one\nunimportant respect. What could more completely throw us off the scent\nof the earlier writers? If they had written anything worthy of our\nattention, or indeed if there had been any earlier writers at all, Mr.\nDarwin would have been the first to tell us about them, and to award them\ntheir due meed of recognition. But, no; the whole thing was an original\ngrowth in Mr. Darwin\u2019s mind, and he had never so much as heard of his\ngrandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin.\n\nDr. Krause, indeed, thought otherwise. In the number of _Kosmos_ for\nFebruary 1879 he represented Mr. Darwin as in his youth approaching the\nworks of his grandfather with all the devotion which people usually feel\nfor the writings of a renowned poet. {8b} This should perhaps be a\ndelicately ironical way of hinting that Mr. Darwin did not read his\ngrandfather\u2019s books closely; but I hardly think that Dr. Krause looked at\nthe matter in this light, for he goes on to say that \u201calmost every single\nwork of the younger Darwin may be paralleled by at least a chapter in the\nworks of his ancestor: the mystery of heredity, adaptation, the\nprotective arrangements of animals and plants, sexual selection,\ninsectivorous plants, and the analysis of the emotions and sociological\nimpulses; nay, even the studies on infants are to be found already\ndiscussed in the pages of the elder Darwin.\u201d {8c}\n\nNevertheless, innocent as Mr. Darwin\u2019s opening sentence appeared, it\ncontained enough to have put us upon our guard. When he informed us\nthat, on his return from a long voyage, \u201cit occurred to\u201d him that the way\nto make anything out about his subject was to collect and reflect upon\nthe facts that bore upon it, it should have occurred to us in our turn,\nthat when people betray a return of consciousness upon such matters as\nthis, they are on the confines of that state in which other and not less\nelementary matters will not \u201coccur to\u201d them. The introduction of the\nword \u201cpatiently\u201d should have been conclusive. I will not analyse more of\nthe sentence, but will repeat the next two lines:\u2014\u201cAfter five years of\nwork, I allowed myself to speculate upon the subject, and drew up some\nshort notes.\u201d We read this, thousands of us, and were blind.\n\nIf Dr. Erasmus Darwin\u2019s name was not mentioned in the first edition of\nthe \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d we should not be surprised at there being no\nnotice taken of Buffon, or at Lamarck\u2019s being referred to only twice\u2014on\nthe first occasion to be serenely waved aside, he and all his works; {9a}\non the second, {9b} to be commended on a point of detail. The author of\nthe \u201cVestiges of Creation\u201d was more widely known to English readers,\nhaving written more recently and nearer home. He was dealt with\nsummarily, on an early and prominent page, by a misrepresentation, which\nwas silently expunged in later editions of the \u201cOrigin of Species.\u201d In\nhis later editions (I believe first in his third, when 6000 copies had\nbeen already sold), Mr. Darwin did indeed introduce a few pages in which\nhe gave what he designated as a \u201cbrief but imperfect sketch\u201d of the\nprogress of opinion on the origin of species prior to the appearance of\nhis own work; but the general impression which a book conveys to, and\nleaves upon, the public is conveyed by the first edition\u2014the one which is\nalone, with rare exceptions, reviewed; and in the first edition of the\n\u201cOrigin of Species\u201d Mr. Darwin\u2019s great precursors were all either ignored\nor misrepresented. Moreover, the \u201cbrief but imperfect sketch,\u201d when it\ndid come, was so very brief, but, in spite of this (for this is what I\nsuppose Mr. Darwin must mean), so very imperfect, that it might as well\nhave been left unwritten for all the help it gave the reader to see the\ntrue question at issue between the original propounders of the theory of\nevolution and Mr. Charles Darwin himself.\n\nThat question is this: Whether variation is in the main attributable to a\nknown general principle, or whether it is not?\u2014whether the minute\nvariations whose accumulation results in specific and generic differences\nare referable to something which will ensure their appearing in a certain\ndefinite direction, or in certain definite directions, for long periods\ntogether, and in many individuals, or whether they are not?\u2014whether, in a\nword, these variations are in the main definite or indefinite?\n\nIt is observable that the leading men of science seem rarely to\nunderstand this even now. I am told that Professor Huxley, in his recent\nlecture on the coming of age of the \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d never so much as\nalluded to the existence of any such division of opinion as this. He did\nnot even, I am assured, mention \u201cnatural selection,\u201d but appeared to\nbelieve, with Professor Tyndall, {10a} that \u201cevolution\u201d is \u201cMr. Darwin\u2019s\ntheory.\u201d In his article on evolution in the latest edition of the\n\u201cEncyclop\u00e6dia Britannica,\u201d I find only a veiled perception of the point\nwherein Mr. Darwin is at variance with his precursors. Professor Huxley\nevidently knows little of these writers beyond their names; if he had\nknown more, it is impossible he should have written that \u201cBuffon\ncontributed nothing to the general doctrine of evolution,\u201d {10b} and that\nErasmus Darwin, \u201cthough a zealous evolutionist, can hardly be said to\nhave made any real advance on his predecessors.\u201d {11} The article is in\na high degree unsatisfactory, and betrays at once an amount of ignorance\nand of perception which leaves an uncomfortable impression.\n\nIf this is the state of things that prevails even now, it is not\nsurprising that in 1860 the general public should, with few exceptions,\nhave known of only one evolution, namely, that propounded by Mr. Darwin.\nAs a member of the general public, at that time residing eighteen miles\nfrom the nearest human habitation, and three days\u2019 journey on horseback\nfrom a bookseller\u2019s shop, I became one of Mr. Darwin\u2019s many enthusiastic\nadmirers, and wrote a philosophical dialogue (the most offensive form,\nexcept poetry and books of travel into supposed unknown countries, that\neven literature can assume) upon the \u201cOrigin of Species.\u201d This\nproduction appeared in the _Press_, Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861 or\n1862, but I have long lost the only copy I had.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II\n\n\nHow I came to write \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d and the circumstances of its\ncompletion.\n\nIT was impossible, however, for Mr. Darwin\u2019s readers to leave the matter\nas Mr. Darwin had left it. We wanted to know whence came that germ or\nthose germs of life which, if Mr. Darwin was right, were once the world\u2019s\nonly inhabitants. They could hardly have come hither from some other\nworld; they could not in their wet, cold, slimy state have travelled\nthrough the dry ethereal medium which we call space, and yet remained\nalive. If they travelled slowly, they would die; if fast, they would\ncatch fire, as meteors do on entering the earth\u2019s atmosphere. The idea,\nagain, of their having been created by a quasi-anthropomorphic being out\nof the matter upon the earth was at variance with the whole spirit of\nevolution, which indicated that no such being could exist except as\nhimself the result, and not the cause, of evolution. Having got back\nfrom ourselves to the monad, we were suddenly to begin again with\nsomething which was either unthinkable, or was only ourselves again upon\na larger scale\u2014to return to the same point as that from which we had\nstarted, only made harder for us to stand upon.\n\nThere was only one other conception possible, namely, that the germs had\nbeen developed in the course of time from some thing or things that were\nnot what we called living at all; that they had grown up, in fact, out of\nthe material substances and forces of the world in some manner more or\nless analogous to that in which man had been developed from themselves.\n\nI first asked myself whether life might not, after all, resolve itself\ninto the complexity of arrangement of an inconceivably intricate\nmechanism. Kittens think our shoe-strings are alive when they see us\nlacing them, because they see the tag at the end jump about without\nunderstanding all the ins and outs of how it comes to do so. \u201cOf\ncourse,\u201d they argue, \u201cif we cannot understand how a thing comes to move,\nit must move of itself, for there can be no motion beyond our\ncomprehension but what is spontaneous; if the motion is spontaneous, the\nthing moving must he alive, for nothing can move of itself or without our\nunderstanding why unless it is alive. Everything that is alive and not\ntoo large can be tortured, and perhaps eaten; let us therefore spring\nupon the tag\u201d and they spring upon it. Cats are above this; yet give the\ncat something which presents a few more of those appearances which she is\naccustomed to see whenever she sees life, and she will fall as easy a\nprey to the power which association exercises over all that lives as the\nkitten itself. Show her a toy-mouse that can run a few yards after being\nwound up; the form, colour, and action of a mouse being here, there is no\ngood cat which will not conclude that so many of the appearances of\nmousehood could not be present at the same time without the presence also\nof the remainder. She will, therefore, spring upon the toy as eagerly as\nthe kitten upon the tag.\n\nSuppose the toy more complex still, so that it might run a few yards,\nstop, and run on again without an additional winding up; and suppose it\nso constructed that it could imitate eating and drinking, and could make\nas though the mouse were cleaning its face with its paws. Should we not\nat first be taken in ourselves, and assume the presence of the remaining\nfacts of life, though in reality they were not there? Query, therefore,\nwhether a machine so complex as to be prepared with a corresponding\nmanner of action for each one of the successive emergencies of life as it\narose, would not take us in for good and all, and look so much as if it\nwere alive that, whether we liked it or not, we should be compelled to\nthink it and call it so; and whether the being alive was not simply the\nbeing an exceedingly complicated machine, whose parts were set in motion\nby the action upon them of exterior circumstances; whether, in fact, man\nwas not a kind of toy-mouse in the shape of a man, only capable of going\nfor seventy or eighty years, instead of half as many seconds, and as much\nmore versatile as he is more durable? Of course I had an uneasy feeling\nthat if I thus made all plants and men into machines, these machines must\nhave what all other machines have if they are machines at all\u2014a designer,\nand some one to wind them up and work them; but I thought this might wait\nfor the present, and was perfectly ready then, as now, to accept a\ndesigner from without, if the facts upon examination rendered such a\nbelief reasonable.\n\nIf, then, men were not really alive after all, but were only machines of\nso complicated a make that it was less trouble to us to cut the\ndifficulty and say that that kind of mechanism was \u201cbeing alive,\u201d why\nshould not machines ultimately become as complicated as we are, or at any\nrate complicated enough to be called living, and to be indeed as living\nas it was in the nature of anything at all to be? If it was only a case\nof their becoming more complicated, we were certainly doing our best to\nmake them so.\n\nI do not suppose I at that time saw that this view comes to much the same\nas denying that there are such qualities as life and consciousness at\nall, and that this, again, works round to the assertion of their\nomnipresence in every molecule of matter, inasmuch as it destroys the\nseparation between the organic and inorganic, and maintains that whatever\nthe organic is the inorganic is also. Deny it in theory as much as we\nplease, we shall still always feel that an organic body, unless dead, is\nliving and conscious to a greater or less degree. Therefore, if we once\nbreak down the wall of partition between the organic and inorganic, the\ninorganic must be living and conscious also, up to a certain point.\n\nI have been at work on this subject now for nearly twenty years, what I\nhave published being only a small part of what I have written and\ndestroyed. I cannot, therefore, remember exactly how I stood in 1863.\nNor can I pretend to see far into the matter even now; for when I think\nof life, I find it so difficult, that I take refuge in death or\nmechanism; and when I think of death or mechanism, I find it so\ninconceivable, that it is easier to call it life again. The only thing\nof which I am sure is, that the distinction between the organic and\ninorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with our other ideas,\nand therefore more acceptable, to start with every molecule as a living\nthing, and then deduce death as the breaking up of an association or\ncorporation, than to start with inanimate molecules and smuggle life into\nthem; and that, therefore, what we call the inorganic world must be\nregarded as up to a certain point living, and instinct, within certain\nlimits, with consciousness, volition, and power of concerted action. It\nis only of late, however, that I have come to this opinion.\n\nOne must start with a hypothesis, no matter how much one distrusts it; so\nI started with man as a mechanism, this being the strand of the knot that\nI could then pick at most easily. Having worked upon it a certain time,\nI drew the inference about machines becoming animate, and in 1862 or 1863\nwrote the sketch of the chapter on machines which I afterwards rewrote in\n\u201cErewhon.\u201d This sketch appeared in the _Press_, Canterbury, N.Z., June\n13, 1863; a copy of it is in the British Museum.\n\nI soon felt that though there was plenty of amusement to be got out of\nthis line, it was one that I should have to leave sooner or later; I\ntherefore left it at once for the view that machines were limbs which we\nhad made, and carried outside our bodies instead of incorporating them\nwith ourselves. A few days or weeks later than June 13, 1863, I\npublished a second letter in the _Press_ putting this view forward. Of\nthis letter I have lost the only copy I had; I have not seen it for\nyears. The first was certainly not good; the second, if I remember\nrightly, was a good deal worse, though I believed more in the views it\nput forward than in those of the first letter. I had lost my copy before\nI wrote \u201cErewhon,\u201d and therefore only gave a couple of pages to it in\nthat book; besides, there was more amusement in the other view. I should\nperhaps say there was an intermediate extension of the first letter which\nappeared in the _Reasoner_, July 1, 1865.\n\nIn 1870 and 1871, when I was writing \u201cErewhon,\u201d I thought the best way of\nlooking at machines was to see them as limbs which we had made and\ncarried about with us or left at home at pleasure. I was not, however,\nsatisfied, and should have gone on with the subject at once if I had not\nbeen anxious to write \u201cThe Fair Haven,\u201d a book which is a development of\na pamphlet I wrote in New Zealand and published in London in 1865.\n\nAs soon as I had finished this, I returned to the old subject, on which I\nhad already been engaged for nearly a dozen years as continuously as\nother business would allow, and proposed to myself to see not only\nmachines as limbs, but also limbs as machines. I felt immediately that I\nwas upon firmer ground. The use of the word \u201corgan\u201d for a limb told its\nown story; the word could not have become so current under this meaning\nunless the idea of a limb as a tool or machine had been agreeable to\ncommon sense. What would follow, then, if we regarded our limbs and\norgans as things that we had ourselves manufactured for our convenience?\n\nThe first question that suggested itself was, how did we come to make\nthem without knowing anything about it? And this raised another, namely,\nhow comes anybody to do anything unconsciously? The answer \u201chabit\u201d was\nnot far to seek. But can a person be said to do a thing by force of\nhabit or routine when it is his ancestors, and not he, that has done it\nhitherto? Not unless he and his ancestors are one and the same person.\nPerhaps, then, they _are_ the same person after all. What is sameness?\nI remembered Bishop Butler\u2019s sermon on \u201cPersonal Identity,\u201d read it\nagain, and saw very plainly that if a man of eighty may consider himself\nidentical with the baby from whom he has developed, so that he may say,\n\u201cI am the person who at six months old did this or that,\u201d then the baby\nmay just as fairly claim identity with its father and mother, and say to\nits parents on being born, \u201cI was you only a few months ago.\u201d By parity\nof reasoning each living form now on the earth must be able to claim\nidentity with each generation of its ancestors up to the primordial cell\ninclusive.\n\nAgain, if the octogenarian may claim personal identity with the infant,\nthe infant may certainly do so with the impregnate ovum from which it has\ndeveloped. If so, the octogenarian will prove to have been a fish once\nin this his present life. This is as certain as that he was living\nyesterday, and stands on exactly the same foundation.\n\nI am aware that Professor Huxley maintains otherwise. He writes: \u201cIt is\nnot true, for example, . . . that a reptile was ever a fish, but it is\ntrue that the reptile embryo\u201d (and what is said here of the reptile holds\ngood also for the human embryo), \u201cat one stage of its development, is an\norganism, which, if it had an independent existence, must be classified\namong fishes.\u201d {17}\n\nThis is like saying, \u201cIt is not true that such and such a picture was\nrejected for the Academy, but it is true that it was submitted to the\nPresident and Council of the Royal Academy, with a view to acceptance at\ntheir next forthcoming annual exhibition, and that the President and\nCouncil regretted they were unable through want of space, &c., &c.\u201d\u2014and\nas much more as the reader chooses. I shall venture, therefore, to stick\nto it that the octogenarian was once a fish, or if Professor Huxley\nprefers it, \u201can organism which must be classified among fishes.\u201d\n\nBut if a man was a fish once, he may have been a fish a million times\nover, for aught he knows; for he must admit that his conscious\nrecollection is at fault, and has nothing whatever to do with the matter,\nwhich must be decided, not, as it were, upon his own evidence as to what\ndeeds he may or may not recollect having executed, but by the production\nof his signatures in court, with satisfactory proof that he has delivered\neach document as his act and deed.\n\nThis made things very much simpler. The processes of embryonic\ndevelopment, and instinctive actions, might be now seen as repetitions of\nthe same kind of action by the same individual in successive generations.\nIt was natural, therefore, that they should come in the course of time to\nbe done unconsciously, and a consideration of the most obvious facts of\nmemory removed all further doubt that habit\u2014which is based on memory\u2014was\nat the bottom of all the phenomena of heredity.\n\nI had got to this point about the spring of 1874, and had begun to write,\nwhen I was compelled to go to Canada, and for the next year and a half\ndid hardly any writing. The first passage in \u201cLife and Habit\u201d which I\ncan date with certainty is the one on page 52, which runs as follows:\u2014\n\n \u201cIt is one against legion when a man tries to differ from his own\n past selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so\n as to lack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, and not to\n gratify them. It is more righteous in a man that he should \u2018eat\n strange food,\u2019 and that his cheek should \u2018so much as lank not,\u2019 than\n that he should starve if the strange food be at his command. His\n past selves are living in him at this moment with the accumulated\n life of centuries. \u2018Do this, this, this, which we too have done, and\n found out profit in it,\u2019 cry the souls of his forefathers within him.\n Faint are the far ones, coming and going as the sound of bells wafted\n on to a high mountain; loud and clear are the near ones, urgent as an\n alarm of fire.\u201d\n\nThis was written a few days after my arrival in Canada, June 1874. I was\non Montreal mountain for the first time, and was struck with its extreme\nbeauty. It was a magnificent Summer\u2019s evening; the noble St. Lawrence\nflowed almost immediately beneath, and the vast expanse of country beyond\nit was suffused with a colour which even Italy cannot surpass. Sitting\ndown for a while, I began making notes for \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d of which I\nwas then continually thinking, and had written the first few lines of the\nabove, when the bells of Notre Dame in Montreal began to ring, and their\nsound was carried to and fro in a remarkably beautiful manner. I took\nadvantage of the incident to insert then and there the last lines of the\npiece just quoted. I kept the whole passage with hardly any alteration,\nand am thus able to date it accurately.\n\nThough so occupied in Canada that writing a book was impossible, I\nnevertheless got many notes together for future use. I left Canada at\nthe end of 1875, and early in 1876 began putting these notes into more\ncoherent form. I did this in thirty pages of closely written matter, of\nwhich a pressed copy remains in my commonplace-book. I find two dates\namong them\u2014the first, \u201cSunday, Feb. 6, 1876\u201d; and the second, at the end\nof the notes, \u201cFeb. 12, 1876.\u201d\n\nFrom these notes I find that by this time I had the theory contained in\n\u201cLife and Habit\u201d completely before me, with the four main principles\nwhich it involves, namely, the oneness of personality between parents and\noffspring; memory on the part of offspring of certain actions which it\ndid when in the persons of its forefathers; the latency of that memory\nuntil it is rekindled by a recurrence of the associated ideas; and the\nunconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be performed.\n\nThe first half-page of these notes may serve as a sample, and runs thus:\u2014\n\n \u201cThose habits and functions which we have in common with the lower\n animals come mainly within the womb, or are done involuntarily, as\n our [growth of] limbs, eyes, &c., and our power of digesting food,\n &c. . . .\n\n \u201cWe say of the chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it\n is hatched, . . . but had it no knowledge before it was hatched?\n\n \u201cIt knew how to make a great many things before it was hatched.\n\n \u201cIt grew eyes and feathers and bones.\n\n \u201cYet we say it knew nothing about all this.\n\n \u201cAfter it is born it grows more feathers, and makes its bones larger,\n and develops a reproductive system.\n\n \u201cAgain we say it knows nothing about all this.\n\n \u201cWhat then does it know?\n\n \u201cWhatever it does not know so well as to be unconscious of knowing\n it.\n\n \u201cKnowledge dwells upon the confines of uncertainty.\n\n \u201cWhen we are very certain, we do not know that we know. When we will\n very strongly, we do not know that we will.\u201d\n\nI then began my book, but considering myself still a painter by\nprofession, I gave comparatively little time to writing, and got on but\nslowly. I left England for North Italy in the middle of May 1876 and\nreturned early in August. It was perhaps thus that I failed to hear of\nthe account of Professor Hering\u2019s lecture given by Professor Ray\nLankester in _Nature_, July 13 1876; though, never at that time seeing\n_Nature_, I should probably have missed it under any circumstances. On\nmy return I continued slowly writing. By August 1877 I considered that I\nhad to all intents and purposes completed my book. My first proof bears\ndate October 13, 1877.\n\nAt this time I had not been able to find that anything like what I was\nadvancing had been said already. I asked many friends, but not one of\nthem knew of anything more than I did; to them, as to me, it seemed an\nidea so new as to be almost preposterous; but knowing how things turn up\nafter one has written, of the existence of which one had not known\nbefore, I was particularly careful to guard against being supposed to\nclaim originality. I neither claimed it nor wished for it; for if a\ntheory has any truth in it, it is almost sure to occur to several people\nmuch about the same time, and a reasonable person will look upon his work\nwith great suspicion unless he can confirm it with the support of others\nwho have gone before him. Still I knew of nothing in the least\nresembling it, and was so afraid of what I was doing, that though I could\nsee no flaw in the argument, nor any loophole for escape from the\nconclusion it led to, yet I did not dare to put it forward with the\nseriousness and sobriety with which I should have treated the subject if\nI had not been in continual fear of a mine being sprung upon me from some\nunexpected quarter. I am exceedingly glad now that I knew nothing of\nProfessor Hering\u2019s lecture, for it is much better that two people should\nthink a thing out as far as they can independently before they become\naware of each other\u2019s works but if I had seen it, I should either, as is\nmost likely, not have written at all, or I should have pitched my book in\nanother key.\n\nAmong the additions I intended making while the book was in the press,\nwas a chapter on Mr. Darwin\u2019s provisional theory of Pangenesis, which I\nfelt convinced must be right if it was Mr. Darwin\u2019s, and which I was\nsure, if I could once understand it, must have an important bearing on\n\u201cLife and Habit.\u201d I had not as yet seen that the principle I was\ncontending for was Darwinian, not Neo-Darwinian. My pages still teemed\nwith allusions to \u201cnatural selection,\u201d and I sometimes allowed myself to\nhope that \u201cLife and Habit\u201d was going to be an adjunct to Darwinism which\nno one would welcome more gladly than Mr. Darwin himself. At this time I\nhad a visit from a friend, who kindly called to answer a question of\nmine, relative, if I remember rightly, to \u201cPangenesis.\u201d He came,\nSeptember 26, 1877. One of the first things he said was, that the theory\nwhich had pleased him more than anything he had heard of for some time\nwas one referring all life to memory. I said that was exactly what I was\ndoing myself, and inquired where he had met with his theory. He replied\nthat Professor Ray Lankester had written a letter about it in _Nature_\nsome time ago, but he could not remember exactly when, and had given\nextracts from a lecture by Professor Ewald Hering, who had originated the\ntheory. I said I should not look at it, as I had completed that part of\nmy work, and was on the point of going to press. I could not recast my\nwork if, as was most likely, I should find something, when I saw what\nProfessor Hering had said, which would make me wish to rewrite my own\nbook; it was too late in the day and I did not feel equal to making any\nradical alteration; and so the matter ended with very little said upon\neither side. I wrote, however, afterwards to my friend asking him to\ntell me the number of _Nature_ which contained the lecture if he could\nfind it, but he was unable to do so, and I was well enough content.\n\nA few days before this I had met another friend, and had explained to him\nwhat I was doing. He told me I ought to read Professor Mivart\u2019s \u201cGenesis\nof Species,\u201d and that if I did so I should find there were two sides to\n\u201cnatural selection.\u201d Thinking, as so many people do\u2014and no wonder\u2014that\n\u201cnatural selection\u201d and evolution were much the same thing, and having\nfound so many attacks upon evolution produce no effect upon me, I\ndeclined to read it. I had as yet no idea that a writer could attack\nNeo-Darwinism without attacking evolution. But my friend kindly sent me\na copy; and when I read it, I found myself in the presence of arguments\ndifferent from those I had met with hitherto, and did not see my way to\nanswering them. I had, however, read only a small part of Professor\nMivart\u2019s work, and was not fully awake to the position, when the friend\nreferred to in the preceding paragraph called on me.\n\nWhen I had finished the \u201cGenesis of Species,\u201d I felt that something was\ncertainly wanted which should give a definite aim to the variations whose\naccumulation was to amount ultimately to specific and generic\ndifferences, and that without this there could have been no progress in\norganic development. I got the latest edition of the \u201cOrigin of Species\u201d\nin order to see how Mr. Darwin met Professor Mivart, and found his\nanswers in many respects unsatisfactory. I had lost my original copy of\nthe \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d and had not read the book for some years. I now\nset about reading it again, and came to the chapter on instinct, where I\nwas horrified to find the following passage:\u2014\n\n \u201cBut it would be a serious error to suppose that the greater number\n of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation and then\n transmitted by inheritance to the succeeding generations. It can be\n clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts with which we are\n acquainted, namely, those of the hive-bee and of many ants, could not\n possibly have been acquired by habit.\u201d {23a}\n\nThis showed that, according to Mr. Darwin, I had fallen into serious\nerror, and my faith in him, though somewhat shaken, was far too great to\nbe destroyed by a few days\u2019 course of Professor Mivart, the full\nimportance of whose work I had not yet apprehended. I continued to read,\nand when I had finished the chapter felt sure that I must indeed have\nbeen blundering. The concluding words, \u201cI am surprised that no one has\nhitherto advanced this demonstrative case of neuter insects against the\nwell-known doctrine of inherited habit as advanced by Lamarck,\u201d {23b}\nwere positively awful. There was a quiet consciousness of strength about\nthem which was more convincing than any amount of more detailed\nexplanation. This was the first I had heard of any doctrine of inherited\nhabit as having been propounded by Lamarck (the passage stands in the\nfirst edition, \u201cthe well-known doctrine of Lamarck,\u201d p. 242); and now to\nfind that I had been only busying myself with a stale theory of this\nlong-since exploded charlatan\u2014with my book three parts written and\nalready in the press\u2014it was a serious scare.\n\nOn reflection, however, I was again met with the overwhelming weight of\nthe evidence in favour of structure and habit being mainly due to memory.\nI accordingly gathered as much as I could second-hand of what Lamarck had\nsaid, reserving a study of his \u201cPhilosophie Zoologique\u201d for another\noccasion, and read as much about ants and bees as I could find in readily\naccessible works. In a few days I saw my way again; and now, reading the\n\u201cOrigin of Species\u201d more closely, and I may say more sceptically, the\nantagonism between Mr. Darwin and Lamarck became fully apparent to me,\nand I saw how incoherent and unworkable in practice the later view was in\ncomparison with the earlier. Then I read Mr. Darwin\u2019s answers to\nmiscellaneous objections, and was met, and this time brought up, by the\npassage beginning \u201cIn the earlier editions of this work,\u201d {24a} &c., on\nwhich I wrote very severely in \u201cLife and Habit\u201d; {24b} for I felt by this\ntime that the difference of opinion between us was radical, and that the\nmatter must be fought out according to the rules of the game. After this\nI went through the earlier part of my book, and cut out the expressions\nwhich I had used inadvertently, and which were inconsistent with a\nteleological view. This necessitated only verbal alterations; for,\nthough I had not known it, the spirit of the book was throughout\nteleological.\n\nI now saw that I had got my hands full, and abandoned my intention of\ntouching upon \u201cPangenesis.\u201d I took up the words of Mr. Darwin quoted\nabove, to the effect that it would be a serious error to ascribe the\ngreater number of instincts to transmitted habit. I wrote chapter xi. of\n\u201cLife and Habit,\u201d which is headed \u201cInstincts as Inherited Memory\u201d; I also\nwrote the four subsequent chapters, \u201cInstincts of Neuter Insects,\u201d\n\u201cLamarck and Mr. Darwin,\u201d \u201cMr. Mivart and Mr. Darwin,\u201d and the concluding\nchapter, all of them in the month of October and the early part of\nNovember 1877, the complete book leaving the binder\u2019s hands December 4,\n1877, but, according to trade custom, being dated 1878. It will be seen\nthat these five concluding chapters were rapidly written, and this may\naccount in part for the directness with which I said anything I had to\nsay about Mr. Darwin; partly this, and partly I felt I was in for a penny\nand might as well be in for a pound. I therefore wrote about Mr.\nDarwin\u2019s work exactly as I should about any one else\u2019s, bearing in mind\nthe inestimable services he had undoubtedly\u2014and must always be counted to\nhave\u2014rendered to evolution.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III\n\n\nHow I came to write \u201cEvolution, Old and New\u201d\u2014Mr Darwin\u2019s \u201cbrief but\nimperfect\u201d sketch of the opinions of the writers on evolution who had\npreceded him\u2014The reception which \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d met with.\n\nTHOUGH my book was out in 1877, it was not till January 1878 that I took\nan opportunity of looking up Professor Ray Lankester\u2019s account of\nProfessor Hering\u2019s lecture. I can hardly say how relieved I was to find\nthat it sprung no mine upon me, but that, so far as I could gather,\nProfessor Hering and I had come to pretty much the same conclusion. I\nhad already found the passage in Dr. Erasmus Darwin which I quoted in\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d but may perhaps as well repeat it here. It\nruns\u2014\n\n \u201cOwing to the imperfection of language, the offspring is termed a new\n animal; but is, in truth, a branch or elongation of the parent, since\n a part of the embryon animal is or was a part of the parent, and,\n therefore, in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at\n the time of its production, and, therefore, it may retain some of the\n habits of the parent system.\u201d {26}\n\nWhen, then, the _Athen\u00e6um_ reviewed \u201cLife and Habit\u201d (January 26, 1878),\nI took the opportunity to write to that paper, calling attention to\nProfessor Hering\u2019s lecture, and also to the passage just quoted from Dr.\nErasmus Darwin. The editor kindly inserted my letter in his issue of\nFebruary 9, 1878. I felt that I had now done all in the way of\nacknowledgment to Professor Hering which it was, for the time, in my\npower to do.\n\nI again took up Mr. Darwin\u2019s \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d this time, I admit, in\na spirit of scepticism. I read his \u201cbrief but imperfect\u201d sketch of the\nprogress of opinion on the origin of species, and turned to each one of\nthe writers he had mentioned. First, I read all the parts of the\n\u201cZoonomia\u201d that were not purely medical, and was astonished to find that,\nas Dr. Krause has since said in his essay on Erasmus Darwin, \u201c_he was the\nfirst who proposed and persistently carried out a well-rounded theory\nwith regard to the development of the living world_\u201d {27} (italics in\noriginal).\n\nThis is undoubtedly the case, and I was surprised at finding Professor\nHuxley say concerning this very eminent man that he could \u201chardly be said\nto have made any real advance upon his predecessors.\u201d Still more was I\nsurprised at remembering that, in the first edition of the \u201cOrigin of\nSpecies,\u201d Dr. Erasmus Darwin had never been so much as named; while in\nthe \u201cbrief but imperfect\u201d sketch he was dismissed with a line of\nhalf-contemptuous patronage, as though the mingled tribute of admiration\nand curiosity which attaches to scientific prophecies, as distinguished\nfrom discoveries, was the utmost he was entitled to. \u201cIt is curious,\u201d\nsays Mr. Darwin innocently, in the middle of a note in the smallest\npossible type, \u201chow largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin,\nanticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his\n\u2018Zoonomia\u2019 (vol. i. pp. 500\u2013510), published in 1794\u201d; this was all he had\nto say about the founder of \u201cDarwinism,\u201d until I myself unearthed Dr.\nErasmus Darwin, and put his work fairly before the present generation in\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New.\u201d Six months after I had done this, I had the\nsatisfaction of seeing that Mr. Darwin had woke up to the propriety of\ndoing much the same thing, and that he had published an interesting and\ncharmingly written memoir of his grandfather, of which more anon.\n\nNot that Dr. Darwin was the first to catch sight of a complete theory of\nevolution. Buffon was the first to point out that, in view of the known\nmodifications which had been effected among our domesticated animals and\ncultivated plants, the ass and the horse should be considered as, in all\nprobability, descended from a common ancestor; yet, if this is so, he\nwrites\u2014if the point \u201cwere once gained that among animals and vegetables\nthere had been, I do not say several species, but even a single one,\nwhich had been produced in the course of direct descent from another\nspecies; if, for example, it could be once shown that the ass was but a\ndegeneration from the horse, then there is no further limit to be set to\nthe power of Nature, and we should not be wrong in supposing that, with\nsufficient time, she has evolved all other organised forms from one\nprimordial type\u201d {28a} (_et l\u2019on n\u2019auroit pas tort de supposer_, _que\nd\u2019un seul \u00eatre elle a su tirer avec le temps tous les autres \u00eatres\norganis\u00e9s_).\n\nThis, I imagine, in spite of Professor Huxley\u2019s dictum, is contributing a\ngood deal to the general doctrine of evolution; for though Descartes and\nLeibnitz may have thrown out hints pointing more or less broadly in the\ndirection of evolution, some of which Professor Huxley has quoted, he has\nadduced nothing approaching to the passage from Buffon given above,\neither in respect of the clearness with which the conclusion intended to\nbe arrived at is pointed out, or the breadth of view with which the whole\nground of animal and vegetable nature is covered. The passage referred\nto is only one of many to the same effect, and must be connected with one\nquoted in \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d {28b} from p. 13 of Buffon\u2019s first\nvolume, which appeared in 1749, and than which nothing can well point\nmore plainly in the direction of evolution. It is not easy, therefore,\nto understand why Professor Huxley should give 1753\u201378 as the date of\nBuffon\u2019s work, nor yet why he should say that Buffon was \u201cat first a\npartisan of the absolute immutability of species,\u201d {29a} unless, indeed,\nwe suppose he has been content to follow that very unsatisfactory writer,\nIsidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire (who falls into this error, and says that\nBuffon\u2019s first volume on animals appeared 1753), without verifying him,\nand without making any reference to him.\n\nProfessor Huxley quotes a passage from the \u201cPaling\u00e9n\u00e9sie Philosophique\u201d\nof Bonnet, of which he says that, making allowance for his peculiar views\non the subject of generation, they bear no small resemblance to what is\nunderstood by \u201cevolution\u201d at the present day. The most important parts\nof the passage quoted are as follows:\u2014\n\n \u201cShould I be going too far if I were to conjecture that the plants\n and animals of the present day have arisen by a sort of natural\n evolution from the organised beings which peopled the world in its\n original state as it left the hands of the Creator? . . . In the\n outset organised beings were probably very different from what they\n are now\u2014as different as the original world is from our present one.\n We have no means of estimating the amount of these differences, but\n it is possible that even our ablest naturalist, if transplanted to\n the original world, would entirely fail to recognise our plants and\n animals therein.\u201d {29b}\n\nBut this is feeble in comparison with Buffon, and did not appear till\n1769, when Buffon had been writing on evolution for fully twenty years\nwith the eyes of scientific Europe upon him. Whatever concession to the\nopinion of Buffon Bonnet may have been inclined to make in 1769, in 1764,\nwhen he published his \u201cContemplation de la Nature,\u201d and in 1762 when his\n\u201cConsid\u00e9rations sur les Corps Organes\u201d appeared, he cannot be considered\nto have been a supporter of evolution. I went through these works in\n1878 when I was writing \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d to see whether I could\nclaim him as on my side; but though frequently delighted with his work, I\nfound it impossible to press him into my service.\n\nThe pre-eminent claim of Buffon to be considered as the father of the\nmodern doctrine of evolution cannot be reasonably disputed, though he was\ndoubtless led to his conclusions by the works of Descartes and Leibnitz,\nof both of whom he was an avowed and very warm admirer. His claim does\nnot rest upon a passage here or there, but upon the spirit of forty\nquartos written over a period of about as many years. Nevertheless he\nwrote, as I have shown in \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d of set purpose\nenigmatically, whereas there was no beating about the bush with Dr.\nDarwin. He speaks straight out, and Dr. Krause is justified in saying of\nhim \u201c_that he was the first who proposed and persistently carried out a\nwell-rounded theory_\u201d of evolution.\n\nI now turned to Lamarck. I read the first volume of the \u201cPhilosophie\nZoologique,\u201d analysed it and translated the most important parts. The\nsecond volume was beside my purpose, dealing as it does rather with the\norigin of life than of species, and travelling too fast and too far for\nme to be able to keep up with him. Again I was astonished at the little\nmention Mr. Darwin had made of this illustrious writer, at the manner in\nwhich he had motioned him away, as it were, with his hand in the first\nedition of the \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d and at the brevity and imperfection\nof the remarks made upon him in the subsequent historical sketch.\n\nI got Isidore Geoffroy\u2019s \u201cHistoire Naturelle G\u00e9n\u00e9rale,\u201d which Mr. Darwin\ncommends in the note on the second page of the historical sketch, as\ngiving \u201can excellent history of opinion\u201d upon the subject of evolution,\nand a full account of Buffon\u2019s conclusions upon the same subject. This\nat least is what I supposed Mr. Darwin to mean. What he said was that\nIsidore Geoffroy gives an excellent history of opinion on the subject of\nthe date of the first publication of Lamarck, and that in his work there\nis a full account of Buffon\u2019s fluctuating conclusions upon _the same\nsubject_. {31} But Mr. Darwin is a more than commonly puzzling writer.\nI read what M. Geoffroy had to say upon Buffon, and was surprised to find\nthat, after all, according to M. Geoffroy, Buffon, and not Lamarck, was\nthe founder of the theory of evolution. His name, as I have already\nsaid, was never mentioned in the first edition of the \u201cOrigin of\nSpecies.\u201d\n\nM. Geoffroy goes into the accusations of having fluctuated in his\nopinions, which he tells us have been brought against Buffon, and comes\nto the conclusion that they are unjust, as any one else will do who turns\nto Buffon himself. Mr. Darwin, however, in the \u201cbrief but imperfect\nsketch,\u201d catches at the accusation, and repeats it while saying nothing\nwhatever about the defence. The following is still all he says: \u201cThe\nfirst author who in modern times has treated\u201d evolution \u201cin a scientific\nspirit was Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different\nperiods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the\ntransformation of species, I need not here enter on details.\u201d On the\nnext page, in the note last quoted, Mr. Darwin originally repeated the\naccusation of Buffon\u2019s having been fluctuating in his opinions, and\nappeared to give it the imprimatur of Isidore Geoffroy\u2019s approval; the\nfact being that Isidore Geoffroy only quoted the accusation in order to\nrefute it; and though, I suppose, meaning well, did not make half the\ncase he might have done, and abounds with misstatements. My readers will\nfind this matter particularly dealt with in \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d\nChapter X.\n\nI gather that some one must have complained to Mr. Darwin of his saying\nthat Isidore Geoffroy gave an account of Buffon\u2019s \u201cfluctuating\nconclusions\u201d concerning evolution, when he was doing all he knew to\nmaintain that Buffon\u2019s conclusions did not fluctuate; for I see that in\nthe edition of 1876 the word \u201cfluctuating\u201d has dropped out of the note in\nquestion, and we now learn that Isidore Geoffroy gives \u201ca full account of\nBuffon\u2019s conclusions,\u201d without the \u201cfluctuating.\u201d But Buffon has not\ntaken much by this, for his opinions are still left fluctuating greatly\nat different periods on the preceding page, and though he still was the\nfirst to treat evolution in a scientific spirit, he still does not enter\nupon the causes or means of the transformation of species. No one can\nunderstand Mr. Darwin who does not collate the different editions of the\n\u201cOrigin of Species\u201d with some attention. When he has done this, he will\nknow what Newton meant by saying he felt like a child playing with\npebbles upon the seashore.\n\nOne word more upon this note before I leave it. Mr. Darwin speaks of\nIsidore Geoffroy\u2019s history of opinion as \u201cexcellent,\u201d and his account of\nBuffon\u2019s opinions as \u201cfull.\u201d I wonder how well qualified he is to be a\njudge of these matters? If he knows much about the earlier writers, he\nis the more inexcusable for having said so little about them. If little,\nwhat is his opinion worth?\n\nTo return to the \u201cbrief but imperfect sketch.\u201d I do not think I can ever\nagain be surprised at anything Mr. Darwin may say or do, but if I could,\nI should wonder how a writer who did not \u201center upon the causes or means\nof the transformation of species,\u201d and whose opinions \u201cfluctuated greatly\nat different periods,\u201d can be held to have treated evolution \u201cin a\nscientific spirit.\u201d Nevertheless, when I reflect upon the scientific\nreputation Mr. Darwin has attained, and the means by which he has won it,\nI suppose the scientific spirit must be much what he here implies. I see\nMr. Darwin says of his own father, Dr. Robert Darwin of Shrewsbury, that\nhe does not consider him to have had a scientific mind. Mr. Darwin\ncannot tell why he does not think his father\u2019s mind to have been fitted\nfor advancing science, \u201cfor he was fond of theorising, and was\nincomparably the best observer\u201d Mr. Darwin ever knew. {33a} From the\nhint given in the \u201cbrief but imperfect sketch,\u201d I fancy I can help Mr.\nDarwin to see why he does not think his father\u2019s mind to have been a\nscientific one. It is possible that Dr. Robert Darwin\u2019s opinions did not\nfluctuate sufficiently at different periods, and that Mr. Darwin\nconsidered him as having in some way entered upon the causes or means of\nthe transformation of species. Certainly those who read Mr. Darwin\u2019s own\nworks attentively will find no lack of fluctuation in his case; and\nreflection will show them that a theory of evolution which relies mainly\non the accumulation of accidental variations comes very close to not\nentering upon the causes or means of the transformation of species. {33b}\n\nI have shown, however, in \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d that the assertion\nthat Buffon does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation\nof species is absolutely without foundation, and that, on the contrary,\nhe is continually dealing with this very matter, and devotes to it one of\nhis longest and most important chapters, {33c} but I admit that he is\nless satisfactory on this head than either Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck.\n\nAs a matter of fact, Buffon is much more of a Neo-Darwinian than either\nDr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck, for with him the variations are sometimes\nfortuitous. In the case of the dog, he speaks of them as making their\nappearance \u201c_by some chance_ common enough with Nature,\u201d {33d} and being\nperpetuated by man\u2019s selection. This is exactly the \u201cif any slight\nfavourable variation _happen_ to arise\u201d of Mr. Charles Darwin. Buffon\nalso speaks of the variations among pigeons arising \u201c_par hasard_.\u201d But\nthese expressions are only ships; his main cause of variation is the\ndirect action of changed conditions of existence, while with Dr. Erasmus\nDarwin and Lamarck the action of the conditions of existence is indirect,\nthe direct action being that of the animals or plants themselves, in\nconsequence of changed sense of need under changed conditions.\n\nI should say that the sketch so often referred to is at first sight now\nno longer imperfect in Mr. Darwin\u2019s opinion. It was \u201cbrief but\nimperfect\u201d in 1861 and in 1866, but in 1876 I see that it is brief only.\nOf course, discovering that it was no longer imperfect, I expected to\nfind it briefer. What, then, was my surprise at finding that it had\nbecome rather longer? I have found no perfectly satisfactory explanation\nof this inconsistency, but, on the whole, incline to think that the\n\u201cgreatest of living men\u201d felt himself unequal to prolonging his struggle\nwith the word \u201cbut,\u201d and resolved to lay that conjunction at all hazards,\neven though the doing so might cost him the balance of his adjectives;\nfor I think he must know that his sketch is still imperfect.\n\nFrom Isidore Geoffroy I turned to Buffon himself, and had not long to\nwait before I felt that I was now brought into communication with the\nmaster-mind of all those who have up to the present time busied\nthemselves with evolution. For a brief and imperfect sketch of him, I\nmust refer my readers to \u201cEvolution, Old and New.\u201d\n\nI have no great respect for the author of the \u201cVestiges of Creation,\u201d who\nbehaved hardly better to the writers upon whom his own work was founded\nthan Mr. Darwin himself has done. Nevertheless, I could not forget the\ngravity of the misrepresentation with which he was assailed on page 3 of\nthe first edition of the \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d nor impugn the justice of\nhis rejoinder in the following year, {34} when he replied that it was to\nbe regretted Mr. Darwin had read his work \u201calmost as much amiss as if,\nlike its declared opponents, he had an interest in misrepresenting it.\u201d\n{35a} I could not, again, forget that, though Mr. Darwin did not venture\nto stand by the passage in question, it was expunged without a word of\napology or explanation of how it was that he had come to write it. A\nwriter with any claim to our consideration will never fall into serious\nerror about another writer without hastening to make a public apology as\nsoon as he becomes aware of what he has done.\n\nReflecting upon the substance of what I have written in the last few\npages, I thought it right that people should have a chance of knowing\nmore about the earlier writers on evolution than they were likely to hear\nfrom any of our leading scientists (no matter how many lectures they may\ngive on the coming of age of the \u201cOrigin of Species\u201d) except Professor\nMivart. A book pointing the difference between teleological and\nnon-teleological views of evolution seemed likely to be useful, and would\nafford me the opportunity I wanted for giving a _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of the views of\neach one of the three chief founders of the theory, and of contrasting\nthem with those of Mr. Charles Darwin, as well as for calling attention\nto Professor Hering\u2019s lecture. I accordingly wrote \u201cEvolution, Old and\nNew,\u201d which was prominently announced in the leading literary periodicals\nat the end of February, or on the very first days of March 1879, {35b} as\n\u201ca comparison of the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck,\nwith that of Mr. Charles Darwin, with copious extracts from the works of\nthe three first-named writers.\u201d In this book I was hardly able to\nconceal the fact that, in spite of the obligations under which we must\nalways remain to Mr. Darwin, I had lost my respect for him and for his\nwork.\n\nI should point out that this announcement, coupled with what I had\nwritten in \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d would enable Mr. Darwin and his friends to\nform a pretty shrewd guess as to what I was likely to say, and to quote\nfrom Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my forthcoming book. The announcement,\nindeed, would tell almost as much as the book itself to those who knew\nthe works of Erasmus Darwin.\n\nAs may be supposed, \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d met with a very\nunfavourable reception at the hands of many of its reviewers. The\n_Saturday Review_ was furious. \u201cWhen a writer,\u201d it exclaimed, \u201cwho has\nnot given as many weeks to the subject as Mr. Darwin has given years, is\nnot content to air his own crude though clever fallacies, but assumes to\ncriticise Mr. Darwin with the superciliousness of a young schoolmaster\nlooking over a boy\u2019s theme, it is difficult not to take him more\nseriously than he deserves or perhaps desires. One would think that Mr.\nButler was the travelled and laborious observer of Nature, and Mr. Darwin\nthe pert speculator who takes all his facts at secondhand.\u201d {36}\n\nThe lady or gentleman who writes in such a strain as this should not be\ntoo hard upon others whom she or he may consider to write like\nschoolmasters. It is true I have travelled\u2014not much, but still as much\nas many others, and have endeavoured to keep my eyes open to the facts\nbefore me; but I cannot think that I made any reference to my travels in\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New.\u201d I did not quite see what that had to do with\nthe matter. A man may get to know a good deal without ever going beyond\nthe four-mile radius from Charing Cross. Much less did I imply that Mr.\nDarwin was pert: pert is one of the last words that can be applied to Mr.\nDarwin. Nor, again, had I blamed him for taking his facts at secondhand;\nno one is to be blamed for this, provided he takes well-established facts\nand acknowledges his sources. Mr. Darwin has generally gone to good\nsources. The ground of complaint against him is that he muddied the\nwater after he had drawn it, and tacitly claimed to be the rightful owner\nof the spring, on the score of the damage he had effected.\n\nNotwithstanding, however, the generally hostile, or more or less\ncontemptuous, reception which \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d met with, there\nwere some reviews\u2014as, for example, those in the _Field_, {37a} the _Daily\nChronicle_, {37b} the _Athen\u00e6um_, {37c} the _Journal of Science_, {37d}\nthe _British Journal of Hom\u00e6opathy_, {37e} the _Daily News_, {37f} the\n_Popular Science Review_ {37g}\u2014which were all I could expect or wish.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV\n\n\nThe manner in which Mr. Darwin met \u201cEvolution, Old and New.\u201d\n\nBY far the most important notice of \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d was that\ntaken by Mr. Darwin himself; for I can hardly be mistaken in believing\nthat Dr. Krause\u2019s article would have been allowed to repose unaltered in\nthe pages of the well-known German scientific journal, _Kosmos_, unless\nsomething had happened to make Mr. Darwin feel that his reticence\nconcerning his grandfather must now be ended.\n\nMr. Darwin, indeed, gives me the impression of wishing me to understand\nthat this is not the case. At the beginning of this year he wrote to me,\nin a letter which I will presently give in full, that he had obtained Dr.\nKrause\u2019s consent for a translation, and had arranged with Mr. Dallas,\nbefore my book was \u201cannounced.\u201d \u201cI remember this,\u201d he continues,\n\u201cbecause Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of the advertisement.\u201d But Mr.\nDarwin is not a clear writer, and it is impossible to say whether he is\nreferring to the announcement of \u201cEvolution, Old and New\u201d\u2014in which case\nhe means that the arrangements for the translation of Dr. Krause\u2019s\narticle were made before the end of February 1879, and before any public\nintimation could have reached him as to the substance of the book on\nwhich I was then engaged\u2014or to the advertisements of its being now\npublished, which appeared at the beginning of May; in which case, as I\nhave said above, Mr. Darwin and his friends had for some time had full\nopportunity of knowing what I was about. I believe, however, Mr. Darwin\nto intend that he remembered the arrangements having been made before the\nbeginning of May\u2014his use of the word \u201cannounced,\u201d instead of\n\u201cadvertised,\u201d being an accident; but let this pass.\n\nSome time after Mr. Darwin\u2019s work appeared in November 1879, I got it,\nand looking at the last page of the book, I read as follows:\u2014\n\n \u201cThey\u201d (the elder Darwin and Lamarck) \u201cexplain the adaptation to\n purpose of organisms by an obscure impulse or sense of what is\n purpose-like; yet even with regard to man we are in the habit of\n saying, that one can never know what so-and-so is good for. The\n purpose-like is that which approves itself, and not always that which\n is struggled for by obscure impulses and desires. Just in the same\n way the beautiful is what pleases.\u201d\n\nI had a sort of feeling as though the writer of the above might have had\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d in his mind, but went on to the next sentence,\nwhich ran\u2014\n\n \u201cErasmus Darwin\u2019s system was in itself a most significant first step\n in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but\n to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been\n seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental\n anachronism which no one can envy.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s me,\u201d said I to myself promptly. I noticed also the position in\nwhich the sentence stood, which made it both one of the first that would\nbe likely to catch a reader\u2019s eye, and the last he would carry away with\nhim. I therefore expected to find an open reply to some parts of\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d and turned to Mr. Darwin\u2019s preface.\n\nTo my surprise, I there found that what I had been reading could not by\nany possibility refer to me, for the preface ran as follows:\u2014\n\n \u201cIn the February number of a well-known German scientific journal,\n _Kosmos_, {39} Dr. Ernest Krause published a sketch of the \u2018Life of\n Erasmus Darwin,\u2019 the author of the \u2018Zoonomia,\u2019 \u2018Botanic Garden,\u2019 and\n other works. This article bears the title of a \u2018Contribution to the\n History of the Descent Theory\u2019; and Dr. Krause has kindly allowed my\n brother Erasmus and myself to have a translation made of it for\n publication in this country.\u201d\n\nThen came a note as follows:\u2014\n\n \u201cMr. Dallas has undertaken the translation, and his scientific\n reputation, together with his knowledge of German, is a guarantee for\n its accuracy.\u201d\n\nI ought to have suspected inaccuracy where I found so much consciousness\nof accuracy, but I did not. However this may be, Mr. Darwin pins himself\ndown with every circumstance of preciseness to giving Dr. Krause\u2019s\narticle as it appeared in _Kosmos_,\u2014the whole article, and nothing but\nthe article. No one could know this better than Mr. Darwin.\n\nOn the second page of Mr. Darwin\u2019s preface there is a small-type note\nsaying that my work, \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d had appeared since the\npublication of Dr. Krause\u2019s article. Mr. Darwin thus distinctly\nprecludes his readers from supposing that any passage they might meet\nwith could have been written in reference to, or by the light of, my\nbook. If anything appeared condemnatory of that book, it was an\nundesigned coincidence, and would show how little worthy of consideration\nI must be when my opinions were refuted in advance by one who could have\nno bias in regard to them.\n\nKnowing that if the article I was about to read appeared in February, it\nmust have been published before my book, which was not out till three\nmonths later, I saw nothing in Mr. Darwin\u2019s preface to complain of, and\nfelt that this was only another instance of my absurd vanity having led\nme to rush to conclusions without sufficient grounds,\u2014as if it was\nlikely, indeed, that Mr. Darwin should think what I had said of\nsufficient importance to be affected by it. It was plain that some one\nbesides myself, of whom I as yet knew nothing, had been writing about the\nelder Darwin, and had taken much the same line concerning him that I had\ndone. It was for the benefit of this person, then, that Dr. Krause\u2019s\nparagraph was intended. I returned to a becoming sense of my own\ninsignificance, and began to read what I supposed to be an accurate\ntranslation of Dr. Krause\u2019s article as it originally appeared, before\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d was published.\n\nOn pp. 3 and 4 of Dr. Krause\u2019s part of Mr. Darwin\u2019s book (pp. 133 and 134\nof the book itself), I detected a sub-apologetic tone which a little\nsurprised me, and a notice of the fact that Coleridge when writing on\nStillingfleet had used the word \u201cDarwinising.\u201d Mr. R. Garnett had called\nmy attention to this, and I had mentioned it in \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d\nbut the paragraph only struck me as being a little odd.\n\nWhen I got a few pages farther on (p. 147 of Mr. Darwin\u2019s book), I found\na long quotation from Buffon about rudimentary organs, which I had quoted\nin \u201cEvolution, Old and New.\u201d I observed that Dr. Krause used the same\nedition of Buffon that I did, and began his quotation two lines from the\nbeginning of Buffon\u2019s paragraph, exactly as I had done; also that he had\ntaken his nominative from the omitted part of the sentence across a full\nstop, as I had myself taken it. A little lower I found a line of\nBuffon\u2019s omitted which I had given, but I found that at that place I had\ninadvertently left two pair of inverted commas which ought to have come\nout, {41} having intended to end my quotation, but changed my mind and\ncontinued it without erasing the commas. It seemed to me that these\ncommas had bothered Dr. Krause, and made him think it safer to leave\nsomething out, for the line he omits is a very good one. I noticed that\nhe translated \u201cMais comme nous voulons toujours tout rapporter \u00e0 un\ncertain but,\u201d \u201cBut we, always wishing to refer,\u201d &c., while I had it,\n\u201cBut we, ever on the look-out to refer,\u201d &c.; and \u201cNous ne faisons pas\nattention que nous alt\u00e9rons la philosophie,\u201d \u201cWe fail to see that thus we\ndeprive philosophy of her true character,\u201d whereas I had \u201cWe fail to see\nthat we thus rob philosophy of her true character.\u201d This last was too\nmuch; and though it might turn out that Dr. Krause had quoted this\npassage before I had done so, had used the same edition as I had, had\nbegun two lines from the beginning of a paragraph as I had done, and that\nthe later resemblances were merely due to Mr. Dallas having compared Dr.\nKrause\u2019s German translation of Buffon with my English, and very properly\nmade use of it when he thought fit, it looked _prim\u00e2 facie_ more as\nthough my quotation had been copied in English as it stood, and then\naltered, but not quite altered enough. This, in the face of the preface,\nwas incredible; but so many points had such an unpleasant aspect, that I\nthought it better to send for _Kosmos_ and see what I could make out.\n\nAt this time I knew not one word of German. On the same day, therefore,\nthat I sent for _Kosmos_ I began acquire that language, and in the\nfortnight before _Kosmos_ came had got far enough forward for all\npractical purposes\u2014that is to say, with the help of a translation and a\ndictionary, I could see whether or no a German passage was the same as\nwhat purported to be its translation.\n\nWhen _Kosmos_ came I turned to the end of the article to see how the\nsentence about mental anachronism and weakness of thought looked in\nGerman. I found nothing of the kind, the original article ended with\nsome innocent rhyming doggerel about somebody going on and exploring\nsomething with eagle eye; but ten lines from the end I found a sentence\nwhich corresponded with one six pages from the end of the English\ntranslation. After this there could be little doubt that the whole of\nthese last six English pages were spurious matter. What little doubt\nremained was afterwards removed by my finding that they had no place in\nany part of the genuine article. I looked for the passage about\nColeridge\u2019s using the word \u201cDarwinising\u201d; it was not to be found in the\nGerman. I looked for the piece I had quoted from Buffon about\nrudimentary organs; but there was nothing of it, nor indeed any reference\nto Buffon. It was plain, therefore, that the article which Mr. Darwin\nhad given was not the one he professed to be giving. I read Mr. Darwin\u2019s\npreface over again to see whether he left himself any loophole. There\nwas not a chink or cranny through which escape was possible. The only\ninference that could be drawn was either that some one had imposed upon\nMr. Darwin, or that Mr. Darwin, although it was not possible to suppose\nhim ignorant of the interpolations that had been made, nor of the obvious\npurpose of the concluding sentence, had nevertheless palmed off an\narticle which had been added to and made to attack \u201cEvolution, Old and\nNew,\u201d as though it were the original article which appeared before that\nbook was written. I could not and would not believe that Mr. Darwin had\ncondescended to this. Nevertheless, I saw it was necessary to sift the\nwhole matter, and began to compare the German and the English articles\nparagraph by paragraph.\n\nOn the first page I found a passage omitted from the English, which with\ngreat labour I managed to get through, and can now translate as follows:\u2014\n\n \u201cAlexander Von Humboldt used to take pleasure in recounting how\n powerfully Forster\u2019s pictures of the South Sea Islands and St.\n Pierre\u2019s illustrations of Nature had provoked his ardour for travel\n and influenced his career as a scientific investigator. How much\n more impressively must the works of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, with their\n reiterated foreshadowing of a more lofty interpretation of Nature,\n have affected his grandson, who in his youth assuredly approached\n them with the devotion due to the works of a renowned poet.\u201d {43}\n\nI then came upon a passage common to both German and English, which in\nits turn was followed in the English by the sub-apologetic paragraph\nwhich I had been struck with on first reading, and which was not in the\nGerman, its place being taken by a much longer passage which had no place\nin the English. A little farther on I was amused at coming upon the\nfollowing, and at finding it wholly transformed in the supposed accurate\ntranslation:\u2014\n\n \u201cHow must this early and penetrating explanation of rudimentary\n organs have affected the grandson when he read the poem of his\n ancestor! But indeed the biological remarks of this accurate\n observer in regard to certain definite natural objects must have\n produced a still deeper impression upon him, pointing, as they do, to\n questions which hay attained so great a prominence at the present\n day; such as, Why is any creature anywhere such as we actually see it\n and nothing else? Why has such and such a plant poisonous juices?\n Why has such and such another thorns? Why have birds and fishes\n light-coloured breasts and dark backs, and, Why does every creature\n resemble the one from which it sprung?\u201d {44a}\n\nI will not weary the reader with further details as to the omissions from\nand additions to the German text. Let it suffice that the so-called\ntranslation begins on p. 131 and ends on p. 216 of Mr. Darwin\u2019s book.\nThere is new matter on each one of the pp. 132\u2013139, while almost the\nwhole of pp. 147\u2013152 inclusive, and the whole of pp. 211\u2013216 inclusive,\nare spurious\u2014that is to say, not what the purport to be, not translations\nfrom an article that was published in February 1879, and before\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d but interpolations not published till six\nmonths after that book.\n\nBearing in mind the contents of two of the added passages and the tenor\nof the concluding sentence quoted above, {44b} I could no longer doubt\nthat the article had been altered by the light of and with a view to\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New.\u201d\n\nThe steps are perfectly clear. First Dr. Krause published his article in\n_Kosmos_ and my book was announced (its purport being thus made obvious),\nboth in the month of February 1879. Soon afterwards arrangements were\nmade for a translation of Dr. Krause\u2019s essay, and were completed by the\nend of April. Then my book came out, and in some way or other Dr. Krause\nhappened to get hold of it. He helped himself\u2014not to much, but to\nenough; made what other additions to and omissions from his article he\nthought would best meet \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d and then fell to\ncondemning that book in a finale that was meant to be crushing. Nothing\nwas said about the revision which Dr. Krause\u2019s work had undergone, but it\nwas expressly and particularly declared in the preface that the English\ntranslation was an accurate version of what appeared in the February\nnumber of _Kosmos_, and no less expressly and particularly stated that my\nbook was published subsequently to this. Both these statements are\nuntrue; they are in Mr. Darwin\u2019s favour and prejudicial to myself.\n\nAll this was done with that well-known \u201chappy simplicity\u201d of which the\n_Pall Mall Gazette_, December 12, 1879, declared that Mr. Darwin was \u201ca\nmaster.\u201d The final sentence, about the \u201cweakness of thought and mental\nanachronism which no one can envy,\u201d was especially successful. The\nreviewer in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ just quoted from gave it in full, and\nsaid that it was thoroughly justified. He then mused forth a general\ngnome that the \u201cconfidence of writers who deal in semi-scientific\nparadoxes is commonly in inverse proportion to their grasp of the\nsubject.\u201d Again my vanity suggested to me that I was the person for\nwhose benefit this gnome was intended. My vanity, indeed, was well fed\nby the whole transaction; for I saw that not only did Mr. Darwin, who\nshould be the best judge, think my work worth notice, but that he did not\nventure to meet it openly. As for Dr. Krause\u2019s concluding sentence, I\nthought that when a sentence had been antedated the less it contained\nabout anachronism the better.\n\nOnly one of the reviews that I saw of Mr. Darwin\u2019s \u201cLife of Erasmus\nDarwin\u201d showed any knowledge of the facts. The _Popular Science Review_\nfor January 1880, in flat contradiction to Mr. Darwin\u2019s preface, said\nthat only part of Dr. Krause\u2019s article was being given by Mr. Darwin.\nThis reviewer had plainly seen both _Kosmos_ and Mr. Darwin\u2019s book.\n\nIn the same number of the _Popular Science Review_, and immediately\nfollowing the review of Mr. Darwin\u2019s book, there is a review of\n\u201cEvolution, Old and New.\u201d The writer of this review quotes the passage\nabout mental anachronism as quoted by the reviewer in the _Pall Mall\nGazette_, and adds immediately: \u201cThis anachronism has been committed by\nMr. Samuel Butler in a . . . little volume now before us, and it is\ndoubtless to this, _which appeared while his own work was in progress_\n[italics mine] that Dr. Krause alludes in the foregoing passage.\u201d\nConsidering that the editor of the _Popular Science Review_ and the\ntranslator of Dr. Krause\u2019s article for Mr. Darwin are one and the same\nperson, it is likely the _Popular Science Review_ is well informed in\nsaying that my book appeared before Dr. Krause\u2019s article had been\ntransformed into its present shape, and that my book was intended by the\npassage in question.\n\nUnable to see any way of escaping from a conclusion which I could not\nwillingly adopt, I thought it best to write to Mr. Darwin, stating the\nfacts as they appeared to myself, and asking an explanation, which I\nwould have gladly strained a good many points to have accepted. It is\nbetter, perhaps, that I should give my letter and Darwin\u2019s answer in\nfull. My letter ran thus:\u2014\n\n _January_ 2, 1880.\n\n CHARLES DARWIN, ESQ., F.R.S., &c.\n\n DEAR SIR,\u2014Will you kindly refer me to the edition of _Kosmos_ which\n contains the text of Dr. Krause\u2019s article on Dr. Erasmus Darwin, as\n translated by Mr. W. S. Dallas?\n\n I have before me the last February number of _Kosmos_, which appears\n by your preface to be the one from which Mr. Dallas has translated,\n but his translation contains long and important passages which are\n not in the February number of _Kosmos_, while many passages in the\n original article are omitted in the translation.\n\n Among the passages introduced are the last six pages of the English\n article, which seem to condemn by anticipation the position I have\n taken as regards Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my book, \u201cEvolution, Old and\n New,\u201d and which I believe I was the first to take. The concluding,\n and therefore, perhaps, most prominent sentence of the translation\n you have given to the public stands thus:\u2014\n\n \u201cErasmus Darwin\u2019s system was in itself a most significant first step\n in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but\n to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been\n seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental\n anachronism which no man can envy.\u201d\n\n The _Kosmos_ which has been sent me from Germany contains no such\n passage.\n\n As you have stated in your preface that my book, \u201cEvolution, Old and\n New,\u201d appeared subsequently to Dr. Krause\u2019s article, and as no\n intimation is given that the article has been altered and added to\n since its original appearance, while the accuracy of the translation\n as though from the February number of _Kosmos_ is, as you expressly\n say, guaranteed by Mr. Dallas\u2019s \u201cscientific reputation together with\n his knowledge of German,\u201d your readers will naturally suppose that\n all they read in the translation appeared in February last, and\n therefore before \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d was written, and therefore\n independently of, and necessarily without reference to, that book.\n\n I do not doubt that this was actually the case, but have failed to\n obtain the edition which contains the passage above referred to, and\n several others which appear in the translation.\n\n I have a personal interest in this matter, and venture, therefore, to\n ask for the explanation which I do not doubt you will readily give\n me.\u2014Yours faithfully, S. BUTLER.\n\nThe following is Mr. Darwin\u2019s answer:\u2014\n\n _January_ 3, 1880.\n\n MY DEAR SIR,\u2014Dr. Krause, soon after the appearance of his article in\n _Kosmos_ told me that he intended to publish it separately and to\n alter it considerably, and the altered MS. was sent to Mr. Dallas for\n translation. This is so common a practice that it never occurred to\n me to state that the article had been modified; but now I much regret\n that I did not do so. The original will soon appear in German, and I\n believe will be a much larger book than the English one; for, with\n Dr. Krause\u2019s consent, many long extracts from Miss Seward were\n omitted (as well as much other matter), from being in my opinion\n superfluous for the English reader. I believe that the omitted parts\n will appear as notes in the German edition. Should there be a\n reprint of the English Life I will state that the original as it\n appeared in _Kosmos_ was modified by Dr. Krause before it was\n translated. I may add that I had obtained Dr. Krause\u2019s consent for a\n translation, and had arranged with Mr. Dallas before your book was\n announced. I remember this because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of\n the advertisement.\u2014I remain, yours faithfully, C. DARWIN.\n\nThis was not a letter I could accept. If Mr. Darwin had said that by\nsome inadvertence, which he was unable to excuse or account for, a\nblunder had been made which he would at once correct so far as was in his\npower by a letter to the _Times_ or the _Athen\u00e6um_, and that a notice of\nthe erratum should be printed on a flyleaf and pasted into all unsold\ncopies of the \u201cLife of Erasmus Darwin,\u201d there would have been no more\nheard about the matter from me; but when Mr. Darwin maintained that it\nwas a common practice to take advantage of an opportunity of revising a\nwork to interpolate a covert attack upon an opponent, and at the same\ntime to misdate the interpolated matter by expressly stating that it\nappeared months sooner than it actually did, and prior to the work which\nit attacked; when he maintained that what was being done was \u201cso common a\npractice that it never occurred,\u201d to him\u2014the writer of some twenty\nvolumes\u2014to do what all literary men must know to be inexorably requisite,\nI thought this was going far beyond what was permissible in honourable\nwarfare, and that it was time, in the interests of literary and\nscientific morality, even more than in my own, to appeal to public\nopinion. I was particularly struck with the use of the words \u201cit never\noccurred to me,\u201d and felt how completely of a piece it was with the\nopening paragraph of the \u201cOrigin of Species.\u201d It was not merely that it\ndid not occur to Mr. Darwin to state that the article had been modified\nsince it was written\u2014this would have been bad enough under the\ncircumstances but that it did occur to him to go out of his way to say\nwhat was not true. There was no necessity for him to have said anything\nabout my book. It appeared, moreover, inadequate to tell me that if a\nreprint of the English Life was wanted (which might or might not be the\ncase, and if it was not the case, why, a shrug of the shoulders, and I\nmust make the best of it), Mr. Darwin might perhaps silently omit his\nnote about my book, as he omitted his misrepresentation of the author of\nthe \u201cVestiges of Creation,\u201d and put the words \u201crevised and corrected by\nthe author\u201d on his title-page.\n\nNo matter how high a writer may stand, nor what services he may have\nunquestionably rendered, it cannot be for the general well-being that he\nshould be allowed to set aside the fundamental principles of\nstraightforwardness and fair play. When I thought of Buffon, of Dr.\nErasmus Darwin, of Lamarck and even of the author of the \u201cVestiges of\nCreation,\u201d to all of whom Mr. Darwin had dealt the same measure which he\nwas now dealing to myself; when I thought of these great men, now dumb,\nwho had borne the burden and heat of the day, and whose laurels had been\nfilched from them; of the manner, too, in which Mr. Darwin had been\nabetted by those who should have been the first to detect the fallacy\nwhich had misled him; of the hotbed of intrigue which science has now\nbecome; of the disrepute into which we English must fall as a nation if\nsuch practices as Mr. Darwin had attempted in this case were to be\ntolerated;\u2014when I thought of all this, I felt that though prayers for the\nrepose of dead men\u2019s souls might be unavailing, yet a defence of their\nwork and memory, no matter against what odds, might avail the living, and\nresolved that I would do my utmost to make my countrymen aware of the\nspirit now ruling among those whom they delight to honour.\n\nAt first I thought I ought to continue the correspondence privately with\nMr. Darwin, and explain to him that his letter was insufficient, but on\nreflection I felt that little good was likely to come of a second letter,\nif what I had already written was not enough. I therefore wrote to the\n_Athen\u00e6um_ and gave a condensed account of the facts contained in the\nlast ten or a dozen pages. My letter appeared January 31, 1880. {50}\n\nThe accusation was a very grave one; it was made in a very public place.\nI gave my name; I adduced the strongest _prim\u00e2 facie_ grounds for the\nacceptance of my statements; but there was no rejoinder, and for the best\nof all reasons\u2014that no rejoinder was possible. Besides, what is the good\nof having a reputation for candour if one may not stand upon it at a\npinch? I never yet knew a person with an especial reputation for candour\nwithout finding sooner or later that he had developed it as animals\ndevelop their organs, through \u201csense of need.\u201d Not only did Mr. Darwin\nremain perfectly quiet, but all reviewers and _litt\u00e9rateurs_ remained\nperfectly quiet also. It seemed\u2014though I do not for a moment believe\nthat this is so\u2014as if public opinion rather approved of what Mr. Darwin\nhad done, and of his silence than otherwise. I saw the \u201cLife of Erasmus\nDarwin\u201d more frequently and more prominently advertised now than I had\nseen it hitherto\u2014perhaps in the hope of selling off the adulterated\ncopies, and being able to reprint the work with a corrected title page.\nPresently I saw Professor Huxley hastening to the rescue with his lecture\non the coming of age of the \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d and by May it was easy\nfor Professor Ray Lankester to imply that Mr. Darwin was the greatest of\nliving men. I have since noticed two or three other controversies raging\nin the _Athen\u00e6um_ and _Times_; in each of these cases I saw it assumed\nthat the defeated party, when proved to have publicly misrepresented his\nadversary, should do his best to correct in public the injury which he\nhad publicly inflicted, but I noticed that in none of them had the beaten\nside any especial reputation for candour. This probably made all the\ndifference. But however this may be, Mr. Darwin left me in possession of\nthe field, in the hope, doubtless, that the matter would blow over\u2014which\nit apparently soon did. Whether it has done so in reality or no, is a\nmatter which remains to be seen. My own belief is that people paid no\nattention to what I said, as believing it simply incredible, and that\nwhen they come to know that it is true, they will think as I do\nconcerning it.\n\nFrom ladies and gentlemen of science I admit that I have no expectations.\nThere is no conduct so dishonourable that people will not deny it or\nexplain it away, if it has been committed by one whom they recognise as\nof their own persuasion. It must be remembered that facts cannot be\nrespected by the scientist in the same way as by other people. It is his\nbusiness to familiarise himself with facts, and, as we all know, the path\nfrom familiarity to contempt is an easy one.\n\nHere, then, I take leave of this matter for the present. If it appears\nthat I have used language such as is rarely seen in controversy, let the\nreader remember that the occasion is, so far as I know, unparalleled for\nthe cynicism and audacity with which the wrong complained of was\ncommitted and persisted in. I trust, however, that, though not\nindifferent to this, my indignation has been mainly roused, as when I\nwrote \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d before Mr. Darwin had given me personal\nground of complaint against him, by the wrongs he has inflicted on dead\nmen, on whose behalf I now fight, as I trust that some one\u2014whom I thank\nby anticipation\u2014may one day fight on mine.\n\n\n\n\nChapter V\n\n\nIntroduction to Professor Hering\u2019s lecture.\n\nAFTER I had finished \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d I wrote some articles for\nthe _Examiner_, {52} in which I carried out the idea put forward in \u201cLife\nand Habit,\u201d that we are one person with our ancestors. It follows from\nthis, that all living animals and vegetables, being\u2014as appears likely if\nthe theory of evolution is accepted\u2014descended from a common ancestor, are\nin reality one person, and unite to form a body corporate, of whose\nexistence, however, they are unconscious. There is an obvious analogy\nbetween this and the manner in which the component cells of our bodies\nunite to form our single individuality, of which it is not likely they\nhave a conception, and with which they have probably only the same\npartial and imperfect sympathy as we, the body corporate, have with them.\nIn the articles above alluded to I separated the organic from the\ninorganic, and when I came to rewrite them, I found that this could not\nbe done, and that I must reconstruct what I had written. I was at work\non this\u2014to which I hope to return shortly\u2014when Dr. Krause\u2019s\u2019 \u201cErasmus\nDarwin,\u201d with its preliminary notice by Mr. Charles Darwin, came out, and\nhaving been compelled, as I have shown above, by Dr. Krause\u2019s work to\nlook a little into the German language, the opportunity seemed favourable\nfor going on with it and becoming acquainted with Professor Hering\u2019s\nlecture. I therefore began to translate his lecture at once, with the\nkind assistance of friends whose patience seemed inexhaustible, and found\nmyself well rewarded for my trouble.\n\nProfessor Hering and I, to use a metaphor of his own, are as men who have\nobserved the action of living beings upon the stage of the world, he from\nthe point of view at once of a spectator and of one who has free access\nto much of what goes on behind the scenes, I from that of a spectator\nonly, with none but the vaguest notion of the actual manner in which the\nstage machinery is worked. If two men so placed, after years of\nreflection, arrive independently of one another at an identical\nconclusion as regards the manner in which this machinery must have been\ninvented and perfected, it is natural that each should take a deep\ninterest in the arguments of the other, and be anxious to put them\nforward with the utmost possible prominence. It seems to me that the\ntheory which Professor Hering and I are supporting in common, is one the\nimportance of which is hardly inferior to that of the theory of evolution\nitself\u2014for it puts the backbone, as it were, into the theory of\nevolution. I shall therefore make no apology for laying my translation\nof Professor Hering\u2019s work before my reader.\n\nConcerning the identity of the main idea put forward in \u201cLife and Habit\u201d\nwith that of Professor Hering\u2019s lecture, there can hardly, I think, be\ntwo opinions. We both of us maintain that we grow our limbs as we do,\nand possess the instincts we possess, because we remember having grown\nour limbs in this way, and having had these instincts in past generations\nwhen we were in the persons of our forefathers\u2014each individual life\nadding a small (but so small, in any one lifetime, as to be hardly\nappreciable) amount of new experience to the general store of memory;\nthat we have thus got into certain habits which we can now rarely break;\nand that we do much of what we do unconsciously on the same principle as\nthat (whatever it is) on which we do all other habitual actions, with the\ngreater ease and unconsciousness the more often we repeat them. Not only\nis the main idea the same, but I was surprised to find how often\nProfessor Hering and I had taken the same illustrations with which to\npoint our meaning.\n\nNevertheless, we have each of us left undealt with some points which the\nother has treated of. Professor Hering, for example, goes into the\nquestion of what memory is, and this I did not venture to do. I confined\nmyself to saying that whatever memory was, heredity was also. Professor\nHering adds that memory is due to vibrations of the molecules of the\nnerve fibres, which under certain circumstances recur, and bring about a\ncorresponding recurrence of visible action.\n\nThis approaches closely to the theory concerning the physics of memory\nwhich has been most generally adopted since the time of Bonnet, who wrote\nas follows:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe soul never has a new sensation but by the inter position of the\n senses. This sensation has been originally attached to the motion of\n certain fibres. Its reproduction or recollection by the senses will\n then be likewise connected with these same fibres.\u201d . . . {54a}\n\nAnd again:\u2014\n\n \u201cIt appeared to me that since this memory is connected with the body,\n it must depend upon some change which must happen to the primitive\n state of the sensible fibres by the action of objects. I have,\n therefore, admitted as probable that the state of the fibres on which\n an object has acted is not precisely the same after this action as it\n was before I have conjectured that the sensible fibres experience\n more or less durable modifications, which constitute the physics of\n memory and recollection.\u201d {54b}\n\nProfessor Hering comes near to endorsing this view, and uses it for the\npurpose of explaining personal identity. This, at least, is what he does\nin fact, though perhaps hardly in words. I did not say more upon the\nessence of personality than that it was inseparable from the idea that\nthe various phases of our existence should have flowed one out of the\nother, \u201cin what we see as a continuous, though it may be at times a very\ntroubled, stream\u201d {55} but I maintained that the identity between two\nsuccessive generations was of essentially the same kind as that existing\nbetween an infant and an octogenarian. I thus left personal identity\nunexplained, though insisting that it was the key to two apparently\ndistinct sets of phenomena, the one of which had been hitherto considered\nincompatible with our ideas concerning it. Professor Hering insists on\nthis too, but he gives us farther insight into what personal identity is,\nand explains how it is that the phenomena of heredity are phenomena also\nof personal identity.\n\nHe implies, though in the short space at his command he has hardly said\nso in express terms, that personal identity as we commonly think of\nit\u2014that is to say, as confined to the single life of the\nindividual\u2014consists in the uninterruptedness of a sufficient number of\nvibrations, which have been communicated from molecule to molecule of the\nnerve fibres, and which go on communicating each one of them its own\npeculiar characteristic elements to the new matter which we introduce\ninto the body by way of nutrition. These vibrations may be so gentle as\nto be imperceptible for years together; but they are there, and may\nbecome perceived if they receive accession through the running into them\nof a wave going the same way as themselves, which wave has been set up in\nthe ether by exterior objects and has been communicated to the organs of\nsense.\n\nAs these pages are on the point of leaving my hands, I see the following\nremarkable passage in _Mind_ for the current month, and introduce it\nparenthetically here:\u2014\n\n \u201cI followed the sluggish current of hyaline material issuing from\n globules of most primitive living substance. Persistently it\n followed its way into space, conquering, at first, the manifold\n resistances opposed to it by its watery medium. Gradually, however,\n its energies became exhausted, till at last, completely overwhelmed,\n it stopped, an immovable projection stagnated to death-like rigidity.\n Thus for hours, perhaps, it remained stationary, one of many such\n rays of some of the many kinds of protoplasmic stars. By degrees,\n then, or perhaps quite suddenly, _help would come to it from foreign\n but congruous sources_. _It would seem to combine with outside\n complemental matter_ drifted to it at random. Slowly it would regain\n thereby its vital mobility. Shrinking at first, but gradually\n completely restored and reincorporated into the onward tide of life,\n it was ready to take part again in the progressive flow of a new\n ray.\u201d {56}\n\nTo return to the end of the last paragraph but one. If this is so\u2014but I\nshould warn the reader that Professor Hering is not responsible for this\nsuggestion, though it seems to follow so naturally from what he has said\nthat I imagine he intended the inference to be drawn,\u2014if this is so,\nassimilation is nothing else than the communication of its own rhythms\nfrom the assimilating to the assimilated substance, to the effacement of\nthe vibrations or rhythms heretofore existing in this last; and\nsuitability for food will depend upon whether the rhythms of the\nsubstance eaten are such as to flow harmoniously into and chime in with\nthose of the body which has eaten it, or whether they will refuse to act\nin concert with the new rhythms with which they have become associated,\nand will persist obstinately in pursuing their own course. In this case\nthey will either be turned out of the body at once, or will disconcert\nits arrangements, with perhaps fatal consequences. This comes round to\nthe conclusion I arrived at in \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d that assimilation was\nnothing but the imbuing of one thing with the memories of another. (See\n\u201cLife and Habit,\u201d pp. 136, 137, 140, &c.)\n\nIt will be noted that, as I resolved the phenomena of heredity into\nphenomena of personal identity, and left the matter there, so Professor\nHering resolves the phenomena of personal identity into the phenomena of\na living mechanism whose equilibrium is disturbed by vibrations of a\ncertain character\u2014and leaves it there. We now want to understand more\nabout the vibrations.\n\nBut if, according to Professor Hering, the personal identity of the\nsingle life consists in the uninterruptedness of vibrations, so also do\nthe phenomena of heredity. For not only may vibrations of a certain\nviolence or character be persistent unperceived for many years in a\nliving body, and communicate themselves to the matter it has assimilated,\nbut they may, and will, under certain circumstances, extend to the\nparticle which is about to leave the parent body as the germ of its\nfuture offspring. In this minute piece of matter there must, if\nProfessor Hering is right, be an infinity of rhythmic undulations\nincessantly vibrating with more or less activity, and ready to be set in\nmore active agitation at a moment\u2019s warning, under due accession of\nvibration from exterior objects. On the occurrence of such stimulus,\nthat is to say, when a vibration of a suitable rhythm from without\nconcurs with one within the body so as to augment it, the agitation may\ngather such strength that the touch, as it were, is given to a house of\ncards, and the whole comes toppling over. This toppling over is what we\ncall action; and when it is the result of the disturbance of certain\nusual arrangements in certain usual ways, we call it the habitual\ndevelopment and instinctive characteristics of the race. In either case,\nthen, whether we consider the continued identity of the individual in\nwhat we call his single life, or those features in his offspring which we\nrefer to heredity, the same explanation of the phenomena is applicable.\nIt follows from this as a matter of course, that the continuation of life\nor personal identity in the individual and the race are fundamentally of\nthe same kind, or, in other words, that there is a veritable prolongation\nof identity or oneness of personality between parents and offspring.\nProfessor Hering reaches his conclusion by physical methods, while I\nreached mine, as I am told, by metaphysical. I never yet could\nunderstand what \u201cmetaphysics\u201d and \u201cmetaphysical\u201d mean; but I should have\nsaid I reached it by the exercise of a little common sense while\nregarding certain facts which are open to every one. There is, however,\nso far as I can see, no difference in the conclusion come to.\n\nThe view which connects memory with vibrations may tend to throw light\nupon that difficult question, the manner in which neuter bees acquire\nstructures and instincts, not one of which was possessed by any of their\ndirect ancestors. Those who have read \u201cLife and Habit\u201d may remember, I\nsuggested that the food prepared in the stomachs of the nurse-bees, with\nwhich the neuter working bees are fed, might thus acquire a quasi-seminal\ncharacter, and be made a means of communicating the instincts and\nstructures in question. {58} If assimilation be regarded as the\nreceiving by one substance of the rhythms or undulations from another,\nthe explanation just referred to receives an accession of probability.\n\nIf it is objected that Professor Hering\u2019s theory as to continuity of\nvibrations being the key to memory and heredity involves the action of\nmore wheels within wheels than our imagination can come near to\ncomprehending, and also that it supposes this complexity of action as\ngoing on within a compass which no unaided eye can detect by reason of\nits littleness, so that we are carried into a fairy land with which sober\npeople should have nothing to do, it may be answered that the case of\nlight affords us an example of our being truly aware of a multitude of\nminute actions, the hundred million millionth part of which we should\nhave declared to be beyond our ken, could we not incontestably prove that\nwe notice and count them all with a very sufficient and creditable\naccuracy.\n\n\u201cWho would not,\u201d {59a} says Sir John Herschel, \u201cask for demonstration\nwhen told that a gnat\u2019s wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many hundred\ntimes in a second? or that there exist animated and regularly organised\nbeings many thousands of whose bodies laid close together would not\nextend to an inch? But what are these to the astonishing truths which\nmodern optical inquiries have disclosed, which teach us that every point\nof a medium through which a ray of light passes is affected with a\nsuccession of periodical movements, recurring regularly at equal\nintervals, no less than five hundred millions of millions of times in a\nsecond; that it is by such movements communicated to the nerves of our\neyes that we see; nay, more, that it is the _difference_ in the frequency\nof their recurrence which affects us with the sense of the diversity of\ncolour; that, for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our\neyes are affected four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of\ntimes; of yellowness, five hundred and forty-two millions of millions of\ntimes; and of violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions of\ntimes per second? {59b} Do not such things sound more like the ravings\nof madmen than the sober conclusions of people in their waking senses?\nThey are, nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most certainly\narrive who will only be at the pains of examining the chain of reasoning\nby which they have been obtained.\u201d\n\nA man counting as hard as he can repeat numbers one after another, and\nnever counting more than a hundred, so that he shall have no long words\nto repeat, may perhaps count ten thousand, or a hundred a hundred times\nover, in an hour. At this rate, counting night and day, and allowing no\ntime for rest or refreshment, he would count one million in four days and\nfour hours, or say four days only. To count a million a million times\nover, he would require four million days, or roughly ten thousand years;\nfor five hundred millions of millions, he must have the utterly\nunrealisable period of five million years. Yet he actually goes through\nthis stupendous piece of reckoning unconsciously hour after hour, day\nafter day, it may be for eighty years, _often in each second_ of\ndaylight; and how much more by artificial or subdued light I do not know.\nHe knows whether his eye is being struck five hundred millions of\nmillions of times, or only four hundred and eighty-two millions of\nmillions of times. He thus shows that he estimates or counts each set of\nvibrations, and registers them according to his results. If a man writes\nupon the back of a British Museum blotting-pad of the common _nonpareil_\npattern, on which there are some thousands of small spaces each differing\nin colour from that which is immediately next to it, his eye will,\nnevertheless, without an effort assign its true colour to each one of\nthese spaces. This implies that he is all the time counting and taking\ntally of the difference in the numbers of the vibrations from each one of\nthe small spaces in question. Yet the mind that is capable of such\nstupendous computations as these so long as it knows nothing about them,\nmakes no little fuss about the conscious adding together of such almost\ninconceivably minute numbers as, we will say, 2730169 and 5790135\u2014or, if\nthese be considered too large, as 27 and 19. Let the reader remember\nthat he cannot by any effort bring before his mind the units, not in\nones, _but in millions of millions_ of the processes which his visual\norgans are undergoing second after second from dawn till dark, and then\nlet him demur if he will to the possibility of the existence in a germ,\nof currents and undercurrents, and rhythms and counter rhythms, also by\nthe million of millions\u2014each one of which, on being overtaken by the\nrhythm from without that chimes in with and stimulates it, may be the\nbeginning of that unsettlement of equilibrium which results in the crash\nof action, unless it is timely counteracted.\n\nIf another objector maintains that the vibrations within the germ as\nabove supposed must be continually crossing and interfering with one\nanother in such a manner as to destroy the continuity of any one series,\nit may be replied that the vibrations of the light proceeding from the\nobjects that surround us traverse one another by the millions of millions\nevery second yet in no way interfere with one another. Nevertheless, it\nmust be admitted that the difficulties of the theory towards which I\nsuppose Professor Hering to incline are like those of all other theories\non the same subject\u2014almost inconceivably great.\n\nIn \u201cLife and Habit\u201d I did not touch upon these vibrations, knowing\nnothing about them. Here, then, is one important point of difference,\nnot between the conclusions arrived at, but between the aim and scope of\nthe work that Professor Hering and I severally attempted. Another\ndifference consists in the points at which we have left off. Professor\nHering, having established his main thesis, is content. I, on the other\nhand, went on to maintain that if vigour was due to memory, want of\nvigour was due to want of memory. Thus I was led to connect memory with\nthe phenomena of hybridism and of old age; to show that the sterility of\ncertain animals under domestication is only a phase of, and of a piece\nwith, the very common sterility of hybrids\u2014phenomena which at first sight\nhave no connection either with each other or with memory, but the\nconnection between which will never be lost sight of by those who have\nonce laid hold of it. I also pointed out how exactly the phenomena of\ndevelopment agreed with those of the abeyance and recurrence of memory,\nand the rationale of the fact that puberty in so many animals and plants\ncomes about the end of development. The principle underlying longevity\nfollows as a matter of course. I have no idea how far Professor Hering\nwould agree with me in the position I have taken in respect of these\nphenomena, but there is nothing in the above at variance with his\nlecture.\n\nAnother matter on which Professor Hering has not touched is the bearing\nof his theory on that view of evolution which is now commonly accepted.\nIt is plain he accepts evolution, but it does not appear that he sees how\nfatal his theory is to any view of evolution except a teleological\none\u2014the purpose residing within the animal and not without it. There is,\nhowever, nothing in his lecture to indicate that he does not see this.\n\nIt should be remembered that the question whether memory is due to the\npersistence within the body of certain vibrations, which have been\nalready set up within the bodies of its ancestors, is true or no, will\nnot affect the position I took up in \u201cLife and Habit.\u201d In that book I\nhave maintained nothing more than that whatever memory is heredity is\nalso. I am not committed to the vibration theory of memory, though\ninclined to accept it on a _prim\u00e2 facie_ view. All I am committed to is,\nthat if memory is due to persistence of vibrations, so is heredity; and\nif memory is not so due, then no more is heredity.\n\nFinally, I may say that Professor Hering\u2019s lecture, the passage quoted\nfrom Dr. Erasmus Darwin on p. 26 of this volume, and a few hints in the\nextracts from Mr. Patrick Mathew which I have quoted in \u201cEvolution, Old\nand New,\u201d are all that I yet know of in other writers as pointing to the\nconclusion that the phenomena of heredity are phenomena also of memory.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VI\n\n\nProfessor Ewald Hering \u201cOn Memory.\u201d\n\nI WILL now lay before the reader a translation of Professor Hering\u2019s own\nwords. I have had it carefully revised throughout by a gentleman whose\nnative language is German, but who has resided in England for many years\npast. The original lecture is entitled \u201cOn Memory as a Universal\nFunction of Organised Matter,\u201d and was delivered at the anniversary\nmeeting of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna, May 30, 1870. {63}\nIt is as follows:\u2014\n\n\u201cWhen the student of Nature quits the narrow workshop of his own\nparticular inquiry, and sets out upon an excursion into the vast kingdom\nof philosophical investigation, he does so, doubtless, in the hope of\nfinding the answer to that great riddle, to the solution of a small part\nof which he devotes his life. Those, however, whom he leaves behind him\nstill working at their own special branch of inquiry, regard his\ndeparture with secret misgivings on his behalf, while the born citizens\nof the kingdom of speculation among whom he would naturalise himself,\nreceive him with well-authorised distrust. He is likely, therefore, to\nlose ground with the first, while not gaining it with the second.\n\nThe subject to the consideration of which I would now solicit your\nattention does certainly appear likely to lure us on towards the\nflattering land of speculation, but bearing in mind what I have just\nsaid, I will beware of quitting the department of natural science to\nwhich I have devoted myself hitherto. I shall, however, endeavour to\nattain its highest point, so as to take a freer view of the surrounding\nterritory.\n\nIt will soon appear that I should fail in this purpose if my remarks were\nto confine themselves solely to physiology. I hope to show how far\npsychological investigations also afford not only permissible, but\nindispensable, aid to physiological inquiries.\n\nConsciousness is an accompaniment of that animal and human organisation\nand of that material mechanism which it is the province of physiology to\nexplore; and as long as the atoms of the brain follow their due course\naccording to certain definite laws, there arises an inner life which\nsprings from sensation and idea, from feeling and will.\n\nWe feel this in our own cases; it strikes us in our converse with other\npeople; we can see it plainly in the more highly organised animals; even\nthe lowest forms of life bear traces of it; and who can draw a line in\nthe kingdom of organic life, and say that it is here the soul ceases?\n\nWith what eyes, then, is physiology to regard this two-fold life of the\norganised world? Shall she close them entirely to one whole side of it,\nthat she may fix them more intently on the other?\n\nSo long as the physiologist is content to be a physicist, and nothing\nmore\u2014using the word \u201cphysicist\u201d in its widest signification\u2014his position\nin regard to the organic world is one of extreme but legitimate\none-sidedness. As the crystal to the mineralogist or the vibrating\nstring to the acoustician, so from this point of view both man and the\nlower animals are to the physiologist neither more nor less than the\nmatter of which they consist. That animals feel desire and repugnance,\nthat the material mechanism of the human frame is in chose connection\nwith emotions of pleasure or pain, and with the active idea-life of\nconsciousness\u2014this cannot, in the eyes of the physicist, make the animal\nor human body into anything more than what it actually is. To him it is\na combination of matter, subjected to the same inflexible laws as stones\nand plants\u2014a material combination, the outward and inward movements of\nwhich interact as cause and effect, and are in as close connection with\neach other and with their surroundings as the working of a machine with\nthe revolutions of the wheels that compose it.\n\nNeither sensation, nor idea, nor yet conscious will, can form a link in\nthis chain of material occurrences which make up the physical life of an\norganism. If I am asked a question and reply to it, the material process\nwhich the nerve fibre conveys from the organ of hearing to the brain must\ntravel through my brain as an actual and material process before it can\nreach the nerves which will act upon my organs of speech. It cannot, on\nreaching a given place in the brain, change then and there into an\nimmaterial something, and turn up again some time afterwards in another\npart of the brain as a material process. The traveller in the desert\nmight as well hope, before he again goes forth into the wilderness of\nreality, to take rest and refreshment in the oasis with which the Fata\nMorgana illudes him; or as well might a prisoner hope to escape from his\nprison through a door reflected in a mirror.\n\nSo much for the physiologist in his capacity of pure physicist. As long\nas he remains behind the scenes in painful exploration of the details of\nthe machinery\u2014as long as he only observes the action of the players from\nbehind the stage\u2014so long will he miss the spirit of the performance,\nwhich is, nevertheless, caught easily by one who sees it from the front.\nMay he not, then, for once in a way, be allowed to change his standpoint?\nTrue, he came not to see the representation of an imaginary world; he is\nin search of the actual; but surely it must help him to a comprehension\nof the dramatic apparatus itself, and of the manner in which it is\nworked, if he were to view its action from in front as well as from\nbehind, or at least allow himself to hear what sober-minded spectators\ncan tell him upon the subject.\n\nThere can be no question as to the answer; and hence it comes that\npsychology is such an indispensable help to physiology, whose fault it\nonly in small part is that she has hitherto made such little use of this\nassistance; for psychology has been late in beginning to till her fertile\nfield with the plough of the inductive method, and it is only from ground\nso tilled that fruits can spring which can be of service to physiology.\n\nIf, then, the student of nervous physiology takes his stand between the\nphysicist and the psychologist, and if the first of these rightly makes\nthe unbroken causative continuity of all material processes an axiom of\nhis system of investigation, the prudent psychologist, on the other hand,\nwill investigate the laws of conscious life according to the inductive\nmethod, and will hence, as much as the physicist, make the existence of\nfixed laws his initial assumption. If, again, the most superficial\nintrospection teaches the physiologist that his conscious life is\ndependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his body, and that inversely\nhis body is subjected with certain limitations to his will, then it only\nremains for him to make one assumption more, namely, _that this mutual\ninterdependence between the spiritual and the material is itself also\ndependent on law_, and he has discovered the bond by which the science of\nmatter and the science of consciousness are united into a single whole.\n\nThus regarded, the phenomena of consciousness become functions of the\nmaterial changes of organised substance, and inversely\u2014though this is\ninvolved in the use of the word \u201cfunction\u201d\u2014the material processes of\nbrain substance become functions of the phenomena of consciousness. For\nwhen two variables are so dependent upon one another in the changes they\nundergo in accordance with fixed laws that a change in either involves\nsimultaneous and corresponding change in the other, the one is called a\nfunction of the other.\n\nThis, then, by no means implies that the two variables above-named\u2014matter\nand consciousness\u2014stand in the relation of cause and effect, antecedent\nand consequence, to one another. For on this subject we know nothing.\n\nThe materialist regards consciousness as a product or result of matter,\nwhile the idealist holds matter to be a result of consciousness, and a\nthird maintains that matter and spirit are identical; with all this the\nphysiologist, as such, has nothing whatever to do; his sole concern is\nwith the fact that matter and consciousness are functions one of the\nother.\n\nBy the help of this hypothesis of the functional interdependence of\nmatter and spirit, modern physiology is enabled to bring the phenomena of\nconsciousness within the domain of her investigations without leaving the\n_terra firma_ of scientific methods. The physiologist, as physicist, can\nfollow the ray of light and the wave of sound or heat till they reach the\norgan of sense. He can watch them entering upon the ends of the nerves,\nand finding their way to the cells of the brain by means of the series of\nundulations or vibrations which they establish in the nerve filaments.\nHere, however, he loses all trace of them. On the other hand, still\nlooking with the eyes of a pure physicist, he sees sound waves of speech\nissue from the mouth of a speaker; he observes the motion of his own\nlimbs, and finds how this is conditional upon muscular contractions\noccasioned by the motor nerves, and how these nerves are in their turn\nexcited by the cells of the central organ. But here again his knowledge\ncomes to an end. True, he sees indications of the bridge which is to\ncarry him from excitation of the sensory to that of the motor nerves in\nthe labyrinth of intricately interwoven nerve cells, but he knows nothing\nof the inconceivably complex process which is introduced at this stage.\nHere the physiologist will change his standpoint; what matter will not\nreveal to his inquiry, he will find in the mirror, as it were, of\nconsciousness; by way of a reflection, indeed, only, but a reflection,\nnevertheless, which stands in intimate relation to the object of his\ninquiry. When at this point he observes how one idea gives rise to\nanother, how closely idea is connected with sensation and sensation with\nwill, and how thought, again, and feeling are inseparable from one\nanother, he will be compelled to suppose corresponding successions of\nmaterial processes, which generate and are closely connected with one\nanother, and which attend the whole machinery of conscious life,\naccording to the law of the functional interdependence of matter and\nconsciousness.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAfter this explanation I shall venture to regard under a single aspect a\ngreat series of phenomena which apparently have nothing to do with one\nanother, and which belong partly to the conscious and partly to the\nunconscious life of organised beings. I shall regard them as the outcome\nof one and the same primary force of organised matter\u2014namely, its memory\nor power of reproduction.\n\nThe word \u201cmemory\u201d is often understood as though it meant nothing more\nthan our faculty of intentionally reproducing ideas or series of ideas.\nBut when the figures and events of bygone days rise up again unbidden in\nour minds, is not this also an act of recollection or memory? We have a\nperfect right to extend our conception of memory so as to make it embrace\ninvoluntary reproductions, of sensations, ideas, perceptions, and\nefforts; but we find, on having done so, that we have so far enlarged her\nboundaries that she proves to be an ultimate and original power, the\nsource, and at the same time the unifying bond, of our whole conscious\nlife.\n\nWe know that when an impression, or a series of impressions, has been\nmade upon our senses for a long time, and always in the same way, it may\ncome to impress itself in such a manner upon the so-called sense-memory\nthat hours afterwards, and though a hundred other things have occupied\nour attention meanwhile, it will yet return suddenly to our consciousness\nwith all the force and freshness of the original sensation. A whole\ngroup of sensations is sometimes reproduced in its due sequence as\nregards time and space, with so much reality that it illudes us, as\nthough things were actually present which have long ceased to be so. We\nhave here a striking proof of the fact that after both conscious\nsensation and perception have been extinguished, their material vestiges\nyet remain in our nervous system by way of a change in its molecular or\natomic disposition, {69} that enables the nerve substance to reproduce\nall the physical processes of the original sensation, and with these the\ncorresponding psychical processes of sensation and perception.\n\nEvery hour the phenomena of sense-memory are present with each one of us,\nbut in a less degree than this. We are all at times aware of a host of\nmore or less faded recollections of earlier impressions, which we either\nsummon intentionally or which come upon us involuntarily. Visions of\nabsent people come and go before us as faint and fleeting shadows, and\nthe notes of long-forgotten melodies float around us, not actually heard,\nbut yet perceptible.\n\nSome things and occurrences, especially if they have happened to us only\nonce and hurriedly, will be reproducible by the memory in respect only of\na few conspicuous qualities; in other cases those details alone will\nrecur to us which we have met with elsewhere, and for the reception of\nwhich the brain is, so to speak, attuned. These last recollections find\nthemselves in fuller accord with our consciousness, and enter upon it\nmore easily and energetically; hence also their aptitude for reproduction\nis enhanced; so that what is common to many things, and is therefore felt\nand perceived with exceptional frequency, becomes reproduced so easily\nthat eventually the actual presence of the corresponding external\n_stimuli_ is no longer necessary, and it will recur on the vibrations set\nup by faint _stimuli_ from within. {70} Sensations arising in this way\nfrom within, as, for example, an idea of whiteness, are not, indeed,\nperceived with the full freshness of those raised by the actual presence\nof white light without us, but they are of the same kind; they are feeble\nrepetitions of one and the same material brain process\u2014of one and the\nsame conscious sensation. Thus the idea of whiteness arises in our mind\nas a faint, almost extinct, sensation.\n\nIn this way those qualities which are common to many things become\nseparated, as it were, in our memory from the objects with which they\nwere originally associated, and attain an independent existence in our\nconsciousness as _ideas_ and _conceptions_, and thus the whole rich\nsuperstructure of our ideas and conceptions is built up from materials\nsupplied by memory.\n\nOn examining more closely, we see plainly that memory is a faculty not\nonly of our conscious states, but also, and much more so, of our\nunconscious ones. I was conscious of this or that yesterday, and am\nagain conscious of it to-day. Where has it been meanwhile? It does not\nremain continuously within my consciousness, nevertheless it returns\nafter having quitted it. Our ideas tread but for a moment upon the stage\nof consciousness, and then go back again behind the scenes, to make way\nfor others in their place. As the player is only a king when he is on\nthe stage, so they too exist as ideas so long only as they are\nrecognised. How do they live when they are off the stage? For we know\nthat they are living somewhere; give them their cue and they reappear\nimmediately. They do not exist continuously as ideas; what is continuous\nis the special disposition of nerve substance in virtue of which this\nsubstance gives out to-day the same sound which it gave yesterday if it\nis rightly struck. {71} Countless reproductions of organic processes of\nour brain connect themselves orderly together, so that one acts as a\nstimulus to the next, but a phenomenon of consciousness is not\nnecessarily attached to every link in the chain. From this it arises\nthat a series of ideas may appear to disregard the order that would be\nobserved in purely material processes of brain substance unaccompanied by\nconsciousness; but on the other hand it becomes possible for a long chain\nof recollections to have its due development without each link in the\nchain being necessarily perceived by ourselves. One may emerge from the\nbosom of our unconscious thoughts without fully entering upon the stage\nof conscious perception; another dies away in unconsciousness, leaving no\nsuccessor to take its place. Between the \u201cme\u201d of to-day and the \u201cme\u201d of\nyesterday lie night and sleep, abysses of unconsciousness; nor is there\nany bridge but memory with which to span them. Who can hope after this\nto disentangle the infinite intricacy of our inner life? For we can only\nfollow its threads so far as they have strayed over within the bounds of\nconsciousness. We might as well hope to familiarise ourselves with the\nworld of forms that teem within the bosom of the sea by observing the few\nthat now and again come to the surface and soon return into the deep.\n\nThe bond of union, therefore, which connects the individual phenomena of\nour consciousness lies in our unconscious world; and as we know nothing\nof this but what investigation into the laws of matter teach us\u2014as, in\nfact, for purely experimental purposes, \u201cmatter\u201d and the \u201cunconscious\u201d\nmust be one and the same thing\u2014so the physiologist has a full right to\ndenote memory as, in the wider sense of the word, a function of brain\nsubstance, whose results, it is true, fall, as regards one part of them,\ninto the domain of consciousness, while another and not less essential\npart escapes unperceived as purely material processes.\n\nThe perception of a body in space is a very complicated process. I see\nsuddenly before me, for example, a white ball. This has the effect of\nconveying to me more than a mere sensation of whiteness. I deduce the\nspherical character of the ball from the gradations of light and shade\nupon its surface. I form a correct appreciation of its distance from my\neye, and hence again I deduce an inference as to the size of the ball.\nWhat an expenditure of sensations, ideas, and inferences is found to be\nnecessary before all this can be brought about; yet the production of a\ncorrect perception of the ball was the work only of a few seconds, and I\nwas unconscious of the individual processes by means of which it was\neffected, the result as a whole being alone present in my consciousness.\n\nThe nerve substance preserves faithfully the memory of habitual actions.\n{72} Perceptions which were once long and difficult, requiring constant\nand conscious attention, come to reproduce themselves in transient and\nabridged guise, without such duration and intensity that each link has to\npass over the threshold of our consciousness.\n\nWe have chains of material nerve processes to which eventually a link\nbecomes attached that is attended with conscious perception. This is\nsufficiently established from the standpoint of the physiologist, and is\nalso proved by our unconsciousness of many whole series of ideas and of\nthe inferences we draw from them. If the soul is not to ship through the\nfingers of physiology, she must hold fast to the considerations suggested\nby our unconscious states. As far, however, as the investigations of the\npure physicist are concerned, the unconscious and matter are one and the\nsame thing, and the physiology of the unconscious is no \u201cphilosophy of\nthe unconscious.\u201d\n\nBy far the greater number of our movements are the result of long and\narduous practice. The harmonious cooperation of the separate muscles,\nthe finely adjusted measure of participation which each contributes to\nthe working of the whole, must, as a rule, have been laboriously\nacquired, in respect of most of the movements that are necessary in order\nto effect it. How long does it not take each note to find its way from\nthe eyes to the fingers of one who is beginning to learn the pianoforte;\nand, on the other hand, what an astonishing performance is the playing of\nthe professional pianist. The sight of each note occasions the\ncorresponding movement of the fingers with the speed of thought\u2014a hurried\nglance at the page of music before him suffices to give rise to a whole\nseries of harmonies; nay, when a melody has been long practised, it can\nbe played even while the player\u2019s attention is being given to something\nof a perfectly different character over and above his music.\n\nThe will need now no longer wend its way to each individual finger before\nthe desired movements can be extorted from it; no longer now does a\nsustained attention keep watch over the movements of each limb; the will\nneed exercise a supervising control only. At the word of command the\nmuscles become active, with a due regard to time and proportion, and go\non working, so long as they are bidden to keep in their accustomed\ngroove, while a slight hint on the part of the will, will indicate to\nthem their further journey. How could all this be if every part of the\ncentral nerve system, by means of which movement is effected, were not\nable {74a} to reproduce whole series of vibrations, which at an earlier\ndate required the constant and continuous participation of consciousness,\nbut which are now set in motion automatically on a mere touch, as it\nwere, from consciousness\u2014if it were not able to reproduce them the more\nquickly and easily in proportion to the frequency of the repetitions\u2014if,\nin fact, there was no power of recollecting earlier performances? Our\nperceptive faculties must have remained always at their lowest stage if\nwe had been compelled to build up consciously every process from the\ndetails of the sensation-causing materials tendered to us by our senses;\nnor could our voluntary movements have got beyond the helplessness of the\nchild, if the necessary impulses could only be imparted to every movement\nthrough effort of the will and conscious reproduction of all the\ncorresponding ideas\u2014if, in a word, the motor nerve system had not also\nits memory, {74b} though that memory is unperceived by ourselves. The\npower of this memory is what is called \u201cthe force of habit.\u201d\n\nIt seems, then, that we owe to memory almost all that we either have or\nare; that our ideas and conceptions are its work, and that our every\nperception, thought, and movement is derived from this source. Memory\ncollects the countless phenomena of our existence into a single whole;\nand as our bodies would be scattered into the dust of their component\natoms if they were not held together by the attraction of matter, so our\nconsciousness would be broken up into as many fragments as we had lived\nseconds but for the binding and unifying force of memory.\n\nWe have already repeatedly seen that the reproductions of organic\nprocesses, brought about by means of the memory of the nervous system,\nenter but partly within the domain of consciousness, remaining\nunperceived in other and not less important respects. This is also\nconfirmed by numerous facts in the life of that part of the nervous\nsystem which ministers almost exclusively to our unconscious life\nprocesses. For the memory of the so-called sympathetic ganglionic system\nis no less rich than that of the brain and spinal marrow, and a great\npart of the medical art consists in making wise use of the assistance\nthus afforded us.\n\nTo bring, however, this part of my observations to a close, I will take\nleave of the nervous system, and glance hurriedly at other phases of\norganised matter, where we meet with the same powers of reproduction, but\nin simpler guise.\n\nDaily experience teaches us that a muscle becomes the stronger the more\nwe use it. The muscular fibre, which in the first instance may have\nanswered but feebly to the stimulus conducted to it by the motor nerve,\ndoes so with the greater energy the more often it is stimulated,\nprovided, of course, that reasonable times are allowed for repose. After\neach individual action it becomes more capable, more disposed towards the\nsame kind of work, and has a greater aptitude for repetition of the same\norganic processes. It gains also in weight, for it assimilates more\nmatter than when constantly at rest. We have here, in its simplest form,\nand in a phase which comes home most closely to the comprehension of the\nphysicist, the same power of reproduction which we encountered when we\nwere dealing with nerve substance, but under such far more complicated\nconditions. And what is known thus certainly from muscle substance holds\ngood with greater or less plainness for all our organs. More especially\nmay we note the fact, that after increased use, alternated with times of\nrepose, there accrues to the organ in all animal economy an increased\npower of execution with an increased power of assimilation and a gain in\nsize.\n\nThis gain in size consists not only in the enlargement of the individual\ncells or fibres of which the organ is composed, but in the multiplication\nof their number; for when cells have grown to a certain size they give\nrise to others, which inherit more or less completely the qualities of\nthose from which they came, and therefore appear to be repetitions of the\nsame cell. This growth, and multiplication of cells is only a special\nphase of those manifold functions which characterise organised matter,\nand which consist not only in what goes on within the cell substance as\nalterations or undulatory movement of the molecular disposition, but also\nin that which becomes visible outside the cells as change of shape,\nenlargement, or subdivision. Reproduction of performance, therefore,\nmanifests itself to us as reproduction of the cells themselves, as may be\nseen most plainly in the case of plants, whose chief work consists in\ngrowth, whereas with animal organism other faculties greatly\npreponderate.\n\nLet us now take a brief survey of a class of facts in the case of which\nwe may most abundantly observe the power of memory in organised matter.\nWe have ample evidence of the fact that characteristics of an organism\nmay descend to offspring which the organism did not inherit, but which it\nacquired owing to the special circumstances under which it lived; and\nthat, in consequence, every organism imparts to the germ that issues from\nit a small heritage of acquisitions which it has added during its own\nlifetime to the gross inheritance of its race.\n\nWhen we reflect that we are dealing with the heredity of acquired\nqualities which came to development in the most diverse parts of the\nparent organism, it must seem in a high degree mysterious how those parts\ncan have any kind of influence upon a germ which develops itself in an\nentirely different place. Many mystical theories have been propounded\nfor the elucidation of this question, but the following reflections may\nserve to bring the cause nearer to the comprehension of the physiologist.\n\nThe nerve substance, in spite of its thousandfold subdivision as cells\nand fibres, forms, nevertheless, a united whole, which is present\ndirectly in all organs\u2014nay, as more recent histology conjectures, in each\ncell of the more important organs\u2014or is at least in ready communication\nwith them by means of the living, irritable, and therefore highly\nconductive substance of other cells. Through the connection thus\nestablished all organs find themselves in such a condition of more or\nless mutual interdependence upon one another, that events which happen to\none are repeated in others, and a notification, however slight, of a\nvibration set up {77} in one quarter is at once conveyed even to the\nfarthest parts of the body. With this easy and rapid intercourse between\nall parts is associated the more difficult communication that goes on by\nway of the circulation of sap or blood.\n\nWe see, further, that the process of the development of all germs that\nare marked out for independent existence causes a powerful reaction, even\nfrom the very beginning of that existence, on both the conscious and\nunconscious life of the whole organism. We may see this from the fact\nthat the organ of reproduction stands in closer and more important\nrelation to the remaining parts, and especially to the nervous system,\nthan do the other organs; and, inversely, that both the perceived and\nunperceived events affecting the whole organism find a more marked\nresponse in the reproductive system than elsewhere.\n\nWe can now see with sufficient plainness in what the material connection\nis established between the acquired peculiarities of an organism, and the\nproclivity on the part of the germ in virtue of which it develops the\nspecial characteristics of its parent.\n\nThe microscope teaches us that no difference can be perceived between one\ngerm and another; it cannot, however, be objected on this account that\nthe determining cause of its ulterior development must be something\nimmaterial, rather than the specific kind of its material constitution.\n\nThe curves and surfaces which the mathematician conceives, or finds\nconceivable, are more varied and infinite than the forms of animal life.\nLet us suppose an infinitely small segment to be taken from every\npossible curve; each one of these will appear as like every other as one\ngerm is to another, yet the whole of every curve lies dormant, as it\nwere, in each of them, and if the mathematician chooses to develop it, it\nwill take the path indicated by the elements of each segment.\n\nIt is an error, therefore, to suppose that such fine distinctions as\nphysiology must assume lie beyond the limits of what is conceivable by\nthe human mind. An infinitely small change of position on the part of a\npoint, or in the relations of the parts of a segment of a curve to one\nanother, suffices to alter the law of its whole path, and so in like\nmanner an infinitely small influence exercised by the parent organism on\nthe molecular disposition of the germ {78} may suffice to produce a\ndetermining effect upon its whole farther development.\n\nWhat is the descent of special peculiarities but a reproduction on the\npart of organised matter of processes in which it once took part as a\ngerm in the germ-containing organs of its parent, and of which it seems\nstill to retain a recollection that reappears when time and the occasion\nserve, inasmuch as it responds to the same or like stimuli in a like way\nto that in which the parent organism responded, of which it was once\npart, and in the events of whose history it was itself also an\naccomplice? {79} When an action through long habit or continual practice\nhas become so much a second nature to any organisation that its effects\nwill penetrate, though ever so faintly, into the germ that lies within\nit, and when this last comes to find itself in a new sphere, to extend\nitself, and develop into a new creature\u2014(the individual parts of which\nare still always the creature itself and flesh of its flesh, so that what\nis reproduced is the same being as that in company with which the germ\nonce lived, and of which it was once actually a part)\u2014all this is as\nwonderful as when a grey-haired man remembers the events of his own\nchildhood; but it is not more so. Whether we say that the same organised\nsubstance is again reproducing its past experience, or whether we prefer\nto hold that an offshoot or part of the original substance has waxed and\ndeveloped itself since separation from the parent stock, it is plain that\nthis will constitute a difference of degree, not kind.\n\nWhen we reflect upon the fact that unimportant acquired characteristics\ncan be reproduced in offspring, we are apt to forget that offspring is\nonly a full-sized reproduction of the parent\u2014a reproduction, moreover,\nthat goes as far as possible into detail. We are so accustomed to\nconsider family resemblance a matter of course, that we are sometimes\nsurprised when a child is in some respect unlike its parent; surely,\nhowever, the infinite number of points in respect of which parents and\nchildren resemble one another is a more reasonable ground for our\nsurprise.\n\nBut if the substance of the germ can reproduce characteristics acquired\nby the parent during its single life, how much more will it not be able\nto reproduce those that were congenital to the parent, and which have\nhappened through countless generations to the organised matter of which\nthe germ of to-day is a fragment? We cannot wonder that action already\ntaken on innumerable past occasions by organised matter is more deeply\nimpressed upon the recollection of the germ to which it gives rise than\naction taken once only during a single lifetime. {80a}\n\nWe must bear in mind that every organised being now in existence\nrepresents the last link of an inconceivably long series of organisms,\nwhich come down in a direct line of descent, and of which each has\ninherited a part of the acquired characteristics of its predecessor.\nEverything, furthermore, points in the direction of our believing that at\nthe beginning of this chain there existed an organism of the very\nsimplest kind, something, in fact, like those which we call organised\ngerms. The chain of living beings thus appears to be the magnificent\nachievement of the reproductive power of the original organic structure\nfrom which they have all descended. As this subdivided itself and\ntransmitted its characteristics {80b} to its descendants, these acquired\nnew ones, and in their turn transmitted them\u2014all new germs transmitting\nthe chief part of what had happened to their predecessors, while the\nremaining part lapsed out of their memory, circumstances not stimulating\nit to reproduce itself.\n\nAn organised being, therefore, stands before us a product of the\nunconscious memory of organised matter, which, ever increasing and ever\ndividing itself, ever assimilating new matter and returning it in changed\nshape to the inorganic world, ever receiving some new thing into its\nmemory, and transmitting its acquisitions by the way of reproduction,\ngrows continually richer and richer the longer it lives.\n\nThus regarded, the development of one of the more highly organised\nanimals represents a continuous series of organised recollections\nconcerning the past development of the great chain of living forms, the\nlast link of which stands before us in the particular animal we may be\nconsidering. As a complicated perception may arise by means of a rapid\nand superficial reproduction of long and laboriously practised brain\nprocesses, so a germ in the course of its development hurries through a\nseries of phases, hinting at them only. Often and long foreshadowed in\ntheories of varied characters, this conception has only now found correct\nexposition from a naturalist of our own time. {81} For Truth hides\nherself under many disguises from those who seek her, but in the end\nstands unveiled before the eyes of him whom she has chosen.\n\nNot only is there a reproduction of form, outward and inner conformation\nof body, organs, and cells, but the habitual actions of the parent are\nalso reproduced. The chicken on emerging from the eggshell runs off as\nits mother ran off before it; yet what an extraordinary complication of\nemotions and sensations is necessary in order to preserve equilibrium in\nrunning. Surely the supposition of an inborn capacity for the\nreproduction of these intricate actions can alone explain the facts. As\nhabitual practice becomes a second nature to the individual during his\nsingle lifetime, so the often-repeated action of each generation becomes\na second nature to the race.\n\nThe chicken not only displays great dexterity in the performance of\nmovements for the effecting of which it has an innate capacity, but it\nexhibits also a tolerably high perceptive power. It immediately picks up\nany grain that may be thrown to it. Yet, in order to do this, more is\nwanted than a mere visual perception of the grains; there must be an\naccurate apprehension of the direction and distance of the precise spot\nin which each grain is lying, and there must be no less accuracy in the\nadjustment of the movements of the head and of the whole body. The\nchicken cannot have gained experience in these respects while it was\nstill in the egg. It gained it rather from the thousands of thousands of\nbeings that have lived before it, and from which it is directly\ndescended.\n\nThe memory of organised substance displays itself here in the most\nsurprising fashion. The gentle stimulus of the light proceeding from the\ngrain that affects the retina of the chicken, {82} gives occasion for the\nreproduction of a many-linked chain of sensations, perceptions, and\nemotions, which were never yet brought together in the case of the\nindividual before us. We are accustomed to regard these surprising\nperformances of animals as manifestations of what we call instinct, and\nthe mysticism of natural philosophy has ever shown a predilection for\nthis theme; but if we regard instinct as the outcome of the memory or\nreproductive power of organised substance, and if we ascribe a memory to\nthe race as we already ascribe it to the individual, then instinct\nbecomes at once intelligible, and the physiologist at the same time finds\na point of contact which will bring it into connection with the great\nseries of facts indicated above as phenomena of the reproductive faculty.\nHere, then, we have a physical explanation which has not, indeed, been\ngiven yet, but the time for which appears to be rapidly approaching.\n\nWhen, in accordance with its instinct, the caterpillar becomes a\nchrysalis, or the bird builds its nest, or the bee its cell, these\ncreatures act consciously and not as blind machines. They know how to\nvary their proceedings within certain limits in conformity with altered\ncircumstances, and they are thus liable to make mistakes. They feel\npleasure when their work advances and pain if it is hindered; they learn\nby the experience thus acquired, and build on a second occasion better\nthan on the first; but that even in the outset they hit so readily upon\nthe most judicious way of achieving their purpose, and that their\nmovements adapt themselves so admirably and automatically to the end they\nhave in view\u2014surely this is owing to the inherited acquisitions of the\nmemory of their nerve substance, which requires but a touch and it will\nfall at once to the most appropriate kind of activity, thinking always,\nand directly, of whatever it is that may be wanted.\n\nMan can readily acquire surprising kinds of dexterity if he confines his\nattention to their acquisition. Specialisation is the mother of\nproficiency. He who marvels at the skill with which the spider weaves\nher web should bear in mind that she did not learn her art all on a\nsudden, but that innumerable generations of spiders acquired it\ntoilsomely and step by step\u2014this being about all that, as a general rule,\nthey did acquire. Man took to bows and arrows if his nets failed him\u2014the\nspider starved. Thus we see the body and\u2014what most concerns us\u2014the whole\nnervous system of the new-born animal constructed beforehand, and, as it\nwere, ready attuned for intercourse with the outside world in which it is\nabout to play its part, by means of its tendency to respond to external\nstimuli in the same manner as it has often heretofore responded in the\npersons of its ancestors.\n\nWe naturally ask whether the brain and nervous system of the human infant\nare subjected to the principles we have laid down above? Man certainly\nfinds it difficult to acquire arts of which the lower animals are born\nmasters; but the brain of man at birth is much farther from its highest\ndevelopment than is the brain of an animal. It not only grows for a\nlonger time, but it becomes stronger than that of other living beings.\nThe brain of man may be said to be exceptionally young at birth. The\nlower animal is born precocious, and acts precociously; it resembles\nthose infant prodigies whose brain, as it were, is born old into the\nworld, but who, in spite of, or rather in addition to, their rich\nendowment at birth, in after life develop as much mental power as others\nwho were less splendidly furnished to start with, but born with greater\nfreshness of youth. Man\u2019s brain, and indeed his whole body, affords\ngreater scope for individuality, inasmuch as a relatively greater part of\nit is of post-natal growth. It develops under the influence of\nimpressions made by the environment upon its senses, and thus makes its\nacquisitions in a more special and individual manner, whereas the animal\nreceives them ready made, and of a more final, stereotyped character.\n\nNevertheless, it is plain we must ascribe both to the brain and body of\nthe new-born infant a far-reaching power of remembering or reproducing\nthings which have already come to their development thousands of times\nover in the persons of its ancestors. It is in virtue of this that it\nacquires proficiency in the actions necessary for its existence\u2014so far as\nit was not already at birth proficient in them\u2014much more quickly and\neasily than would be otherwise possible; but what we call instinct in the\ncase of animals takes in man the looser form of aptitude, talent, and\ngenius. {84} Granted that certain ideas are not innate, yet the fact of\ntheir taking form so easily and certainly from out of the chaos of his\nsensations, is due not to his own labour, but to that of the brain\nsubstance of the thousands of thousands of generations from whom he is\ndescended. Theories concerning the development of individual\nconsciousness which deny heredity or the power of transmission, and\ninsist upon an entirely fresh start for every human soul, as though the\ninfinite number of generations that have gone before us might as well\nhave never lived for all the effect they have had upon ourselves,\u2014such\ntheories will contradict the facts of our daily experience at every touch\nand turn.\n\nThe brain processes and phenomena of consciousness which ennoble man in\nthe eyes of his fellows have had a less ancient history than those\nconnected with his physical needs. Hunger and the reproductive instinct\naffected the oldest and simplest forms of the organic world. It is in\nrespect of these instincts, therefore, and of the means to gratify them,\nthat the memory of organised substance is strongest\u2014the impulses and\ninstincts that arise hence having still paramount power over the minds of\nmen. The spiritual life has been superadded slowly; its most splendid\noutcome belongs to the latest epoch in the history of organised matter,\nnor has any very great length of time elapsed since the nervous system\nwas first crowned with the glory of a large and well-developed brain.\n\nOral tradition and written history have been called the memory of man,\nand this is not without its truth. But there is another and a living\nmemory in the innate reproductive power of brain substance, and without\nthis both writings and oral tradition would be without significance to\nposterity. The most sublime ideas, though never so immortalised in\nspeech or letters, are yet nothing for heads that are out of harmony with\nthem; they must be not only heard, but reproduced; and both speech and\nwriting would be in vain were there not an inheritance of inward and\noutward brain development, growing in correspondence with the inheritance\nof ideas that are handed down from age to age, and did not an enhanced\ncapacity for their reproduction on the part of each succeeding generation\naccompany the thoughts that have been preserved in writing. Man\u2019s\nconscious memory comes to an end at death, but the unconscious memory of\nNature is true and ineradicable: whoever succeeds in stamping upon her\nthe impress of his work, she will remember him to the end of time.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VII\n\n\nIntroduction to a translation of the chapter upon instinct in Von\nHartmann\u2019s \u201cPhilosophy of the Unconscious.\u201d\n\nI AM afraid my readers will find the chapter on instinct from Von\nHartmann\u2019s \u201cPhilosophy of the Unconscious,\u201d which will now follow, as\ndistasteful to read as I did to translate, and would gladly have spared\nit them if I could. At present, the works of Mr. Sully, who has treated\nof the \u201cPhilosophy of the Unconscious\u201d both in the _Westminster Review_\n(vol. xlix. N.S.) and in his work \u201cPessimism,\u201d are the best source to\nwhich English readers can have recourse for information concerning Von\nHartmann. Giving him all credit for the pains he has taken with an\nungrateful, if not impossible subject, I think that a sufficient sample\nof Von Hartmann\u2019s own words will be a useful adjunct to Mr. Sully\u2019s work,\nand may perhaps save some readers trouble by resolving them to look no\nfarther into the \u201cPhilosophy of the Unconscious.\u201d Over and above this, I\nhave been so often told that the views concerning unconscious action\ncontained in the foregoing lecture and in \u201cLife and Habit\u201d are only the\nvery fallacy of Von Hartmann over again, that I should like to give the\npublic an opportunity of seeing whether this is so or no, by placing the\ntwo contending theories of unconscious action side by side. I hope that\nit will thus be seen that neither Professor Hering nor I have fallen into\nthe fallacy of Von Hartmann, but that rather Von Hartmann has fallen into\nhis fallacy through failure to grasp the principle which Professor Hering\nhas insisted upon, and to connect heredity with memory.\n\nProfessor Hering\u2019s philosophy of the unconscious is of extreme\nsimplicity. He rests upon a fact of daily and hourly experience, namely,\nthat practice makes things easy that were once difficult, and often\nresults in their being done without any consciousness of effort. But if\nthe repetition of an act tends ultimately, under certain circumstances,\nto its being done unconsciously, so also is the fact of an intricate and\ndifficult action being done unconsciously an argument that it must have\nbeen done repeatedly already. As I said in \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d it is more\neasy to suppose that occasions on which such an action has been performed\nhave not been wanting, even though we do not see when and where they\nwere, than that the facility which we observe should have been attained\nwithout practice and memory (p. 56).\n\nThere can be nothing better established or more easy, whether to\nunderstand or verify, than the unconsciousness with which habitual\nactions come to be performed. If, however, it is once conceded that it\nis the manner of habitual action generally, then all _\u00e0 priori_ objection\nto Professor Hering\u2019s philosophy of the unconscious is at an end. The\nquestion becomes one of fact in individual cases, and of degree.\n\nHow far, then, does the principle of the convertibility, as it were, of\npractice and unconsciousness extend? Can any line be drawn beyond which\nit shall cease to operate? If not, may it not have operated and be\noperating to a vast and hitherto unsuspected extent? This is all, and\ncertainly it is sufficiently simple. I sometimes think it has found its\ngreatest stumbling-block in its total want of mystery, as though we must\nbe like those conjurers whose stock in trade is a small deal table and a\nkitchen-chair with bare legs, and who, with their parade of \u201cno\ndeception\u201d and \u201cexamine everything for yourselves,\u201d deceive worse than\nothers who make use of all manner of elaborate paraphernalia. It is true\nwe require no paraphernalia, and we produce unexpected results, but we\nare not conjuring.\n\nTo turn now to Von Hartmann. When I read Mr. Sully\u2019s article in the\n_Westminster Review_, I did not know whether the sense of mystification\nwhich it produced in me was wholly due to Von Hartmann or no; but on\nmaking acquaintance with Von Hartmann himself, I found that Mr. Sully has\nerred, if at all, in making him more intelligible than he actually is.\nVon Hartmann has not got a meaning. Give him Professor Hering\u2019s key and\nhe might get one, but it would be at the expense of seeing what approach\nhe had made to a system fallen to pieces. Granted that in his details\nand subordinate passages he often both has and conveys a meaning, there\nis, nevertheless, no coherence between these details, and the nearest\napproach to a broad conception covering the work which the reader can\ncarry away with him is at once so incomprehensible and repulsive, that it\nis difficult to write about it without saying more perhaps than those who\nhave not seen the original will accept as likely to be true. The idea to\nwhich I refer is that of an unconscious clairvoyance, which, from the\nlanguage continually used concerning it, must be of the nature of a\nperson, and which is supposed to take possession of living beings so\nfully as to be the very essence of their nature, the promoter of their\nembryonic development, and the instigator of their instinctive actions.\nThis approaches closely to the personal God of Mosaic and Christian\ntheology, with the exception that the word \u201cclairvoyance\u201d {89} is\nsubstituted for God, and that the God is supposed to be unconscious.\n\nMr. Sully says:\u2014\n\n \u201cWhen we grasp it [the philosophy of Von Hartmann] as a whole, it\n amounts to nothing more than this, that all or nearly all the\n phenomena of the material and spiritual world rest upon and result\n from a mysterious, unconscious being, though to call it being is\n really to add on an idea not immediately contained within the\n all-sufficient principle. But what difference is there between this\n and saying that the phenomena of the world at large come we know not\n whence? . . . The unconscious, therefore, tends to be simple phrase\n and nothing more . . . No doubt there are a number of mental\n processes . . . of which we are unconscious . . . but to infer from\n this that they are due to an unconscious power, and to proceed to\n demonstrate them in the presence of the unconscious through all\n nature, is to make an unwarrantable _saltus_ in reasoning. What, in\n fact, is this \u2018unconscious\u2019 but a high-sounding name to veil our\n ignorance? Is the unconscious any better explanation of phenomena we\n do not understand than the \u2018devil-devil\u2019 by which Australian tribes\n explain the Leyden jar and its phenomena? Does it increase our\n knowledge to know that we do not know the origin of language or the\n cause of instinct? . . . Alike in organic creation and the evolution\n of history \u2018performances and actions\u2019\u2014the words are those of\n Strauss\u2014are ascribed to an unconscious, which can only belong to a\n conscious being. {90a}\n\n . . . . .\n\n \u201cThe difficulties of the system advance as we proceed. {90b}\n Subtract this questionable factor\u2014the unconscious from Hartmann\u2019s\n \u2018Biology and Psychology,\u2019 and the chapters remain pleasant and\n instructive reading. But with the third part of his work\u2014the\n Metaphysic of the Unconscious\u2014our feet are clogged at every step. We\n are encircled by the merest play of words, the most unsatisfactory\n demonstrations, and most inconsistent inferences. The theory of\n final causes has been hitherto employed to show the wisdom of the\n world; with our Pessimist philosopher it shows nothing but its\n irrationality and misery. Consciousness has been generally supposed\n to be the condition of all happiness and interest in life; here it\n simply awakens us to misery, and the lower an animal lies in the\n scale of conscious life, the better and the pleasanter its lot.\n\n . . . . .\n\n \u201cThus, then, the universe, as an emanation of the unconscious, has\n been constructed. {90c} Throughout it has been marked by design, by\n purpose, by finality; throughout a wonderful adaptation of means to\n ends, a wonderful adjustment and relativity in different portions has\n been noticed\u2014and all this for what conclusion? Not, as in the hands\n of the natural theologians of the eighteenth century, to show that\n the world is the result of design, of an intelligent, beneficent\n Creator, but the manifestation of a Being whose only predicates are\n negatives, whose very essence is to be unconscious. It is not only\n like ancient Athens, to an unknown, but to an unknowing God, that\n modern Pessimism rears its altar. Yet surely the fact that the\n motive principle of existence moves in a mysterious way outside our\n consciousness no way requires that the All-one Being should be\n himself unconscious.\u201d\n\nI believe the foregoing to convey as correct an idea of Von Hartmann\u2019s\nsystem as it is possible to convey, and will leave it to the reader to\nsay how much in common there is between this and the lecture given in the\npreceding chapter, beyond the fact that both touch upon unconscious\nactions. The extract which will form my next chapter is only about a\nthirtieth part of the entire \u201cPhilosophy of the Unconscious,\u201d but it\nwill, I believe, suffice to substantiate the justice of what Mr. Sully\nhas said in the passages above quoted.\n\nAs regards the accuracy of the translation, I have submitted all passages\nabout which I was in the least doubtful to the same gentleman who revised\nmy translation of Professor Hering\u2019s lecture; I have also given the\nGerman wherever I thought the reader might be glad to see it.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VIII\n\n\nTranslation of the chapter on \u201cThe Unconscious in Instinct,\u201d from Von\nHartmann\u2019s \u201cPhilosophy of the Unconscious.\u201d\n\nVON HARTMANN\u2019S chapter on instinct is as follows:\u2014\n\nInstinct is action taken in pursuance of a purpose but without conscious\nperception of what the purpose is. {92a}\n\nA purposive action, with consciousness of the purpose and where the\ncourse taken is the result of deliberation is not said to be instinctive;\nnor yet, again, is blind aimless action, such as outbreaks of fury on the\npart of offended or otherwise enraged animals. I see no occasion for\ndisturbing the commonly received definition of instinct as given above;\nfor those who think they can refer all the so-called ordinary instincts\nof animals to conscious deliberation _ipso facto_ deny that there is such\na thing as instinct at all, and should strike the word out of their\nvocabulary. But of this more hereafter.\n\nAssuming, then, the existence of instinctive action as above defined, it\ncan be explained as\u2014\n\nI. A mere necessary consequence of bodily organisation. {92b}\n\nII. A mechanism of brain or mind contrived by nature.\n\nIII. The outcome of an unconscious activity of mind.\n\nIn neither of the two first cases is there any scope for the idea of\npurpose; in the third, purpose must be present immediately before the\naction. In the two first cases, action is supposed to be brought about\nby means of an initial arrangement, either of bodily or mental mechanism,\npurpose being conceived of as existing on a single occasion only\u2014that is\nto say, in the determination of the initial arrangement. In the third,\npurpose is conceived as present in every individual instance. Let us\nproceed to the consideration of these three cases.\n\nInstinct is not a mere consequence of bodily organisation; for\u2014\n\n(_a_.) Bodies may be alike, yet they may be endowed with different\ninstincts.\n\nAll spiders have the same spinning apparatus, but one kind weaves\nradiating webs, another irregular ones, while a third makes none at all,\nbut lives in holes, whose walls it overspins, and whose entrance it\ncloses with a door. Almost all birds have a like organisation for the\nconstruction of their nests (a beak and feet), but how infinitely do\ntheir nests vary in appearance, mode of construction, attachment to\nsurrounding objects (they stand, are glued on, hang, &c.), selection of\nsite (caves, holes, corners, forks of trees, shrubs, the ground), and\nexcellence of workmanship; how often, too, are they not varied in the\nspecies of a single genus, as of _parus_. Many birds, moreover, build no\nnest at all. The difference in the songs of birds are in like manner\nindependent of the special construction of their voice apparatus, nor do\nthe modes of nest construction that obtain among ants and bees depend\nupon their bodily organisation. Organisation, as a general rule, only\nrenders the bird capable of singing, as giving it an apparatus with which\nto sing at all, but it has nothing to do with the specific character of\nthe execution . . . The nursing, defence, and education of offspring\ncannot be considered as in any way more dependent upon bodily\norganisation; nor yet the sites which insects choose for the laying of\ntheir eggs; nor, again, the selection of deposits of spawn, of their own\nspecies, by male fish for impregnation. The rabbit burrows, the hare\ndoes not, though both have the same burrowing apparatus. The hare,\nhowever, has less need of a subterranean place of refuge by reason of its\ngreater swiftness. Some birds, with excellent powers of flight, are\nnevertheless stationary in their habits, as the secretary falcon and\ncertain other birds of prey; while even such moderate fliers as quails\nare sometimes known to make very distant migrations.\n\n(_b_.) Like instincts may be found associated with unlike organs.\n\nBirds with and without feet adapted for climbing live in trees; so also\ndo monkeys with and without flexible tails, squirrels, sloths, pumas, &c.\nMole-crickets dig with a well-pronounced spade upon their fore-feet,\nwhile the burying-beetle does the same thing though it has no special\napparatus whatever. The mole conveys its winter provender in pockets, an\ninch wide, long and half an inch wide within its cheeks; the field-mouse\ndoes so without the help of any such contrivance. The migratory instinct\ndisplays itself with equal strength in animals of widely different form,\nby whatever means they may pursue their journey, whether by water, land,\nor air.\n\nIt is clear, therefore, that instinct is in great measure independent of\nbodily organisation. Granted, indeed, that a certain amount of bodily\napparatus is a _sine qu\u00e2 non_ for any power of execution at all\u2014as, for\nexample, that there would be no ingenious nest without organs more or\nless adapted for its construction, no spinning of a web without spinning\nglands\u2014nevertheless, it is impossible to maintain that instinct is a\nconsequence of organisation. The mere existence of the organ does not\nconstitute even the smallest incentive to any corresponding habitual\nactivity. A sensation of pleasure must at least accompany the use of the\norgan before its existence can incite to its employment. And even so\nwhen a sensation of pleasure has given the impulse which is to render it\nactive, it is only the fact of there being activity at all, and not the\nspecial characteristics of the activity, that can be due to organisation.\nThe reason for the special mode of the activity is the very problem that\nwe have to solve. No one will call the action of the spider instinctive\nin voiding the fluid from her spinning gland when it is too full, and\ntherefore painful to her; nor that of the male fish when it does what\namounts to much the same thing as this. The instinct and the marvel lie\nin the fact that the spider spins threads, and proceeds to weave her web\nwith them, and that the male fish will only impregnate ova of his own\nspecies.\n\nAnother proof that the pleasure felt in the employment of an organ is\nwholly inadequate to account for this employment is to be found in the\nfact that the moral greatness of instinct, the point in respect of which\nit most commands our admiration, consists in the obedience paid to its\nbehests, to the postponement of all personal well-being, and at the cost,\nit may be, of life itself. If the mere pleasure of relieving certain\nglands from overfulness were the reason why caterpillars generally spin\nwebs, they would go on spinning until they had relieved these glands, but\nthey would not repair their work as often as any one destroyed it, and do\nthis again and again until they die of exhaustion. The same holds good\nwith the other instincts that at first sight appear to be inspired only\nby a sensation of pleasure; for if we change the circumstances, so as to\nput self-sacrifice in the place of self-interest, it becomes at once\napparent that they have a higher source than this. We think, for\nexample, that birds pair for the sake of mere sexual gratification; why,\nthen, do they leave off pairing as soon as they have laid the requisite\nnumber of eggs? That there is a reproductive instinct over and above the\ndesire for sexual gratification appears from the fact that if a man takes\nan egg out of the nest, the birds will come together again and the hen\nwill lay another egg; or, if they belong to some of the more wary\nspecies, they will desert their nest, and make preparation for an\nentirely new brood. A female wryneck, whose nest was daily robbed of the\negg she laid in it, continued to lay a new one, which grew smaller and\nsmaller, till, when she had laid her twenty-ninth egg, she was found dead\nupon her nest. If an instinct cannot stand the test of self-sacrifice\u2014if\nit is the simple outcome of a desire for bodily gratification\u2014then it is\nno true instinct, and is only so called erroneously.\n\nInstinct is not a mechanism of brain or mind implanted in living beings\nby nature; for, if it were, then instinctive action without any, even\nunconscious, activity of mind, and with no conception concerning the\npurpose of the action, would be executed mechanically, the purpose having\nbeen once for all thought out by Nature or Providence, which has so\norganised the individual that it acts henceforth as a purely mechanical\nmedium. We are now dealing with a psychical organisation as the cause\ninstinct, as we were above dealing with a physical. A psychical\norganisation would be a conceivable explanation and we need look no\nfarther if every instinct once belonging to an animal discharged its\nfunctions in an unvarying manner. But this is never found to be the\ncase, for instincts vary when there arises a sufficient motive for\nvarying them. This proves that special exterior circumstances enter into\nthe matter, and that these circumstances are the very things that render\nthe attainment of the purpose possible through means selected by the\ninstinct. Here first do we find instinct acting as though it were\nactually design with action following at its heels, for until the arrival\nof the motive, the instinct remains late and discharges no function\nwhatever. The motive enters by way of an idea received into the mind\nthrough the instrumentality of the senses, and there is a constant\nconnection between instinct in action and all sensual images which give\ninformation that an opportunity has arisen for attaining the ends\nproposed to itself by the instinct.\n\nThe psychical mechanism of this constant connection must also be looked\nfor. It may help us here to turn to the piano for an illustration. The\nstruck keys are the motives, the notes that sound in consequence are the\ninstincts in action. This illustration might perhaps be allowed to pass\n(if we also suppose that entirely different keys can give out the same\nsound) if instincts could only be compared with _distinctly tuned_ notes,\nso that one and the same instinct acted always in the same manner on the\nrising of the motive which should set it in action. This, however, is\nnot so; for it is the blind unconscious purpose of the instinct that is\nalone constant, the instinct itself\u2014that is to say, the will to make use\nof certain means\u2014varying as the means that can be most suitably employed\nvary under varying circumstances.\n\nIn this we condemn the theory which refuses to recognise unconscious\npurpose as present in each individual case of instinctive action. For he\nwho maintains instinct to be the result of a mechanism of mind, must\nsuppose a special and constant mechanism for each variation and\nmodification of the instinct in accordance with exterior circumstances,\n{97} that is to say, a new string giving a note with a new tone must be\ninserted, and this would involve the mechanism in endless complication.\nBut the fact that the purpose is constant notwithstanding all manner of\nvariation in the means chosen by the instinct, proves that there is no\nnecessity for the supposition of such an elaborate mental mechanism\u2014the\npresence of an unconscious purpose being sufficient to explain the facts.\nThe purpose of the bird, for example, that has laid her eggs is constant,\nand consists in the desire to bring her young to maturity. When the\ntemperature of the air is insufficient to effect this, she sits upon her\neggs, and only intermits her sittings in the warmest countries; the\nmammal, on the other hand, attains the fulfilment of its instinctive\npurpose without any co-operation on its own part. In warm climates many\nbirds only sit by night, and small exotic birds that have built in\naviaries kept at a high temperature sit little upon their eggs or not at\nall. How inconceivable is the supposition of a mechanism that impels the\nbird to sit as soon as the temperature falls below a certain height! How\nclear and simple, on the other hand, is the view that there is an\nunconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird to the use of\nthe fitting means, of which process, however, only the last link, that is\nto say, the will immediately preceding the action falls within the\nconsciousness of the bird!\n\nIn South Africa the sparrow surrounds her nest with thorns as a defence\nagainst apes and serpents. The eggs of the cuckoo, as regards size,\ncolour, and marking, invariably resemble those of the birds in whose\nnests she lays. Sylvia _ruja_, for example, lays a white egg with violet\nspots; _Sylvia hippolais_, a red one with black spots; _Regulus\nignicapellus_, a cloudy red; but the cuckoo\u2019s egg is in each case so\ndeceptive an imitation of its model, that it can hardly be distinguished\nexcept by the structure of its shell.\n\nHuber contrived that his bees should be unable to build in their usual\ninstinctive manner, beginning from above and working downwards; on this\nthey began building from below, and again horizontally. The outermost\ncells that spring from the top of the hive or abut against its sides are\nnot hexagonal, but pentagonal, so as to gain in strength, being attached\nwith one base instead of two sides. In autumn bees lengthen their\nexisting honey cells if these are insufficient, but in the ensuing spring\nthey again shorten them in order to get greater roadway between the\ncombs. When the full combs have become too heavy, they strengthen the\nwalls of the uppermost or bearing cells by thickening them with wax and\npropolis. If larv\u00e6 of working bees are introduced into the cells set\napart for drones, the working bees will cover these cells with the flat\nlids usual for this kind of larv\u00e6, and not with the round ones that are\nproper for drones. In autumn, as a general rule, bees kill their drones,\nbut they refrain from doing this when they have lost their queen, and\nkeep them to fertilise the young queen, who will be developed from larv\u00e6\nthat would otherwise have become working bees. Huber observed that they\ndefend the entrance of their hive against the inroads of the sphinx moth\nby means of skilful constructions made of wax and propolis. They only\nintroduce propolis when they want it for the execution of repairs, or for\nsome other special purpose. Spiders and caterpillars also display\nmarvellous dexterity in the repair of their webs if they have been\ndamaged, and this requires powers perfectly distinct from those requisite\nfor the construction of a new one.\n\nThe above examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but they are\nsufficient to establish the fact that instincts are not capacities\nrolled, as it were, off a reel mechanically, according to an invariable\nsystem, but that they adapt themselves most closely to the circumstances\nof each case, and are capable of such great modification and variation\nthat at times they almost appear to cease to be instinctive.\n\nMany will, indeed, ascribe these modifications to conscious deliberation\non the part of the animals themselves, and it is impossible to deny that\nin the case of the more intellectually gifted animals there may be such a\nthing as a combination of instinctive faculty and conscious reflection.\nI think, however, the examples already cited are enough to show that\noften where the normal and the abnormal action springs from the same\nsource, without any complication with conscious deliberation, they are\neither both instinctive or both deliberative. {99} Or is that which\nprompts the bee to build hexagonal prisms in the middle of her comb\nsomething of an actually distinct character from that which impels her to\nbuild pentagonal ones at the sides? Are there two separate kinds of\nthing, one of which induces birds under certain circumstances to sit upon\ntheir eggs, while another leads them under certain other circumstances to\nrefrain from doing so? And does this hold good also with bees when they\nat one time kill their brethren without mercy and at another grant them\ntheir lives? Or with birds when they construct the kind of nest peculiar\nto their race, and, again, any special provision which they may think fit\nunder certain circumstances to take? If it is once granted that the\nnormal and the abnormal manifestations of instinct\u2014and they are often\nincapable of being distinguished\u2014spring from a single source, then the\nobjection that the modification is due to conscious knowledge will be\nfound to be a suicidal one later on, so far as it is directed against\ninstinct generally. It may be sufficient here to point out, in\nanticipation of remarks that will be found in later chapters, that\ninstinct and the power of organic development involve the same essential\nprinciple, though operating under different circumstances\u2014the two melting\ninto one another without any definite boundary between them. Here, then,\nwe have conclusive proof that instinct does not depend upon organisation\nof body or brain, but that, more truly, the organisation is due to the\nnature and manner of the instinct.\n\nOn the other hand, we must now return to a closer consideration of the\nconception of a psychical mechanism. {100} And here we find that this\nmechanism, in spite of its explaining so much, is itself so obscure that\nwe can hardly form any idea concerning it. The motive enters the mind by\nway of a conscious sensual impression; this is the first link of the\nprocess; the last link {101} appears as the conscious motive of an\naction. Both, however, are entirely unlike, and neither has anything to\ndo with ordinary motivation, which consists exclusively in the desire\nthat springs from a conception either of pleasure or dislike\u2014the former\nprompting to the attainment of any object, the latter to its avoidance.\nIn the case of instinct, pleasure is for the most part a concomitant\nphenomenon; but it is not so always, as we have already seen, inasmuch as\nthe consummation and highest moral development of instinct displays\nitself in self-sacrifice.\n\nThe true problem, however, lies far deeper than this. For every\nconception of a pleasure proves that we have experienced this pleasure\nalready. But it follows from this, that when the pleasure was first felt\nthere must have been will present, in the gratification of which will the\npleasure consisted; the question, therefore, arises, whence did the will\ncome before the pleasure that would follow on its gratification was\nknown, and before bodily pain, as, for example, of hunger, rendered\nrelief imperative? Yet we may see that even though an animal has grown\nup apart from any others of its kind, it will yet none the less manifest\nthe instinctive impulses of its race, though experience can have taught\nit nothing whatever concerning the pleasure that will ensue upon their\ngratification. As regards instinct, therefore, there must be a causal\nconnection between the motivating sensual conception and the will to\nperform the instinctive action, and the pleasure of the subsequent\ngratification has nothing to do with the matter. We know by the\nexperience of our own instincts that this causal connection does not lie\nwithin our consciousness; {102a} therefore, if it is to be a mechanism of\nany kind, it can only be either an unconscious mechanical induction and\nmetamorphosis of the vibrations of the conceived motive into the\nvibrations of the conscious action in the brain, or an unconscious\nspiritual mechanism.\n\nIn the first case, it is surely strange that this process should go on\nunconsciously, though it is so powerful in its effects that the will\nresulting from it overpowers every other consideration, every other kind\nof will, and that vibrations of this kind, when set up in the brain,\nbecome always consciously perceived; nor is it easy to conceive in what\nway this metamorphosis can take place so that the constant purpose can be\nattained under varying circumstances by the resulting will in modes that\nvary with variation of the special features of each individual case.\n\nBut if we take the other alternative, and suppose an unconscious mental\nmechanism, we cannot legitimately conceive of the process going on in\nthis as other than what prevails in all mental mechanism, namely, than as\nby way of idea and will. We are, therefore, compelled to imagine a\ncausal connection between the consciously recognised motive and the will\nto do the instinctive action, through unconscious idea and will; nor do I\nknow how this connection can be conceived as being brought about more\nsimply than through a conceived and willed purpose. {102b} Arrived at\nthis point, however, we have attained the logical mechanism peculiar to\nand inseparable from all mind, and find unconscious purpose to be an\nindispensable link in every instinctive action. With this, therefore,\nthe conception of a mental mechanism, dead and predestined from without,\nhas disappeared, and has become transformed into the spiritual life\ninseparable from logic, so that we have reached the sole remaining\nrequirement for the conception of an actual instinct, which proves to be\na conscious willing of the means towards an unconsciously willed purpose.\nThis conception explains clearly and without violence all the problems\nwhich instinct presents to us; or more truly, all that was problematical\nabout instinct disappears when its true nature has been thus declared.\nIf this work were confined to the consideration of instinct alone, the\nconception of an unconscious activity of mind might excite opposition,\ninasmuch as it is one with which our educated public is not yet familiar;\nbut in a work like the present, every chapter of which adduces fresh\nfacts in support of the existence of such an activity and of its\nremarkable consequences, the novelty of the theory should be taken no\nfarther into consideration.\n\nThough I so confidently deny that instinct is the simple action of a\nmechanism which has been contrived once for all, I by no means exclude\nthe supposition that in the constitution of the brain, the ganglia, and\nthe whole body, in respect of morphological as well as\nmolecular-physiological condition, certain predispositions can be\nestablished which direct the unconscious intermediaries more readily into\none channel than into another. This predisposition is either the result\nof a habit which keeps continually cutting for itself a deeper and deeper\nchannel, until in the end it leaves indelible traces whether in the\nindividual or in the race, or it is expressly called into being by the\nunconscious formative principle in generation, so as to facilitate action\nin a given direction. This last will be the case more frequently in\nrespect of exterior organisation\u2014as, for example, with the weapons or\nworking organs of animals\u2014while to the former must be referred the\nmolecular condition of brain and ganglia which bring about the\nperpetually recurring elements of an instinct such as the hexagonal shape\nof the cells of bees. We shall presently see that by individual\ncharacter we mean the sum of the individual methods of reaction against\nall possible motives, and that this character depends essentially upon a\nconstitution of mind and body acquired in some measure through habit by\nthe individual, but for the most part inherited. But an instinct is also\na mode of reaction against certain motives; here, too, then, we are\ndealing with character, though perhaps not so much with that of the\nindividual as of the race; for by character in regard to instinct we do\nnot intend the differences that distinguish individuals, but races from\none another. If any one chooses to maintain that such a predisposition\nfor certain kinds of activity on the part of brain and body constitutes a\nmechanism, this may in one sense be admitted; but as against this view it\nmust be remarked\u2014\n\n1. That such deviations from the normal scheme of an instinct as cannot\nbe referred to conscious deliberation are not provided for by any\npredisposition in this mechanism.\n\n2. That heredity is only possible under the circumstances of a constant\nsuperintendence of the embryonic development by a purposive unconscious\nactivity of growth. It must be admitted, however, that this is\ninfluenced in return by the predisposition existing in the germ.\n\n3. That the impressing of the predisposition upon the individual from\nwhom it is inherited can only be effected by long practice, consequently\nthe instinct without auxiliary mechanism {105a} is the originating cause\nof the auxiliary mechanism.\n\n4. That none of those instinctive actions that are performed rarely, or\nperhaps once only, in the lifetime of any individual\u2014as, for example,\nthose connected with the propagation and metamorphoses of the lower forms\nof life, and none of those instinctive omissions of action, neglect of\nwhich necessarily entails death\u2014can be conceived as having become\nengrained into the character through habit; the ganglionic constitution,\ntherefore, that predisposes the animal towards them must have been\nfashioned purposively.\n\n5. That even the presence of an auxiliary mechanism {105b} does not\ncompel the unconscious to a particular corresponding mode of instinctive\naction, but only predisposes it. This is shown by the possibility of\ndeparture from the normal type of action, so that the unconscious purpose\nis always stronger than the ganglionic constitution, and takes any\nopportunity of choosing from several similar possible courses the one\nthat is handiest and most convenient to the constitution of the\nindividual.\n\nWe now approach the question that I have reserved for our final one,\u2014Is\nthere, namely, actually such a thing as instinct, {105c} or are all\nso-called instinctive actions only the results of conscious deliberation?\n\nIn support of the second of these two views, it may be alleged that the\nmore limited is the range of the conscious mental activity of any living\nbeing, the more fully developed in proportion to its entire mental power\nis its performance commonly found to be in respect of its own limited and\nspecial instinctive department. This holds as good with the lower\nanimals as with men, and is explained by the fact that perfection of\nproficiency is only partly dependent upon natural capacity, but is in\ngreat measure due to practice and cultivation of the original faculty. A\nphilologist, for example, is unskilled in questions of jurisprudence; a\nnatural philosopher or mathematician, in philology; an abstract\nphilosopher, in poetical criticism. Nor has this anything to do with the\nnatural talents of the several persons, but follows as a consequence of\ntheir special training. The more special, therefore, is the direction in\nwhich the mental activity of any living being is exercised, the more will\nthe whole developing and practising power of the mind be brought to bear\nupon this one branch, so that it is not surprising if the special power\ncomes ultimately to bear an increased proportion to the total power of\nthe individual, through the contraction of the range within which it is\nexercised.\n\nThose, however, who apply this to the elucidation of instinct should not\nforget the words, \u201cin proportion to the entire mental power of the animal\nin question,\u201d and should bear in mind that the entire mental power\nbecomes less and less continually as we descend the scale of animal life,\nwhereas proficiency in the performance of an instinctive action seems to\nbe much of a muchness in all grades of the animal world. As, therefore,\nthose performances which indisputably proceed from conscious deliberation\ndecrease proportionately with decrease of mental power, while nothing of\nthe kind is observable in the case of instinct\u2014it follows that instinct\nmust involve some other principle than that of conscious intelligence.\nWe see, moreover, that actions which have their source in conscious\nintelligence are of one and the same kind, whether among the lower\nanimals or with mankind\u2014that is to say, that they are acquired by\napprenticeship or instruction and perfected by practice; so that the\nsaying, \u201cAge brings wisdom,\u201d holds good with the brutes as much as with\nourselves. Instinctive actions, on the contrary, have a special and\ndistinct character, in that they are performed with no less proficiency\nby animals that have been reared in solitude than by those that have been\ninstructed by their parents, the first essays of a hitherto unpractised\nanimal being as successful as its later ones. There is a difference in\nprinciple here which cannot be mistaken. Again, we know by experience\nthat the feebler and more limited an intelligence is, the more slowly do\nideas act upon it, that is to say, the slower and more laborious is its\nconscious thought. So long as instinct does not come into play, this\nholds good both in the case of men of different powers of comprehension\nand with animals; but with instinct all is changed, for it is the\nspeciality of instinct never to hesitate or loiter, but to take action\ninstantly upon perceiving that the stimulating motive has made its\nappearance. This rapidity in arriving at a resolution is common to the\ninstinctive actions both of the highest and the lowest animals, and\nindicates an essential difference between instinct and conscious\ndeliberation.\n\nFinally, as regards perfection of the power of execution, a glance will\nsuffice to show the disproportion that exists between this and the grade\nof intellectual activity on which an animal may be standing. Take, for\ninstance, the caterpillar of the emperor moth (_Saturnia pavonia minor_).\nIt eats the leaves of the bush upon which it was born; at the utmost has\njust enough sense to get on to the lower sides of the leaves if it begins\nto rain, and from time to time changes its skin. This is its whole\nexistence, which certainly does not lead us to expect a display of any,\neven the most limited, intellectual power. When, however, the time comes\nfor the larva of this moth to become a chrysalis, it spins for itself a\ndouble cocoon, fortified with bristles that point outwards, so that it\ncan be opened easily from within, though it is sufficiently impenetrable\nfrom without. If this contrivance were the result of conscious\nreflection, we should have to suppose some such reasoning process as the\nfollowing to take place in the mind of the caterpillar:\u2014\u201cI am about to\nbecome a chrysalis, and, motionless as I must be, shall be exposed to\nmany different kinds of attack. I must therefore weave myself a web.\nBut when I am a moth I shall not be able, as some moths are, to find my\nway out of it by chemical or mechanical means; therefore I must leave a\nway open for myself. In order, however, that my enemies may not take\nadvantage of this, I will close it with elastic bristles, which I can\neasily push asunder from within, but which, upon the principle of the\narch, will resist all pressure from without.\u201d Surely this is asking\nrather too much from a poor caterpillar; yet the whole of the foregoing\nmust be thought out if a correct result is to be arrived at.\n\nThis theoretical separation of instinct from conscious intelligence can\nbe easily misrepresented by opponents of my theory, as though a\nseparation in practice also would be necessitated in consequence. This\nis by no means my intention. On the contrary, I have already insisted at\nsome length that both the two kinds of mental activity may co-exist in\nall manner of different proportions, so that there may be every degree of\ncombination, from pure instinct to pure deliberation. We shall see,\nhowever, in a later chapter, that even in the highest and most abstract\nactivity of human consciousness there are forces at work that are of the\nhighest importance, and are essentially of the same kind as instinct.\n\nOn the other hand, the most marvellous displays of instinct are to be\nfound not only in plants, but also in those lowest organisms of the\nsimplest bodily form which are partly unicellular, and in respect of\nconscious intelligence stand far below the higher plants\u2014to which,\nindeed, any kind of deliberative faculty is commonly denied. Even in the\ncase of those minute microscopic organisms that baffle our attempts to\nclassify them either as animals or vegetables, we are still compelled to\nadmire an instinctive, purposive behaviour, which goes far beyond a mere\nreflex responsive to a stimulus from without; all doubt, therefore,\nconcerning the actual existence of an instinct must be at an end, and the\nattempt to deduce it as a consequence of conscious deliberation be given\nup as hopeless. I will here adduce an instance as extraordinary as any\nwe yet know of, showing, as it does, that many different purposes, which\nin the case of the higher animals require a complicated system of organs\nof motion, can be attained with incredibly simple means.\n\n_Arcella vulgaris_ is a minute morsel of protoplasm, which lives in a\nconcave-convex, brown, finely reticulated shell, through a circular\nopening in the concave side of which it can project itself by throwing\nout _pseudopodia_. If we look through the microscope at a drop of water\ncontaining living _arcell\u00e6_, we may happen to see one of them lying on\nits back at the bottom of the drop, and making fruitless efforts for two\nor three minutes to lay hold of some fixed point by means of a\n_pseudopodium_. After this there will appear suddenly from two to five,\nbut sometimes more, dark points in the protoplasm at a small distance\nfrom the circumference, and, as a rule, at regular distances from one\nanother. These rapidly develop themselves into well-defined spherical\nair vesicles, and come presently to fill a considerable part of the\nhollow of the shell, thereby driving part of the protoplasm outside it.\nAfter from five to twenty minutes, the specific gravity of the _arcella_\nis so much lessened that it is lifted by the water with its\n_pseudopodia_, and brought up against the upper surface of the\nwater-drop, on which it is able to travel. In from five to ten minutes\nthe vesicles will now disappear, the last small point vanishing with a\njerk. If, however, the creature has been accidentally turned over during\nits journey, and reaches the top of the water-drop with its back\nuppermost, the vesicles will continue growing only on one side, while\nthey diminish on the other; by this means the shell is brought first into\nan oblique and then into a vertical position, until one of the\n_pseudopodia_ obtains a footing and the whole turns over. From the\nmoment the animal has obtained foothold, the bladders become immediately\nsmaller, and after they have disappeared the experiment may be repeated\nat pleasure.\n\nThe positions of the protoplasm which the vesicles fashion change\ncontinually; only the grainless protoplasm of the _pseudopodia_ develops\nno air. After long and fruitless efforts a manifest fatigue sets in; the\nanimal gives up the attempt for a time, and resumes it after an interval\nof repose.\n\nEngelmann, the discoverer of these phenomena, says (Pfl\u00fcger\u2019s Archiv f\u00fcr\nPhysologie, Bd. II.): \u201cThe changes in volume in all the vesicles of the\nsame animal are for the most part synchronous, effected in the same\nmanner, and of like size. There are, however, not a few exceptions; it\noften happens that some of them increase or diminish in volume much\nfaster than others; sometimes one may increase while another diminishes;\nall the changes, however, are throughout unquestionably intentional. The\nobject of the air-vesicles is to bring the animal into such a position\nthat it can take fast hold of something with its _pseudopodia_. When\nthis has been obtained, the air disappears without our being able to\ndiscover any other reason for its disappearance than the fact that it is\nno longer needed. . . . If we bear these circumstances in mind, we can\nalmost always tell whether an _arcella_ will develop air-vesicles or no;\nand if it has already developed them, we can tell whether they will\nincrease or diminish . . . The _arcell\u00e6_, in fact, in this power of\naltering their specific gravity possess a mechanism for raising\nthemselves to the top of the water, or lowering themselves to the bottom\nat will. They use this not only in the abnormal circumstances of their\nbeing under microscopical observation, but at all times, as may be known\nby our being always able to find some specimens with air-bladders at the\ntop of the water in which they live.\u201d\n\nIf what has been already advanced has failed to convince the reader of\nthe hopelessness of attempting to explain instinct as a mode of conscious\ndeliberation, he must admit that the following considerations are\nconclusive. It is most certain that deliberation and conscious\nreflection can only take account of such data as are consciously\nperceived; if, then, it can be shown that data absolutely indispensable\nfor the arrival at a just conclusion cannot by any possibility have been\nknown consciously, the result can no longer be held as having had its\nsource in conscious deliberation. It is admitted that the only way in\nwhich consciousness can arrive at a knowledge of exterior facts is by way\nof an impression made upon the senses. We must, therefore, prove that a\nknowledge of the facts indispensable for arrival at a just conclusion\ncould not have been thus acquired. This may be done as follows: {111}\nfor, Firstly, the facts in question lie in the future, and the present\ngives no ground for conjecturing the time and manner of their subsequent\ndevelopment.\n\nSecondly, they are manifestly debarred from the category of perceptions\nperceived through the senses, inasmuch as no information can be derived\nconcerning them except through experience of similar occurrences in time\npast, and such experience is plainly out of the question.\n\nIt would not affect the argument if, as I think likely, it were to turn\nout, with the advance of our physiological knowledge, that all the\nexamples of the first case that I am about to adduce reduce themselves to\nexamples of the second, as must be admitted to have already happened in\nrespect of many that I have adduced hitherto. For it is hardly more\ndifficult to conceive of _\u00e0 priori_ knowledge, disconnected from any\nimpression made upon the senses, than of knowledge which, it is true,\ndoes at the present day manifest itself upon the occasion of certain\ngeneral perceptions, but which can only be supposed to be connected with\nthese by means of such a chain of inferences and judiciously applied\nknowledge as cannot be believed to exist when we have regard to the\ncapacity and organisation of the animal we may be considering.\n\nAn example of the first case is supplied by the larva of the stag-beetle\nin its endeavour to make itself a convenient hole in which to become a\nchrysalis. The female larva digs a hole exactly her own size, but the\nmale makes one as long again as himself, so as to allow for the growth of\nhis horns, which will be about the same length as his body. A knowledge\nof this circumstance is indispensable if the result achieved is to be\nconsidered as due to reflection, yet the actual present of the larva\naffords it no ground for conjecturing beforehand the condition in which\nit will presently find itself.\n\nAs regards the second case, ferrets and buzzards fall forthwith upon\nblind worms or other non-poisonous snakes, and devour them then and\nthere. But they exhibit the greatest caution in laying hold of adders,\neven though they have never before seen one, and will endeavour first to\nbruise their heads, so as to avoid being bitten. As there is nothing in\nany other respect alarming in the adder, a conscious knowledge of the\ndanger of its bite is indispensable, if the conduct above described is to\nbe referred to conscious deliberation. But this could only have been\nacquired through experience, and the possibility of such experience may\nbe controlled in the case of animals that have been kept in captivity\nfrom their youth up, so that the knowledge displayed can be ascertained\nto be independent of experience. On the other hand, both the above\nillustrations afford evidence of an unconscious perception of the facts,\nand prove the existence of a direct knowledge underivable from any\nsensual impression or from consciousness.\n\nThis has always been recognised, {113} and has been described under the\nwords \u201cpresentiment\u201d or \u201cforeboding.\u201d These words, however, refer, on\nthe one hand, only to an unknowable in the future, separated from us by\nspace, and not to one that is actually present; on the other hand, they\ndenote only the faint, dull, indefinite echo returned by consciousness to\nan invariably distinct state of unconscious knowledge. Hence the word\n\u201cpresentiment,\u201d which carries with it an idea of faintness and\nindistinctness, while, however, it may be easily seen that sentiment\ndestitute of all, even unconscious, ideas can have no influence upon the\nresult, for knowledge can only follow upon an idea. A presentiment that\nsounds in consonance with our consciousness can indeed, under certain\ncircumstances, become tolerably definite, so that in the case of man it\ncan be expressed in thought and language; but experience teaches us that\neven among ourselves this is not so when instincts special to the human\nrace come into play; we see rather that the echo of our unconscious\nknowledge which finds its way into our consciousness is so weak that it\nmanifests itself only in the accompanying feelings or frame of mind, and\nrepresents but an infinitely small fraction of the sum of our sensations.\nIt is obvious that such a faintly sympathetic consciousness cannot form a\nsufficient foundation for a superstructure of conscious deliberation; on\nthe other hand, conscious deliberation would be unnecessary, inasmuch as\nthe process of thinking must have been already gone through\nunconsciously, for every faint presentiment that obtrudes itself upon our\nconsciousness is in fact only the consequence of a distinct unconscious\nknowledge, and the knowledge with which it is concerned is almost always\nan idea of the purpose of some instinctive action, or of one most\nintimately connected therewith. Thus, in the case of the stag-beetle,\nthe purpose consists in the leaving space for the growth of the horns;\nthe means, in the digging the hole of a sufficient size; and the\nunconscious knowledge, in prescience concerning the future development of\nthe horns.\n\nLastly, all instinctive actions give us an impression of absolute\nsecurity and infallibility. With instinct the will is never hesitating\nor weak, as it is when inferences are being drawn consciously. We never\nfind instinct making mistakes; we cannot, therefore, ascribe a result\nwhich is so invariably precise to such an obscure condition of mind as is\nimplied when the word presentiment is used; on the contrary, this\nabsolute certainty is so characteristic a feature of instinctive actions,\nthat it constitutes almost the only well-marked point of distinction\nbetween these and actions that are done upon reflection. But from this\nit must again follow that some principle lies at the root of instinct\nother than that which underlies reflective action, and this can only be\nlooked for in a determination of the will through a process that lies in\nthe unconscious, {115a} to which this character of unhesitating\ninfallibility will attach itself in all our future investigations.\n\nMany will be surprised at my ascribing to instinct an unconscious\nknowledge, arising out of no sensual impression, and yet invariably\naccurate. This, however, is not a consequence of my theory concerning\ninstinct; it is the foundation on which that theory is based, and is\nforced upon us by facts. I must therefore adduce examples. And to give\na name to the unconscious knowledge, which is not acquired through\nimpression made upon the senses, but which will be found to be in our\npossession, though attained without the instrumentality of means, {115b}\nI prefer the word \u201cclairvoyance\u201d {115c} to \u201cpresentiment,\u201d which, for\nreasons already given, will not serve me. This word, therefore, will be\nhere employed throughout, as above defined.\n\nLet us now consider examples of the instincts of self-preservation,\nsubsistence, migration, and the continuation of the species. Most\nanimals know their natural enemies prior to experience of any hostile\ndesigns upon themselves. A flight of young pigeons, even though they\nhave no old birds with them, will become shy, and will separate from one\nanother on the approach of a bird of prey. Horses and cattle that come\nfrom countries where there are no lions become unquiet and display alarm\nas soon as they are aware that a lion is approaching them in the night.\nHorses going along a bridle-path that used to leave the town at the back\nof the old dens of the carnivora in the Berlin Zoological Gardens were\noften terrified by the propinquity of enemies who were entirely unknown\nto them. Sticklebacks will swim composedly among a number of voracious\npike, knowing, as they do, that the pike will not touch them. For if a\npike once by mistake swallows a stickleback, the stickleback will stick\nin its throat by reason of the spine it carries upon its back, and the\npike must starve to death without being able to transmit his painful\nexperience to his descendants. In some countries there are people who by\nchoice eat dog\u2019s flesh; dogs are invariably savage in the presence of\nthese persons, as recognising in them enemies at whose hands they may one\nday come to harm. This is the more wonderful inasmuch as dog\u2019s fat\napplied externally (as when rubbed upon boots) attracts dogs by its\nsmell. Grant saw a young chimpanzee throw itself into convulsions of\nterror at the sight of a large snake; and even among ourselves a Gretchen\ncan often detect a Mephistopheles. An insect of the genius _bombyx_ will\nseize another of the genus _parnop\u00e6a_, and kill it wherever it finds it,\nwithout making any subsequent use of the body; but we know that the\nlast-named insect lies in wait for the eggs of the first, and is\ntherefore the natural enemy of its race. The phenomenon known to\nstockdrivers and shepherds as \u201cdas Biesen des Viehes\u201d affords another\nexample. For when a \u201cdassel\u201d or \u201cbies\u201d fly draws near the herd, the\ncattle become unmanageable and run about among one another as though they\nwere mad, knowing, as they do, that the larv\u00e6 from the eggs which the fly\nwill lay upon them will presently pierce their hides and occasion them\npainful sores. These \u201cdassel\u201d flies\u2014which have no sting\u2014closely resemble\nanother kind of gadfly which has a sting. Nevertheless, this last kind\nis little feared by cattle, while the first is so to an inordinate\nextent. The laying of the eggs upon the skin is at the time quite\npainless, and no ill consequences follow until long afterwards, so that\nwe cannot suppose the cattle to draw a conscious inference concerning the\nconnection that exists between the two. I have already spoken of the\nforesight shown by ferrets and buzzards in respect of adders; in like\nmanner a young honey-buzzard, on being shown a wasp for the first time,\nimmediately devoured it after having squeezed the sting from its body.\nNo animal, whose instinct has not been vitiated by unnatural habits, will\neat poisonous plants. Even when apes have contracted bad habits through\ntheir having been brought into contact with mankind, they can still be\ntrusted to show us whether certain fruits found in their native forests\nare poisonous or no; for if poisonous fruits are offered them they will\nrefuse them with loud cries. Every animal will choose for its sustenance\nexactly those animal or vegetable substances which agree best with its\ndigestive organs, without having received any instruction on the matter,\nand without testing them beforehand. Even, indeed, though we assume that\nthe power of distinguishing the different kinds of food is due to sight\nand not to smell, it remains none the less mysterious how the animal can\nknow what it is that will agree with it. Thus the kid which Galen took\nprematurely from its mother smelt at all the different kinds of food that\nwere set before it, but drank only the milk without touching anything\nelse. The cherry-finch opens a cherry-stone by turning it so that her\nbeak can hit the part where the two sides join, and does this as much\nwith the first stone she cracks as with the last. Fitchets, martens, and\nweasels make small holes on the opposite sides of an egg which they are\nabout to suck, so that the air may come in while they are sucking. Not\nonly do animals know the food that will suit them best, but they find out\nthe most suitable remedies when they are ill, and constantly form a\ncorrect diagnosis of their malady with a therapeutical knowledge which\nthey cannot possibly have acquired. Dogs will often eat a great quantity\nof grass\u2014particularly couch-grass\u2014when they are unwell, especially after\nspring, if they have worms, which thus pass from them entangled in the\ngrass, or if they want to get fragments of bone from out of their\nstomachs. As a purgative they make use of plants that sting. Hens and\npigeons pick lime from walls and pavements if their food does not afford\nthem lime enough to make their eggshells with. Little children eat chalk\nwhen suffering from acidity of the stomach, and pieces of charcoal if\nthey are troubled with flatulence. We may observe these same instincts\nfor certain kinds of food or drugs even among grown-up people, under\ncircumstances in which their unconscious nature has unusual power; as,\nfor example, among women when they are pregnant, whose capricious\nappetites are probably due to some special condition of the f\u0153tus, which\nrenders a certain state of the blood desirable. Field-mice bite off the\ngerms of the corn which they collect together, in order to prevent its\ngrowing during the winter. Some days before the beginning of cold\nweather the squirrel is most assiduous in augmenting its store, and then\ncloses its dwelling. Birds of passage betake themselves to warmer\ncountries at times when there is still no scarcity of food for them here,\nand when the temperature is considerably warmer than it will be when they\nreturn to us. The same holds good of the time when animals begin to\nprepare their winter quarters, which beetles constantly do during the\nvery hottest days of autumn. When swallows and storks find their way\nback to their native places over distances of hundreds of miles, and\nthough the aspect of the country is reversed, we say that this is due to\nthe acuteness of their perception of locality; but the same cannot be\nsaid of dogs, which, though they have been carried in a bag from one\nplace to another that they do not know, and have been turned round and\nround twenty times over, have still been known to find their way home.\nHere we can say no more than that their instinct has conducted them\u2014that\nthe clairvoyance of the unconscious has allowed them to conjecture their\nway. {119a}\n\nBefore an early winter, birds of passage collect themselves in\npreparation for their flight sooner than usual; but when the winter is\ngoing to be mild, they will either not migrate at all, or travel only a\nsmall distance southward. When a hard winter is coming, tortoises will\nmake their burrows deeper. If wild geese, cranes, etc., soon return from\nthe countries to which they had betaken themselves at the beginning of\nspring, it is a sign that a hot and dry summer is about to ensue in those\ncountries, and that the drought will prevent their being able to rear\ntheir young. In years of flood, beavers construct their dwellings at a\nhigher level than usual, and shortly before an inundation the field-mice\nin Kamtschatka come out of their holes in large bands. If the summer is\ngoing to be dry, spiders may be seen in May and April, hanging from the\nends of threads several feet in length. If in winter spiders are seen\nrunning about much, fighting with one another and preparing new webs,\nthere will be cold weather within the next nine days, or from that to\ntwelve: when they again hide themselves there will be a thaw. I have no\ndoubt that much of this power of prophesying the weather is due to a\nperception of certain atmospheric conditions which escape ourselves, but\nthis perception can only have relation to a certain actual and now\npresent condition of the weather; and what can the impression made by\nthis have to do with their idea of the weather that will ensue? No one\nwill ascribe to animals a power of prognosticating the weather months\nbeforehand by means of inferences drawn logically from a series of\nobservations, {119b} to the extent of being able to foretell floods. It\nis far more probable that the power of perceiving subtle differences of\nactual atmospheric condition is nothing more than the sensual perception\nwhich acts as motive\u2014for a motive must assuredly be always present\u2014when\nan instinct comes into operation. It continues to hold good, therefore,\nthat the power of foreseeing the weather is a case of unconscious\nclairvoyance, of which the stork which takes its departure for the south\nfour weeks earlier than usual knows no more than does the stag when\nbefore a cold winter he grows himself a thicker pelt than is his wont.\nOn the one hand, animals have present in their consciousness a perception\nof the actual state of the weather; on the other, their ensuing action is\nprecisely such as it would be if the idea present with them was that of\nthe weather that is about to come. This they cannot consciously have;\nthe only natural intermediate link, therefore, between their conscious\nknowledge and their action is supplied by unconscious idea, which,\nhowever, is always accurately prescient, inasmuch as it contains\nsomething which is neither given directly to the animal through sensual\nperception, nor can be deduced inferentially through the understanding.\n\nMost wonderful of all are the instincts connected with the continuation\nof the species. The males always find out the females of their own kind,\nbut certainly not solely through their resemblance to themselves. With\nmany animals, as, for example, parasitic crabs, the sexes so little\nresemble one another that the male would be more likely to seek a mate\nfrom the females of a thousand other species than from his own. Certain\nbutterflies are polymorphic, and not only do the males and females of the\nsame species differ, but the females present two distinct forms, one of\nwhich as a general rule mimics the outward appearance of a distant but\nhighly valued species; yet the males will pair only with the females of\ntheir own kind, and not with the strangers, though these may be very\nlikely much more like the males themselves. Among the insect species of\nthe _strepsiptera_, the female is a shapeless worm which lives its whole\nlife long in the hind body of a wasp; its head, which is of the shape of\na lentil, protrudes between two of the belly rings of the wasp, the rest\nof the body being inside. The male, which only lives for a few hours,\nand resembles a moth, nevertheless recognises his mate in spite of these\nadverse circumstances, and fecundates her.\n\nBefore any experience of parturition, the knowledge that it is\napproaching drives all mammals into solitude, and bids them prepare a\nnest for their young in a hole or in some other place of shelter. The\nbird builds her nest as soon as she feels the eggs coming to maturity\nwithin her. Snails, land-crabs, tree-frogs, and toads, all of them\nordinarily dwellers upon land, now betake themselves to the water;\nsea-tortoises go on shore, and many saltwater fishes come up into the\nrivers in order to lay their eggs where they can alone find the\nrequisites for their development. Insects lay their eggs in the most\nvaried kinds of situations,\u2014in sand, on leaves, under the hides and horny\nsubstances of other animals; they often select the spot where the larva\nwill be able most readily to find its future sustenance, as in autumn\nupon the trees that will open first in the coming spring, or in spring\nupon the blossoms that will first bear fruit in autumn, or in the insides\nof those caterpillars which will soonest as chrysalides provide the\nparasitic larva at once with food and with protection. Other insects\nselect the sites from which they will first get forwarded to the\ndestination best adapted for their development. Thus some horseflies lay\ntheir eggs upon the lips of horses or upon parts where they are\naccustomed to lick themselves. The eggs get conveyed hence into the\nentrails, the proper place for their development,\u2014and are excreted upon\ntheir arrival at maturity. The flies that infest cattle know so well how\nto select the most vigorous and healthiest beasts, that cattle-dealers\nand tanners place entire dependence upon them, and prefer those beasts\nand hides that are most scarred by maggots. This selection of the best\ncattle by the help of these flies is no evidence in support of the\nconclusion that the flies possess the power of making experiments\nconsciously and of reflecting thereupon, even though the men whose trade\nit is to do this recognise them as their masters. The solitary wasp\nmakes a hole several inches deep in the sand, lays her egg, and packs\nalong with it a number of green maggots that have no legs, and which,\nbeing on the point of becoming chrysalides, are well nourished and able\nto go a long time without food; she packs these maggots so closely\ntogether that they cannot move nor turn into chrysalides, and just enough\nof them to support the larva until it becomes a chrysalis. A kind of bug\n(_cerceris bupresticida_), which itself lives only upon pollen, lays her\neggs in an underground cell, and with each one of them she deposits three\nbeetles, which she has lain in wait for and captured when they were still\nweak through having only just left off being chrysalides. She kills\nthese beetles, and appears to smear them with a fluid whereby she\npreserves them fresh and suitable for food. Many kinds of wasps open the\ncells in which their larv\u00e6 are confined when these must have consumed the\nprovision that was left with them. They supply them with more food, and\nagain close the cell. Ants, again, hit always upon exactly the right\nmoment for opening the cocoons in which their larv\u00e6 are confined and for\nsetting them free, the larva being unable to do this for itself. Yet the\nlife of only a few kinds of insects lasts longer than a single breeding\nseason. What then can they know about the contents of their eggs and the\nfittest place for their development? What can they know about the kind\nof food the larva will want when it leaves the egg\u2014a food so different\nfrom their own? What, again, can they know about the quantity of food\nthat will be necessary? How much of all this at least can they know\nconsciously? Yet their actions, the pains they take, and the importance\nthey evidently attach to these matters, prove that they have a\nforeknowledge of the future: this knowledge therefore can only be an\nunconscious clairvoyance. For clairvoyance it must certainly be that\ninspires the will of an animal to open cells and cocoons at the very\nmoment that the larva is either ready for more food or fit for leaving\nthe cocoon. The eggs of the cuckoo do not take only from two to three\ndays to mature in her ovaries, as those of most birds do, but require\nfrom eleven to twelve; the cuckoo, therefore, cannot sit upon her own\neggs, for her first egg would be spoiled before the last was laid. She\ntherefore lays in other birds\u2019 nests\u2014of course laying each egg in a\ndifferent nest. But in order that the birds may not perceive her egg to\nbe a stranger and turn it out of the nest, not only does she lay an egg\nmuch smaller than might be expected from a bird of her size (for she only\nfinds her opportunity among small birds), but, as already said, she\nimitates the other eggs in the nest she has selected with surprising\naccuracy in respect both of colour and marking. As the cuckoo chooses\nthe nest some days beforehand, it may be thought, if the nest is an open\none, that the cuckoo looks upon the colour of the eggs within it while\nher own is in process of maturing inside her, and that it is thus her egg\ncomes to assume the colour of the others; but this explanation will not\nhold good for nests that are made in the holes of trees, as that of\n_sylvia ph\u00e6nicurus_, or which are oven-shaped with a narrow entrance, as\nwith _sylvia rufa_. In these cases the cuckoo can neither slip in nor\nlook in, and must therefore lay her egg outside the nest and push it\ninside with her beak; she can therefore have no means of perceiving\nthrough her senses what the eggs already in the nest are like. If, then,\nin spite of all this, her egg closely resembles the others, this can only\nhave come about through an unconscious clairvoyance which directs the\nprocess that goes on within the ovary in respect of colour and marking.\n\nAn important argument in support of the existence of a clairvoyance in\nthe instincts of animals is to be found in the series of facts which\ntestify to the existence of a like clairvoyance, under certain\ncircumstances, even among human beings, while the self-curative instincts\nof children and of pregnant women have been already mentioned. Here,\nhowever, {124} in correspondence with the higher stage of development\nwhich human consciousness has attained, a stronger echo of the\nunconscious clairvoyance commonly resounds within consciousness itself,\nand this is represented by a more or less definite presentiment of the\nconsequences that will ensue. It is also in accord with the greater\nindependence of the human intellect that this kind of presentiment is not\nfelt exclusively immediately before the carrying out of an action, but is\noccasionally disconnected from the condition that an action has to be\nperformed immediately, and displays itself simply as an idea\nindependently of conscious will, provided only that the matter concerning\nwhich the presentiment is felt is one which in a high degree concerns the\nwill of the person who feels it. In the intervals of an intermittent\nfever or of other illness, it not unfrequently happens that sick persons\ncan accurately foretell the day of an approaching attack and how long it\nwill last. The same thing occurs almost invariably in the case of\nspontaneous, and generally in that of artificial, somnambulism; certainly\nthe Pythia, as is well known, used to announce the date of her next\necstatic state. In like manner the curative instinct displays itself in\nsomnambulists, and they have been known to select remedies that have been\nno less remarkable for the success attending their employment than for\nthe completeness with which they have run counter to received\nprofessional opinion. The indication of medicinal remedies is the only\nuse which respectable electro-biologists will make of the half-sleeping,\nhalf-waking condition of those whom they are influencing. \u201cPeople in\nperfectly sound health have been known, before childbirth or at the\ncommencement of an illness, to predict accurately their own approaching\ndeath. The accomplishment of their predictions can hardly be explained\nas the result of mere chance, for if this were all, the prophecy should\nfail at least as often as not, whereas the reverse is actually the case.\nMany of these persons neither desire death nor fear it, so that the\nresult cannot be ascribed to imagination.\u201d So writes the celebrated\nphysiologist, Burdach, from whose chapter on presentiment in his work\n\u201cBhicke in\u2019s Leben\u201d a great part of my most striking examples is taken.\nThis presentiment of deaths, which is the exception among men, is quite\ncommon with animals, even though they do not know nor understand what\ndeath is. When they become aware that their end is approaching, they\nsteal away to outlying and solitary places. This is why in cities we so\nrarely see the dead body or skeleton of a cat. We can only suppose that\nthe unconscious clairvoyance, which is of essentially the same kind\nwhether in man or beast, calls forth presentiments of different degrees\nof definiteness, so that the cat is driven to withdraw herself through a\nmere instinct without knowing why she does so, while in man a definite\nperception is awakened of the fact that he is about to die. Not only do\npeople have presentiments concerning their own death, but there are many\ninstances on record in which they have become aware of that of those near\nand dear to them, the dying person having appeared in a dream to friend\nor wife or husband. Stories to this effect prevail among all nations,\nand unquestionably contain much truth. Closely connected with this is\nthe power of second sight, which existed formerly in Scotland, and still\ndoes so in the Danish islands. This power enables certain people without\nany ecstasy, but simply through their keener perception, to foresee\ncoming events, or to tell what is going on in foreign countries on\nmatters in which they are deeply interested, such as deaths, battles,\nconflagrations (Swedenborg foretold the burning of Stockholm), the\narrival or the doings of friends who are at a distance. With many\npersons this clairvoyance is confined to a knowledge of the death of\ntheir acquaintances or fellow-townspeople. There have been a great many\ninstances of such death-prophetesses, and, what is most important, some\ncases have been verified in courts of law. I may say, in passing, that\nthis power of second sight is found in persons who are in ecstatic\nstates, in the spontaneous or artificially induced somnambulism of the\nhigher kinds of waking dreams, as well as in lucid moments before death.\nThese prophetic glimpses, by which the clairvoyance of the unconscious\nreveals itself to consciousness, {126} are commonly obscure because in\nthe brain they must assume a form perceptible by the senses, whereas the\nunconscious idea can have nothing to do with any form of sensual\nimpression: it is for this reason that humours, dreams, and the\nhallucinations of sick persons can so easily have a false signification\nattached to them. The chances of error and self-deception that arise\nfrom this source, the ease with which people may be deceived\nintentionally, and the mischief which, as a general rule, attends a\nknowledge of the future, these considerations place beyond all doubt the\npractical unwisdom of attempts to arrive at certainty concerning the\nfuture. This, however, cannot affect the weight which in theory should\nbe attached to phenomena of this kind, and must not prevent us from\nrecognising the positive existence of the clairvoyance whose existence I\nam maintaining, though it is often hidden under a chaos of madness and\nimposture.\n\nThe materialistic and rationalistic tendencies of the present day lead\nmost people either to deny facts of this kind _in toto_, or to ignore\nthem, inasmuch as they are inexplicable from a materialistic standpoint,\nand cannot be established by the inductive or experimental method\u2014as\nthough this last were not equally impossible in the case of morals,\nsocial science, and politics. A mind of any candour will only be able to\ndeny the truths of this entire class of phenomena so long as it remains\nin ignorance of the facts that have been related concerning them; but,\nagain, a continuance in this ignorance can only arise from unwillingness\nto be convinced. I am satisfied that many of those who deny all human\npower of divination would come to another, and, to say the least, more\ncautious conclusion if they would be at the pains of further\ninvestigation; and I hold that no one, even at the present day, need be\nashamed of joining in with an opinion which was maintained by all the\ngreat spirits of antiquity except Epicurus\u2014an opinion whose possible\ntruth hardly one of our best modern philosophers has ventured to\ncontravene, and which the champions of German enlightenment were so\nlittle disposed to relegate to the domain of old wives\u2019 tales, that\nGoethe furnishes us with an example of second sight that fell within his\nown experience, and confirms it down to its minutest details.\n\nAlthough I am far from believing that the kind of phenomena above\nreferred to form in themselves a proper foundation for a superstructure\nof scientific demonstration, I nevertheless find them valuable as a\ncompletion and further confirmation of the series of phenomena presented\nto us by the clairvoyance which we observe in human and animal instinct.\nEven though they only continue this series {128} through the echo that is\nawakened within our consciousness, they as powerfully support the account\nwhich instinctive actions give concerning their own nature, as they are\nthemselves supported by the analogy they present to the clairvoyance\nobservable in instinct. This, then, as well as my desire not to lose an\nopportunity of protesting against a modern prejudice, must stand as my\nreason for having allowed myself to refer, in a scientific work, to a\nclass of phenomena which has fallen at present into so much discredit.\n\nI will conclude with a few words upon a special kind of instinct which\nhas a very instructive bearing upon the subject generally, and shows how\nimpossible it is to evade the supposition of an unconscious clairvoyance\non the part of instinct. In the examples adduced hitherto, the action of\neach individual has been done on the individual\u2019s own behalf, except in\nthe case of instincts connected with the continuation of the species,\nwhere the action benefits others\u2014that is to say, the offspring of the\ncreature performing it.\n\nWe must now examine the cases in which a solidarity of instinct is found\nto exist between several individuals, so that, on the one hand, the\naction of each redounds to the common welfare, and, on the other, it\nbecomes possible for a useful purpose to be achieved through the\nharmonious association of individual workers. This community of instinct\nexists also among the higher animals, but here it is harder to\ndistinguish from associations originating through conscious will,\ninasmuch as speech supplies the means of a more perfect\nintercommunication of aim and plan. We shall, however, definitely\nrecognise {129} this general effect of a universal instinct in the origin\nof speech and in the great political and social movements in the history\nof the world. Here we are concerned only with the simplest and most\ndefinite examples that can be found anywhere, and therefore we will deal\nin preference with the lower animals, among which, in the absence of\nvoice, the means of communicating thought, mimicry, and physiognomy, are\nso imperfect that the harmony and interconnection of the individual\nactions cannot in its main points be ascribed to an understanding arrived\nat through speech. Huber observed that when a new comb was being\nconstructed a number of the largest working-bees, that were full of\nhoney, took no part in the ordinary business of the others, but remained\nperfectly aloof. Twenty-four hours afterwards small plates of wax had\nformed under their bellies. The bee drew these off with her hind-feet,\nmasticated them, and made them into a band. The small plates of wax thus\nprepared were then glued to the roof of the hive one on the top of the\nother. When one of the bees of this kind had used up her plates of wax,\nanother followed her and carried the same work forward in the same way.\nA thin rough vertical wall, half a line in thickness and fastened to the\nsides of the hive, was thus constructed. On this, one of the smaller\nworking-bees whose belly was empty came, and after surveying the wall,\nmade a flat half-oval excavation in the middle of one of its sides; she\npiled up the wax thus excavated round the edge of the excavation. After\na short time she was relieved by another like herself, till more than\ntwenty followed one another in this way. Meanwhile another bee began to\nmake a similar hollow on the other side of the wall, but corresponding\nonly with the rim of the excavation on this side. Presently another bee\nbegan a second hollow upon the same side, each bee being continually\nrelieved by others. Other bees kept coming up and bringing under their\nbellies plates of wax, with which they heightened the edge of the small\nwall of wax. In this, new bees were constantly excavating the ground for\nmore cells, while others proceeded by degrees to bring those already\nbegun into a perfectly symmetrical shape, and at the same time continued\nbuilding up the prismatic walls between them. Thus the bees worked on\nopposite sides of the wall of wax, always on the same plan and in the\nclosest correspondence with those upon the other side, until eventually\nthe cells on both sides were completed in all their wonderful regularity\nand harmony of arrangement, not merely as regards those standing side by\nside, but also as regards those which were upon the other side of their\npyramidal base.\n\nLet the reader consider how animals that are accustomed to confer\ntogether, by speech or otherwise, concerning designs which they may be\npursuing in common, will wrangle with thousandfold diversity of opinion;\nlet him reflect how often something has to be undone, destroyed, and done\nover again; how at one time too many hands come forward, and at another\ntoo few; what running to and fro there is before each has found his right\nplace; how often too many, and again too few, present themselves for a\nrelief gang; and how we find all this in the concerted works of men, who\nstand so far higher than bees in the scale of organisation. We see\nnothing of the kind among bees. A survey of their operations leaves\nrather the impression upon us as though an invisible master-builder had\nprearranged a scheme of action for the entire community, and had\nimpressed it upon each individual member, as though each class of workers\nhad learnt their appointed work by heart, knew their places and the\nnumbers in which they should relieve each other, and were informed\ninstantaneously by a secret signal of the moment when their action was\nwanted. This, however, is exactly the manner in which an instinct works;\nand as the intention of the entire community is instinctively present in\nthe unconscious clairvoyance {131a} of each individual bee, so the\npossession of this common instinct impels each one of them to the\ndischarge of her special duties when the right moment has arrived. It is\nonly thus that the wonderful tranquillity and order which we observe\ncould be attained. What we are to think concerning this common instinct\nmust be reserved for explanation later on, but the possibility of its\nexistence is already evident, inasmuch {131b} as each individual has an\nunconscious insight concerning the plan proposed to itself by the\ncommunity, and also concerning the means immediately to be adopted\nthrough concerted action\u2014of which, however, only the part requiring his\nown co-operation is present in the consciousness of each. Thus, for\nexample, the larva of the bee itself spins the silky chamber in which it\nis to become a chrysalis, but other bees must close it with its lid of\nwax. The purpose of there being a chamber in which the larva can become\na chrysalis must be present in the minds of each of these two parties to\nthe transaction, but neither of them acts under the influence of\nconscious will, except in regard to his own particular department. I\nhave already mentioned the fact that the larva, after its metamorphosis,\nmust be freed from its cell by other bees, and have told how the\nworking-bees in autumn kill the drones, so that they may not have to feed\na number of useless mouths throughout the winter, and how they only spare\nthem when they are wanted in order to fecundate a new queen.\nFurthermore, the working-bees build cells in which the eggs laid by the\nqueen may come to maturity, and, as a general rule, make just as many\nchambers as the queen lays eggs; they make these, moreover, in the same\norder as that in which the queen lays her eggs, namely, first for the\nworking-bees, then for the drones, and lastly for the queens. In the\npolity of the bees, the working and the sexual capacities, which were\nonce united, are now personified in three distinct kinds of individual,\nand these combine with an inner, unconscious, spiritual union, so as to\nform a single body politic, as the organs of a living body combine to\nform the body itself.\n\nIn this chapter, therefore, we have arrived at the following\nconclusions:\u2014\n\nInstinct is not the result of conscious deliberation; {132} it is not a\nconsequence of bodily organisation; it is not a mere result of a\nmechanism which lies in the organisation of the brain; it is not the\noperation of dead mechanism, glued on, as it were, to the soul, and\nforeign to its inmost essence; but it is the spontaneous action of the\nindividual, springing from his most essential nature and character. The\npurpose to which any particular kind of instinctive action is subservient\nis not the purpose of a soul standing outside the individual and near\nakin to Providence\u2014a purpose once for all thought out, and now become a\nmatter of necessity to the individual, so that he can act in no other\nway, though it is engrafted into his nature from without, and not natural\nto it. The purpose of the instinct is in each individual case thought\nout and willed unconsciously by the individual, and afterwards the choice\nof means adapted to each particular case is arrived at unconsciously. A\nknowledge of the purpose is often absolutely unattainable {133} by\nconscious knowledge through sensual perception. Then does the\npeculiarity of the unconscious display itself in the clairvoyance of\nwhich consciousness perceives partly only a faint and dull, and partly,\nas in the case of man, a more or less definite echo by way of sentiment,\nwhereas the instinctive action itself\u2014the carrying out of the means\nnecessary for the achievement of the unconscious purpose\u2014falls always\nmore clearly within consciousness, inasmuch as due performance of what is\nnecessary would be otherwise impossible. Finally, the clairvoyance makes\nitself perceived in the concerted action of several individuals combining\nto carry out a common but unconscious purpose.\n\nUp to this point we have encountered clairvoyance as a fact which we\nobserve but cannot explain, and the reader may say that he prefers to\ntake his stand here, and be content with regarding instinct simply as a\nmatter of fact, the explanation of which is at present beyond our reach.\nAgainst this it must be urged, firstly, that clairvoyance is not confined\nto instinct, but is found also in man; secondly, that clairvoyance is by\nno means present in all instincts, and that therefore our experience\nshows us clairvoyance and instinct as two distinct things\u2014clairvoyance\nbeing of great use in explaining instinct, but instinct serving nothing\nto explain clairvoyance; thirdly and lastly, that the clairvoyance of the\nindividual will not continue to be so incomprehensible to us, but will be\nperfectly well explained in the further course of our investigation,\nwhile we must give up all hope of explaining instinct in any other way.\n\nThe conception we have thus arrived at enables us to regard instinct as\nthe innermost kernel, so to speak, of every living being. That this is\nactually the case is shown by the instincts of self-preservation and of\nthe continuation of the species which we observe throughout creation, and\nby the heroic self-abandonment with which the individual will sacrifice\nwelfare, and even life, at the bidding of instinct. We see this when we\nthink of the caterpillar, and how she repairs her cocoon until she yields\nto exhaustion; of the bird, and how she will lay herself to death; of the\ndisquiet and grief displayed by all migratory animals if they are\nprevented from migrating. A captive cuckoo will always die at the\napproach of winter through despair at being unable to fly away; so will\nthe vineyard snail if it is hindered of its winter sleep. The weakest\nmother will encounter an enemy far surpassing her in strength, and suffer\ndeath cheerfully for her offspring\u2019s sake. Every year we see fresh cases\nof people who have been unfortunate going mad or committing suicide.\nWomen who have survived the C\u00e6sarian operation allow themselves so little\nto be deterred from further childbearing through fear of this frightful\nand generally fatal operation, that they will undergo it no less than\nthree times. Can we suppose that what so closely resembles demoniacal\npossession can have come about through something engrafted on to the soul\nas a mechanism foreign to its inner nature, {135} or through conscious\ndeliberation which adheres always to a bare egoism, and is utterly\nincapable of such self-sacrifice for the sake of offspring as is\ndisplayed by the procreative and maternal instincts?\n\nWe have now, finally, to consider how it arises that the instincts of any\nanimal species are so similar within the limits of that species\u2014a\ncircumstance which has not a little contributed to the\nengrafted-mechanism theory. But it is plain that like causes will be\nfollowed by like effects; and this should afford sufficient explanation.\nThe bodily mechanism, for example, of all the individuals of a species is\nalike; so again are their capabilities and the outcomes of their\nconscious intelligence\u2014though this, indeed, is not the case with man, nor\nin some measure even with the highest animals; and it is through this\nwant of uniformity that there is such a thing as individuality. The\nexternal conditions of all the individuals of a species are also\ntolerably similar, and when they differ essentially, the instincts are\nlikewise different\u2014a fact in support of which no examples are necessary.\nFrom like conditions of mind and body (and this includes like\npredispositions of brain and ganglia) and like exterior circumstances,\nlike desires will follow as a necessary logical consequence. Again, from\nlike desires and like inward and outward circumstances, a like choice of\nmeans\u2014that is to say, like instincts\u2014must ensue. These last two steps\nwould not be conceded without restriction if the question were one\ninvolving conscious deliberation, but as these logical consequences are\nsupposed to follow from the unconscious, which takes the right step\nunfailingly without vacillation or delay so long as the premises are\nsimilar, the ensuing desires and the instincts to adopt the means for\ntheir gratification will be similar also.\n\nThus the view which we have taken concerning instinct explains the very\nlast point which it may be thought worth while to bring forward in\nsupport of the opinions of our opponents.\n\nI will conclude this chapter with the words of Schelling: \u201cThoughtful\nminds will hold the phenomena of animal instinct to belong to the most\nimportant of all phenomena, and to be the true touchstone of a durable\nphilosophy.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nChapter IX\n\n\nRemarks upon Von Hartmann\u2019s position in regard to instinct.\n\nUNCERTAIN how far the foregoing chapter is not better left without\ncomment of any kind, I nevertheless think that some of my readers may be\nhelped by the following extracts from the notes I took while translating.\nI will give them as they come, without throwing them into connected form.\n\n * * * * *\n\nVon Hartmann defines instinct as action done with a purpose, but without\nconsciousness of purpose.\n\nThe building of her nest by a bird is an instinctive action; it is done\nwith a purpose, but it is arbitrary to say that the bird has no knowledge\nof that purpose. Some hold that birds when they are building their nest\nknow as well that they mean to bring up a family in it as a young married\ncouple do when they build themselves a house. This is the conclusion\nwhich would be come to by a plain person on a _prim\u00e2 facie_ view of the\nfacts, and Von Hartmann shows no reason for modifying it.\n\nA better definition of instinct would be that it is inherited knowledge\nin respect of certain facts, and of the most suitable manner in which to\ndeal with them.\n\n * * * * *\n\nVon Hartmann speaks of \u201ca mechanism of brain or mind\u201d contrived by\nnature, and again of \u201ca psychical organisation,\u201d as though it were\nsomething distinct from a physical organisation.\n\nWe can conceive of such a thing as mechanism of brain, for we have seen\nbrain and handled it; but until we have seen a mind and handled it, or at\nany rate been enabled to draw inferences which will warrant us in\nconceiving of it as a material substance apart from bodily substance, we\ncannot infer that it has an organisation apart from bodily organisation.\nDoes Von Hartmann mean that we have two bodies\u2014a body-body, and a\nsoul-body?\n\n * * * * *\n\nHe says that no one will call the action of the spider instinctive in\nvoiding the fluids from its glands when they are too full. Why not?\n\n * * * * *\n\nHe is continually personifying instinct; thus he speaks of the \u201cends\nproposed to itself by the instinct,\u201d of \u201cthe blind unconscious purpose of\nthe instinct,\u201d of \u201can unconscious purpose constraining the volition of\nthe bird,\u201d of \u201ceach variation and modification of the instinct,\u201d as\nthough instinct, purpose, and, later on, clairvoyance, were persons, and\nnot words characterising a certain class of actions. The ends are\nproposed to itself by the animal, not by the instinct. Nothing but\nmischief can come of a mode of expression which does not keep this\nclearly in view.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt must not be supposed that the same cuckoo is in the habit of laying in\nthe nests of several different species, and of changing the colour of her\neggs according to that of the eggs of the bird in whose nest she lays. I\nhave inquired from Mr. R. Bowdler Sharpe of the ornithological department\nat the British Museum, who kindly gives it me as his opinion that though\ncuckoos do imitate the eggs of the species on whom they foist their young\nones, yet one cuckoo will probably lay in the nests of one species also,\nand will stick to that species for life. If so, the same race of cuckoos\nmay impose upon the same species for generations together. The instinct\nwill even thus remain a very wonderful one, but it is not at all\ninconsistent with the theory put forward by Professor Hering and myself.\n\n * * * * *\n\nReturning to the idea of psychical mechanism, he admits that \u201cit is\nitself so obscure that we can hardly form any idea concerning it,\u201d {139a}\nand then goes on to claim for it that it explains a great many other\nthings. This must have been the passage which Mr. Sully had in view when\nhe very justly wrote that Von Hartmann \u201cdogmatically closes the field of\nphysical inquiry, and takes refuge in a phantom which explains\neverything, simply because it is itself incapable of explanation.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nAccording to Von Hartmann {139b} the unpractised animal manifests its\ninstinct as perfectly as the practised. This is not the case. The young\nanimal exhibits marvellous proficiency, but it gains by experience. I\nhave watched sparrows, which I can hardly doubt to be young ones, spend a\nwhole month in trying to build their nest, and give it up in the end as\nhopeless. I have watched three such cases this spring in a tree not\ntwenty feet from my own window and on a level with my eye, so that I have\nbeen able to see what was going on at all hours of the day. In each case\nthe nest was made well and rapidly up to a certain point, and then got\ntop-heavy and tumbled over, so that little was left on the tree: it was\nreconstructed and reconstructed over and over again, always with the same\nresult, till at last in all three cases the birds gave up in despair. I\nbelieve the older and stronger birds secure the fixed and best sites,\ndriving the younger birds to the trees, and that the art of building\nnests in trees is dying out among house-sparrows.\n\n * * * * *\n\nHe declares that instinct is not due to organisation so much as\norganisation to instinct. {140} The fact is, that neither can claim\nprecedence of or pre-eminence over the other. Instinct and organisation\nare only mind and body, or mind and matter; and these are not two\nseparable things, but one and inseparable, with, as it were, two sides;\nthe one of which is a function of the other. There was never yet either\nmatter without mind, however low, nor mind, however high, without a\nmaterial body of some sort; there can be no change in one without a\ncorresponding change in the other; neither came before the other; neither\ncan either cease to change or cease to be; for \u201cto be\u201d is to continue\nchanging, so that \u201cto be\u201d and \u201cto change\u201d are one.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhence, he asks, comes the desire to gratify an instinct before\nexperience of the pleasure that will ensue on gratification? This is a\npertinent question, but it is met by Professor Hering with the answer\nthat this is due to memory\u2014to the continuation in the germ of vibrations\nthat were vibrating in the body of the parent, and which, when stimulated\nby vibrations of a suitable rhythm, become more and more powerful till\nthey suffice to set the body in visible action. For my own part I only\nventure to maintain that it is due to memory, that is to say, to an\nenduring sense on the part of the germ of the action it took when in the\npersons of its ancestors, and of the gratification which ensued thereon.\nThis meets Von Hartmann\u2019s whole difficulty.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe glacier is not snow. It is snow packed tight into a small compass,\nand has thus lost all trace of its original form. How incomplete,\nhowever, would be any theory of glacial action which left out of sight\nthe origin of the glacier in snow! Von Hartmann loses sight of the\norigin of instinctive in deliberative actions because the two classes of\naction are now in many respects different. His philosophy of the\nunconscious fails to consider what is the normal process by means of\nwhich such common actions as we can watch, and whose history we can\nfollow, have come to be done unconsciously.\n\n * * * * *\n\nHe says, {141} \u201cHow inconceivable is the supposition of a mechanism, &c.,\n&c.; how clear and simple, on the other hand, is the view that there is\nan unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird to the use\nof the fitting means.\u201d Does he mean that there is an actual thing\u2014an\nunconscious purpose\u2014something outside the bird, as it were a man, which\nlays hold of the bird and makes it do this or that, as a master makes a\nservant do his bidding? If so, he again personifies the purpose itself,\nand must therefore embody it, or be talking in a manner which plain\npeople cannot understand. If, on the other hand, he means \u201chow simple is\nthe view that the bird acts unconsciously,\u201d this is not more simple than\nsupposing it to act consciously; and what ground has he for supposing\nthat the bird is unconscious? It is as simple, and as much in accordance\nwith the facts, to suppose that the bird feels the air to be colder, and\nknows that she must warm her eggs if she is to hatch them, as consciously\nas a mother knows that she must not expose her new-born infant to the\ncold.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOn page 99 of this book we find Von Hartmann saying that if it is once\ngranted that the normal and abnormal manifestations of instinct spring\nfrom a single source, then the objection that the modification is due to\nconscious knowledge will be found to be a suicidal one later on, in so\nfar as it is directed against instinct generally. I understand him to\nmean that if we admit instinctive action, and the modifications of that\naction which more nearly resemble results of reason, to be actions of the\nsame ultimate kind differing in degree only, and if we thus attempt to\nreduce instinctive action to the prophetic strain arising from old\nexperience, we shall be obliged to admit that the formation of the embryo\nis ultimately due to reflection\u2014which he seems to think is a _reductio ad\nabsurdum_ of the argument.\n\nTherefore, he concludes, if there is to be only one source, the source\nmust be unconscious, and not conscious. We reply, that we do not see the\nabsurdity of the position which we grant we have been driven to. We hold\nthat the formation of the embryo _is_ ultimately due to reflection and\ndesign.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe writer of an article in the _Times_, April 1, 1880, says that\nservants must be taught their calling before they can practise it; but,\nin fact, they can only be taught their calling by practising it. So Von\nHartmann says animals must feel the pleasure consequent on gratification\nof an instinct before they can be stimulated to act upon the instinct by\na knowledge of the pleasure that will ensue. This sounds logical, but in\npractice a little performance and a little teaching\u2014a little sense of\npleasure and a little connection of that pleasure with this or that\npractice,\u2014come up simultaneously from something that we cannot see, the\ntwo being so small and so much abreast, that we do not know which is\nfirst, performance or teaching; and, again, action, or pleasure supposed\nas coming from the action.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cGeistes-mechanismus\u201d comes as near to \u201cdisposition of mind,\u201d or, more\nshortly, \u201cdisposition,\u201d as so unsatisfactory a word can come to anything.\nYet, if we translate it throughout by \u201cdisposition,\u201d we shall see how\nlittle we are being told.\n\nWe find on page 114 that \u201call instinctive actions give us an impression\nof absolute security and infallibility\u201d; that \u201cthe will is never weak or\nhesitating, as it is when inferences are being drawn consciously.\u201d \u201cWe\nnever,\u201d Von Hartmann continues, \u201cfind instinct making mistakes.\u201d Passing\nover the fact that instinct is again personified, the statement is still\nincorrect. Instinctive actions are certainly, as a general rule,\nperformed with less uncertainty than deliberative ones; this is\nexplicable by the fact that they have been more often practised, and thus\nreduced more completely to a matter of routine; but nothing is more\ncertain than that animals acting under the guidance of inherited\nexperience or instinct frequently make mistakes which with further\npractice they correct. Von Hartmann has abundantly admitted that the\nmanner of an instinctive action is often varied in correspondence with\nvariation in external circumstances. It is impossible to see how this\ndoes not involve both possibility of error and the connection of instinct\nwith deliberation at one and the same time. The fact is simply this\u2014when\nan animal finds itself in a like position with that in which it has\nalready often done a certain thing in the persons of its forefathers, it\nwill do this thing well and easily: when it finds the position somewhat,\nbut not unrecognisably, altered through change either in its own person\nor in the circumstances exterior to it, it will vary its action with\ngreater or less ease according to the nature of the change in the\nposition: when the position is gravely altered the animal either bungles\nor is completely thwarted.\n\n * * * * *\n\nNot only does Von Hartmann suppose that instinct may, and does, involve\nknowledge antecedent to, and independent of, experience\u2014an idea as\ncontrary to the tendency of modern thought as that of spontaneous\ngeneration, with which indeed it is identical though presented in another\nshape\u2014but he implies by his frequent use of the word \u201cunmittelbar\u201d that a\nresult can come about without any cause whatever. So he says, \u201cUm f\u00fcr\ndie unbewusster Erkenntniss, welche nicht durch sinnliche Wahrnehmung\nerworben, _sondern als unmittelbar Besitz_,\u201d &c. {144a} Because he does\nnot see where the experience can have been gained, he cuts the knot, and\ndenies that there has been experience. We say, Look more attentively and\nyou will discover the time and manner in which the experience was gained.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAgain, he continually assumes that animals low down in the scale of life\ncannot know their own business because they show no sign of knowing ours.\nSee his remarks on _Saturnia pavonia minor_ (page 107), and elsewhere on\ncattle and gadflies. The question is not what can they know, but what\ndoes their action prove to us that they do know. With each species of\nanimal or plant there is one profession only, and it is hereditary. With\nus there are many professions, and they are not hereditary; so that they\ncannot become instinctive, as they would otherwise tend to do.\n\n * * * * *\n\nHe attempts {144b} to draw a distinction between the causes that have\nproduced the weapons and working instruments of animals, on the one hand,\nand those that lead to the formation of hexagonal cells by bees, &c., on\nthe other. No such distinction can be justly drawn.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe ghost-stories which Von Hartmann accepts will hardly be accepted by\npeople of sound judgment. There is one well-marked distinctive feature\nbetween the knowledge manifested by animals when acting instinctively and\nthe supposed knowledge of seers and clairvoyants. In the first case, the\nanimal never exhibits knowledge except upon matters concerning which its\nrace has been conversant for generations; in the second, the seer is\nsupposed to do so. In the first case, a new feature is invariably\nattended with disturbance of the performance and the awakening of\nconsciousness and deliberation, unless the new matter is too small in\nproportion to the remaining features of the case to attract attention, or\nunless, though really new, it appears so similar to an old feature as to\nbe at first mistaken for it; with the second, it is not even professed\nthat the seer\u2019s ancestors have had long experience upon the matter\nconcerning which the seer is supposed to have special insight, and I can\nimagine no more powerful _\u00e0 priori_ argument against a belief in such\nstories.\n\n * * * * *\n\nClose upon the end of his chapter Von Hartmann touches upon the one\nmatter which requires consideration. He refers the similarity of\ninstinct that is observable among all species to the fact that like\ncauses produce like effects; and I gather, though he does not expressly\nsay so, that he considers similarity of instinct in successive\ngenerations to be referable to the same cause as similarity of instinct\nbetween all the contemporary members of a species. He thus raises the\none objection against referring the phenomena of heredity to memory which\nI think need be gone into with any fulness. I will, however, reserve\nthis matter for my concluding chapters.\n\nVon Hartmann concludes his chapter with a quotation from Schelling, to\nthe effect that the phenomena of animal instinct are the true touchstone\nof a durable philosophy; by which I suppose it is intended to say that if\na system or theory deals satisfactorily with animal instinct, it will\nstand, but not otherwise. I can wish nothing better than that the\nphilosophy of the unconscious advanced by Von Hartmann be tested by this\nstandard.\n\n\n\n\nChapter X\n\n\nRecapitulation and statement of an objection.\n\nTHE true theory of unconscious action, then, is that of Professor Hering,\nfrom whose lecture it is no strained conclusion to gather that he holds\nthe action of all living beings, from the moment of their conception to\nthat of their fullest development, to be founded in volition and design,\nthough these have been so long lost sight of that the work is now carried\non, as it were, departmentally and in due course according to an official\nroutine which can hardly now be departed from.\n\nThis involves the older \u201cDarwinism\u201d and the theory of Lamarck, according\nto which the modification of living forms has been effected mainly\nthrough the needs of the living forms themselves, which vary with varying\nconditions, the survival of the fittest (which, as I see Mr. H. B.\nBaildon has just said, \u201csometimes comes to mean merely the survival of\nthe survivors\u201d {146}) being taken almost as a matter of course.\nAccording to this view of evolution, there is a remarkable analogy\nbetween the development of living organs or tools and that of those\norgans or tools external to the body which has been so rapid during the\nlast few thousand years.\n\nAnimals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are guided throughout\ntheir development, and preserve the due order in each step which they\ntake, through memory of the course they took on past occasions when in\nthe persons of their ancestors. I am afraid I have already too often\nsaid that if this memory remains for long periods together latent and\nwithout effect, it is because the undulations of the molecular substance\nof the body which are its supposed explanation are during these periods\ntoo feeble to generate action, until they are augmented in force through\nan accession of suitable undulations issuing from exterior objects; or,\nin other words, until recollection is stimulated by a return of the\nassociated ideas. On this the eternal agitation becomes so much\nenhanced, that equilibrium is visibly disturbed, and the action ensues\nwhich is proper to the vibration of the particular substance under the\nparticular conditions. This, at least, is what I suppose Professor\nHering to intend.\n\nLeaving the explanation of memory on one side, and confining ourselves to\nthe fact of memory only, a caterpillar on being just hatched is supposed,\naccording to this theory, to lose its memory of the time it was in the\negg, and to be stimulated by an intense but unconscious recollection of\nthe action taken by its ancestors when they were first hatched. It is\nguided in the course it takes by the experience it can thus command.\nEach step it takes recalls a new recollection, and thus it goes through\nits development as a performer performs a piece of music, each bar\nleading his recollection to the bar that should next follow.\n\nIn \u201cLife and Habit\u201d will be found examples of the manner in which this\nview solves a number of difficulties for the explanation of which the\nleading men of science express themselves at a loss. The following from\nProfessor Huxley\u2019s recent work upon the crayfish may serve for an\nexample. Professor Huxley writes:\u2014\n\n \u201cIt is a widely received notion that the energies of living matter\n have a tendency to decline and finally disappear, and that the death\n of the body as a whole is a necessary correlate of its life. That\n all living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but\n it would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief\n that they needs must do so. The analogy of a machine, that sooner or\n later must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its\n parts, does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is continually\n renewed and repaired; and though it is true that individual\n components of the body are constantly dying, yet their places are\n taken by vigorous successors. A city remains notwithstanding the\n constant death-rate of its inhabitants; and such an organism as a\n crayfish is only a corporate unity, made up of innumerable partially\n independent individualities.\u201d\u2014_The Crayfish_, p. 127.\n\nSurely the theory which I have indicated above makes the reason plain why\nno organism can permanently outlive its experience of past lives. The\ndeath of such a body corporate as the crayfish is due to the social\ncondition becoming more complex than there is memory of past experience\nto deal with. Hence social disruption, insubordination, and decay. The\ncrayfish dies as a state dies, and all states that we have heard of die\nsooner or later. There are some savages who have not yet arrived at the\nconception that death is the necessary end of all living beings, and who\nconsider even the gentlest death from old age as violent and abnormal; so\nProfessor Huxley seems to find a difficulty in seeing that though a city\ncommonly outlives many generations of its citizens, yet cities and states\nare in the end no less mortal than individuals. \u201cThe city,\u201d he says,\n\u201cremains.\u201d Yes, but not for ever. When Professor Huxley can find a city\nthat will last for ever, he may wonder that a crayfish does not last for\never.\n\nI have already here and elsewhere said all that I can yet bring forward\nin support of Professor Hering\u2019s theory; it now remains for me to meet\nthe most troublesome objection to it that I have been able to think of\u2014an\nobjection which I had before me when I wrote \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d but which\nthen as now I believe to be unsound. Seeing, however, as I have pointed\nout at the end of the preceding chapter, that Von Hartmann has touched\nupon it, and being aware that a plausible case can be made out for it, I\nwill state it and refute it here. When I say refute it, I do not mean\nthat I shall have done with it\u2014for it is plain that it opens up a vaster\nquestion in the relations between the so-called organic and inorganic\nworlds\u2014but that I will refute the supposition that it any way militates\nagainst Professor Hering\u2019s theory.\n\nWhy, it may be asked, should we go out of our way to invent unconscious\nmemory\u2014the existence of which must at the best remain an inference\n{149}\u2014when the observed fact that like antecedents are invariably\nfollowed by like consequents should be sufficient for our purpose? Why\nshould the fact that a given kind of chrysalis in a given condition will\nalways become a butterfly within a certain time be connected with memory,\nwhen it is not pretended that memory has anything to do with the\ninvariableness with which oxygen and hydrogen when mixed in certain\nproportions make water?\n\nWe assume confidently that if a drop of water were decomposed into its\ncomponent parts, and if these were brought together again, and again\ndecomposed and again brought together any number of times over, the\nresults would be invariably the same, whether decomposition or\ncombination, yet no one will refer the invariableness of the action\nduring each repetition, to recollection by the gaseous molecules of the\ncourse taken when the process was last repeated. On the contrary, we are\nassured that molecules in some distant part of the world, which had never\nentered into such and such a known combination themselves, nor held\nconcert with other molecules that had been so combined, and which,\ntherefore, could have had no experience and no memory, would none the\nless act upon one another in that one way in which other like\ncombinations of atoms have acted under like circumstances, as readily as\nthough they had been combined and separated and recombined again a\nhundred or a hundred thousand times. It is this assumption, tacitly made\nby every man, beast, and plant in the universe, throughout all time and\nin every action of their lives, that has made any action possible, lying,\nas it does, at the root of all experience.\n\nAs we admit of no doubt concerning the main result, so we do not suppose\nan alternative to lie before any atom of any molecule at any moment\nduring the process of their combination. This process is, in all\nprobability, an exceedingly complicated one, involving a multitude of\nactions and subordinate processes, which follow one upon the other, and\neach one of which has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though they all\ncome to pass in what appears to be an instant of time. Yet at no point\ndo we conceive of any atom as swerving ever such a little to right or\nleft of a determined course, but invest each one of them with so much of\nthe divine attributes as that with it there shall be no variableness,\nneither shadow of turning.\n\nWe attribute this regularity of action to what we call the necessity of\nthings, as determined by the nature of the atoms and the circumstances in\nwhich they are placed. We say that only one proximate result can ever\narise from any given combination. If, then, so great uniformity of\naction as nothing can exceed is manifested by atoms to which no one will\nimpute memory, why this desire for memory, as though it were the only way\nof accounting for regularity of action in living beings? Sameness of\naction may be seen abundantly where there is no room for anything that we\ncan consistently call memory. In these cases we say that it is due to\nsameness of substance in same circumstances.\n\nThe most cursory reflection upon our actions will show us that it is no\nmore possible for living action to have more than one set of proximate\nconsequents at any given time than for oxygen and hydrogen when mixed in\nthe proportions proper for the formation of water. Why, then, not\nrecognise this fact, and ascribe repeated similarity of living action to\nthe reproduction of the necessary antecedents, with no more sense of\nconnection between the steps in the action, or memory of similar action\ntaken before, than we suppose on the part of oxygen and hydrogen\nmolecules between the several occasions on which they may have been\ndisunited and reunited?\n\nA boy catches the measles not because he remembers having caught them in\nthe persons of his father and mother, but because he is a fit soil for a\ncertain kind of seed to grow upon. In like manner he should be said to\ngrow his nose because he is a fit combination for a nose to spring from.\nDr. X\u2014\u2019s father died of _angina pectoris_ at the age of forty-nine; so\ndid Dr. X\u2014. Can it be pretended that Dr. X\u2014 remembered having died of\n_angina pectoris_ at the age of forty-nine when in the person of his\nfather, and accordingly, when he came to be forty-nine years old himself,\ndied also? For this to hold, Dr. X\u2014\u2019s father must have begotten him\nafter he was dead; for the son could not remember the father\u2019s death\nbefore it happened.\n\nAs for the diseases of old age, so very commonly inherited, they are\ndeveloped for the most part not only long after the average age of\nreproduction, but at a time when no appreciable amount of memory of any\nprevious existence can remain; for a man will not have many male\nancestors who become parents at over sixty years old, nor female\nancestors who did so at over forty. By our own showing, therefore,\nrecollection can have nothing to do with the matter. Yet who can doubt\nthat gout is due to inheritance as much as eyes and noses? In what\nrespects do the two things differ so that we should refer the inheritance\nof eyes and noses to memory, while denying any connection between memory\nand gout? We may have a ghost of a pretence for saying that a man grew a\nnose by rote, or even that he catches the measles or whooping-cough by\nrote during his boyhood; but do we mean to say that he develops the gout\nby rote in his old age if he comes of a gouty family? If, then, rote and\nred-tape have nothing to do with the one, why should they with the other?\n\nRemember also the cases in which aged females develop male\ncharacteristics. Here are growths, often of not inconsiderable extent,\nwhich make their appearance during the decay of the body, and grow with\ngreater and greater vigour in the extreme of old age, and even for days\nafter death itself. It can hardly be doubted that an especial tendency\nto develop these characteristics runs as an inheritance in certain\nfamilies; here then is perhaps the best case that can be found of a\ndevelopment strictly inherited, but having clearly nothing whatever to do\nwith memory. Why should not all development stand upon the same footing?\n\nA friend who had been arguing with me for some time as above, concluded\nwith the following words:\u2014\n\n \u201cIf you cannot be content with the similar action of similar\n substances (living or non-living) under similar circumstances\u2014if you\n cannot accept this as an ultimate fact, but consider it necessary to\n connect repetition of similar action with memory before you can rest\n in it and be thankful\u2014be consistent, and introduce this memory which\n you find so necessary into the inorganic world also. Either say that\n a chrysalis becomes a butterfly because it is the thing that it is,\n and, being that kind of thing, must act in such and such a manner and\n in such a manner only, so that the act of one generation has no more\n to do with the act of the next than the fact of cream being churned\n into butter in a dairy one day has to do with other cream being\n churnable into butter in the following week\u2014either say this, or else\n develop some mental condition\u2014which I have no doubt you will be very\n well able to do if you feel the want of it\u2014in which you can make out\n a case for saying that oxygen and hydrogen on being brought together,\n and cream on being churned, are in some way acquainted with, and\n mindful of, action taken by other cream and other oxygen and hydrogen\n on past occasions.\u201d\n\nI felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me with being able\nto develop a mental organism if I felt the need of it, for his own\ningenious attack on my position, and indeed every action of his life was\nbut an example of this omnipresent principle.\n\nWhen he was gone, however, I thought over what he had been saying. I\nendeavoured to see how far I could get on without volition and memory,\nand reasoned as follows:\u2014A repetition of like antecedents will be\ncertainly followed by a repetition of like consequents, whether the\nagents be men and women or chemical substances. \u201cIf there be two cowards\nperfectly similar in every respect, and if they be subjected in a\nperfectly similar way to two terrifying agents, which are themselves\nperfectly similar, there are few who will not expect a perfect similarity\nin the running away, even though ten thousand years intervene between the\noriginal combination and its repetition.\u201d {153} Here certainly there is\nno coming into play of memory, more than in the pan of cream on two\nsuccessive churning days, yet the action is similar.\n\nA clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the day for dinner.\nAbout half-past twelve he begins to feel hungry; at once he takes down\nhis hat and leaves the office. He does not yet know the neighbourhood,\nand on getting down into the street asks a policeman at the corner which\nis the best eating-house within easy distance. The policeman tells him\nof three houses, one of which is a little farther off than the other two,\nbut is cheaper. Money being a greater object to him than time, the clerk\ndecides on going to the cheaper house. He goes, is satisfied, and\nreturns.\n\nNext day he wants his dinner at the same hour, and\u2014it will be\nsaid\u2014remembering his satisfaction of yesterday, will go to the same place\nas before. But what has his memory to do with it? Suppose him to have\nentirely forgotten all the circumstances of the preceding day from the\nmoment of his beginning to feel hungry onward, though in other respects\nsound in mind and body, and unchanged generally. At half-past twelve he\nwould begin to be hungry; but his beginning to be hungry cannot be\nconnected with his remembering having begun to be hungry yesterday. He\nwould begin to be hungry just as much whether he remembered or no. At\none o\u2019clock he again takes down his hat and leaves the office, not\nbecause he remembers having done so yesterday, but because he wants his\nhat to go out with. Being again in the street, and again ignorant of the\nneighbourhood (for he remembers nothing of yesterday), he sees the same\npoliceman at the corner of the street, and asks him the same question as\nbefore; the policeman gives him the same answer, and money being still an\nobject to him, the cheapest eating-house is again selected; he goes\nthere, finds the same _menu_, makes the same choice for the same reasons,\neats, is satisfied, and returns.\n\nWhat similarity of action can be greater than this, and at the same time\nmore incontrovertible? But it has nothing to do with memory; on the\ncontrary, it is just because the clerk has no memory that his action of\nthe second day so exactly resembles that of the first. As long as he has\nno power of recollecting, he will day after day repeat the same actions\nin exactly the same way, until some external circumstances, such as his\nbeing sent away, modify the situation. Till this or some other\nmodification occurs, he will day after day go down into the street\nwithout knowing where to go; day after day he will see the same policeman\nat the corner of the same street, and (for we may as well suppose that\nthe policeman has no memory too) he will ask and be answered, and ask and\nbe answered, till he and the policeman die of old age. This similarity\nof action is plainly due to that\u2014whatever it is\u2014which ensures that like\npersons or things when placed in like circumstances shall behave in like\nmanner.\n\nAllow the clerk ever such a little memory, and the similarity of action\nwill disappear; for the fact of remembering what happened to him on the\nfirst day he went out in search of dinner will be a modification in him\nin regard to his then condition when he next goes out to get his dinner.\nHe had no such memory on the first day, and he has upon the second. Some\nmodification of action must ensue upon this modification of the actor,\nand this is immediately observable. He wants his dinner, indeed, goes\ndown into the street, and sees the policeman as yesterday, but he does\nnot ask the policeman; he remembers what the policeman told him and what\nhe did, and therefore goes straight to the eating-house without wasting\ntime: nor does he dine off the same dish two days running, for he\nremembers what he had yesterday and likes variety. If, then, similarity\nof action is rather hindered than promoted by memory, why introduce it\ninto such cases as the repetition of the embryonic processes by\nsuccessive generations? The embryos of a well-fixed breed, such as the\ngoose, are almost as much alike as water is to water, and by consequence\none goose comes to be almost as like another as water to water. Why\nshould it not be supposed to become so upon the same grounds\u2014namely, that\nit is made of the same stuffs, and put together in like proportions in\nthe same manner?\n\n\n\n\nChapter XI\n\n\nOn Cycles.\n\nTHE one faith on which all normal living beings consciously or\nunconsciously act, is that like antecedents will be followed by like\nconsequents. This is the one true and catholic faith, undemonstrable,\nbut except a living being believe which, without doubt it shall perish\neverlastingly. In the assurance of this all action is taken.\n\nBut if this fundamental article is admitted, and it cannot be gainsaid,\nit follows that if ever a complete cycle were formed, so that the whole\nuniverse of one instant were to repeat itself absolutely in a subsequent\none, no matter after what interval of time, then the course of the events\nbetween these two moments would go on repeating itself for ever and ever\nafterwards in due order, down to the minutest detail, in an endless\nseries of cycles like a circulating decimal. For the universe comprises\neverything; there could therefore be no disturbance from without. Once a\ncycle, always a cycle.\n\nLet us suppose the earth, of given weight, moving with given momentum in\na given path, and under given conditions in every respect, to find itself\nat any one time conditioned in all these respects as it was conditioned\nat some past moment; then it must move exactly in the same path as the\none it took when at the beginning of the cycle it has just completed, and\nmust therefore in the course of time fulfil a second cycle, and therefore\na third, and so on for ever and ever, with no more chance of escape than\na circulating decimal has, if the circumstances have been reproduced with\nperfect accuracy.\n\nWe see something very like this actually happen in the yearly revolutions\nof the planets round the sun. But the relations between, we will say,\nthe earth and the sun are not reproduced absolutely. These relations\ndeal only with a small part of the universe, and even in this small part\nthe relation of the parts _inter se_ has never yet been reproduced with\nthe perfection of accuracy necessary for our argument. They are liable,\nmoreover, to disturbance from events which may or may not actually occur\n(as, for example, our being struck by a comet, or the sun\u2019s coming within\na certain distance of another sun), but of which, if they do occur, no\none can foresee the effects. Nevertheless the conditions have been so\nnearly repeated that there is no appreciable difference in the relations\nbetween the earth and sun on one New Year\u2019s Day and on another, nor is\nthere reason for expecting such change within any reasonable time.\n\nIf there is to be an eternal series of cycles involving the whole\nuniverse, it is plain that not one single atom must be excluded. Exclude\na single molecule of hydrogen from the ring, or vary the relative\npositions of two molecules only, and the charm is broken; an element of\ndisturbance has been introduced, of which the utmost that can be said is\nthat it may not prevent the ensuing of a long series of very nearly\nperfect cycles before similarity in recurrence is destroyed, but which\nmust inevitably prevent absolute identity of repetition. The movement of\nthe series becomes no longer a cycle, but spiral, and convergent or\ndivergent at a greater or less rate according to circumstances. We\ncannot conceive of all the atoms in the universe standing twice over in\nabsolutely the same relation each one of them to every other. There are\ntoo many of them and they are too much mixed; but, as has been just said,\nin the planets and their satellites we do see large groups of atoms whose\nmovements recur with some approach to precision. The same holds good\nalso with certain comets and with the sun himself. The result is that\nour days and nights and seasons follow one another with nearly perfect\nregularity from year to year, and have done so for as long time as we\nknow anything for certain. A vast preponderance of all the action that\ntakes place around us is cycular action.\n\nWithin the great cycle of the planetary revolution of our own earth, and\nas a consequence thereof, we have the minor cycle of the phenomena of the\nseasons; these generate atmospheric cycles. Water is evaporated from the\nocean and conveyed to mountain ranges, where it is cooled, and whence it\nreturns again to the sea. This cycle of events is being repeated again\nand again with little appreciable variation. The tides and winds in\ncertain latitudes go round and round the world with what amounts to\ncontinuous regularity.\u2014There are storms of wind and rain called cyclones.\nIn the case of these, the cycle is not very complete, the movement,\ntherefore, is spiral, and the tendency to recur is comparatively soon\nlost. It is a common saying that history repeats itself, so that anarchy\nwill lead to despotism and despotism to anarchy; every nation can point\nto instances of men\u2019s minds having gone round and round so nearly in a\nperfect cycle that many revolutions have occurred before the cessation of\na tendency to recur. Lastly, in the generation of plants and animals we\nhave, perhaps, the most striking and common example of the inevitable\ntendency of all action to repeat itself when it has once proximately done\nso. Let only one living being have once succeeded in producing a being\nlike itself, and thus have returned, so to speak, upon itself, and a\nseries of generations must follow of necessity, unless some matter\ninterfere which had no part in the original combination, and, as it may\nhappen, kill the first reproductive creature or all its descendants\nwithin a few generations. If no such mishap occurs as this, and if the\nrecurrence of the conditions is sufficiently perfect, a series of\ngenerations follows with as much certainty as a series of seasons follows\nupon the cycle of the relations between the earth and sun. Let the first\nperiodically recurring substance\u2014we will say A\u2014be able to recur or\nreproduce itself, not once only, but many times over, as A1, A2, &c.; let\nA also have consciousness and a sense of self-interest, which qualities\nmust, _ex hypothesi_, be reproduced in each one of its offspring; let\nthese get placed in circumstances which differ sufficiently to destroy\nthe cycle in theory without doing so practically\u2014that is to say, to\nreduce the rotation to a spiral, but to a spiral with so little deviation\nfrom perfect cycularity as for each revolution to appear practically a\ncycle, though after many revolutions the deviation becomes perceptible;\nthen some such differentiations of animal and vegetable life as we\nactually see follow as matters of course. A1 and A2 have a sense of\nself-interest as A had, but they are not precisely in circumstances\nsimilar to A\u2019s, nor, it may be, to each other\u2019s; they will therefore act\nsomewhat differently, and every living being is modified by a change of\naction. Having become modified, they follow the spirit of A\u2019s action\nmore essentially in begetting a creature like themselves than in\nbegetting one like A; for the essence of A\u2019s act was not the reproduction\nof A, but the reproduction of a creature like the one from which it\nsprung\u2014that is to say, a creature bearing traces in its body of the main\ninfluences that have worked upon its parent.\n\nWithin the cycle of reproduction there are cycles upon cycles in the life\nof each individual, whether animal or plant. Observe the action of our\nlungs and heart, how regular it is, and how a cycle having been once\nestablished, it is repeated many millions of times in an individual of\naverage health and longevity. Remember also that it is this\nperiodicity\u2014this inevitable tendency of all atoms in combination to\nrepeat any combination which they have once repeated, unless forcibly\nprevented from doing so\u2014which alone renders nine-tenths of our mechanical\ninventions of practical use to us. There is no internal periodicity\nabout a hammer or a saw, but there is in the steam-engine or watermill\nwhen once set in motion. The actions of these machines recur in a\nregular series, at regular intervals, with the unerringness of\ncirculating decimals.\n\nWhen we bear in mind, then, the omnipresence of this tendency in the\nworld around us, the absolute freedom from exception which attends its\naction, the manner in which it holds equally good upon the vastest and\nthe smallest scale, and the completeness of its accord with our ideas of\nwhat must inevitably happen when a like combination is placed in\ncircumstances like those in which it was placed before\u2014when we bear in\nmind all this, is it possible not to connect the facts together, and to\nrefer cycles of living generations to the same unalterableness in the\naction of like matter under like circumstances which makes Jupiter and\nSaturn revolve round the sun, or the piston of a steam-engine move up and\ndown as long as the steam acts upon it?\n\nBut who will attribute memory to the hands of a clock, to a piston-rod,\nto air or water in a storm or in course of evaporation, to the earth and\nplanets in their circuits round the sun, or to the atoms of the universe,\nif they too be moving in a cycle vaster than we can take account of?\n{160} And if not, why introduce it into the embryonic development of\nliving beings, when there is not a particle of evidence in support of its\nactual presence, when regularity of action can be ensured just as well\nwithout it as with it, and when at the best it is considered as existing\nunder circumstances which it baffles us to conceive, inasmuch as it is\nsupposed to be exercised without any conscious recollection? Surely a\nmemory which is exercised without any consciousness of recollecting is\nonly a periphrasis for the absence of any memory at all.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XII\n\n\nRefutation\u2014Memory at once a promoter and a disturber of uniformity of\naction and structure.\n\nTO meet the objections in the two foregoing chapters, I need do little\nmore than show that the fact of certain often inherited diseases and\ndevelopments, whether of youth or old age, being obviously not due to a\nmemory on the part of offspring of like diseases and developments in the\nparents, does not militate against supposing that embryonic and youthful\ndevelopment generally is due to memory.\n\nThis is the main part of the objection; the rest resolves itself into an\nassertion that there is no evidence in support of instinct and embryonic\ndevelopment being due to memory, and a contention that the necessity of\neach particular moment in each particular case is sufficient to account\nfor the facts without the introduction of memory.\n\nI will deal with these two last points briefly first. As regards the\nevidence in support of the theory that instinct and growth are due to a\nrapid unconscious memory of past experiences and developments in the\npersons of the ancestors of the living form in which they appear, I must\nrefer my readers to \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d and to the translation of Professor\nHering\u2019s lecture given in this volume. I will only repeat here that a\nchrysalis, we will say, is as much one and the same person with the\nchrysalis of its preceding generation, as this last is one and the same\nperson with the egg or caterpillar from which it sprang. You cannot deny\npersonal identity between two successive generations without sooner or\nlater denying it during the successive stages in the single life of what\nwe call one individual; nor can you admit personal identity through the\nstages of a long and varied life (embryonic and postnatal) without\nadmitting it to endure through an endless series of generations.\n\nThe personal identity of successive generations being admitted, the\npossibility of the second of two generations remembering what happened to\nit in the first is obvious. The _\u00e0 priori_ objection, therefore, is\nremoved, and the question becomes one of fact\u2014does the offspring act as\nif it remembered?\n\nThe answer to this question is not only that it does so act, but that it\nis not possible to account for either its development or its early\ninstinctive actions upon any other hypothesis than that of its\nremembering, and remembering exceedingly well.\n\nThe only alternative is to declare with Von Hartmann that a living being\nmay display a vast and varied information concerning all manner of\ndetails, and be able to perform most intricate operations, independently\nof experience and practice. Once admit knowledge independent of\nexperience, and farewell to sober sense and reason from that moment.\n\nFirstly, then, we show that offspring has had every facility for\nremembering; secondly, that it shows every appearance of having\nremembered; thirdly, that no other hypothesis except memory can be\nbrought forward, so as to account for the phenomena of instinct and\nheredity generally, which is not easily reducible to an absurdity.\nBeyond this we do not care to go, and must allow those to differ from us\nwho require further evidence.\n\nAs regards the argument that the necessity of each moment will account\nfor likeness of result, without there being any need for introducing\nmemory, I admit that likeness of consequents is due to likeness of\nantecedents, and I grant this will hold as good with embryos as with\noxygen and hydrogen gas; what will cover the one will cover the other,\nfor time writs of the laws common to all matter run within the womb as\nfreely as elsewhere; but admitting that there are combinations into which\nliving beings enter with a faculty called memory which has its effect\nupon their conduct, and admitting that such combinations are from time to\ntime repeated (as we observe in the case of a practised performer playing\na piece of music which he has committed to memory), then I maintain that\nthough, indeed, the likeness of one performance to its immediate\npredecessor is due to likeness of the combinations immediately preceding\nthe two performances, yet memory plays so important a part in both these\ncombinations as to make it a distinguishing feature in them, and\ntherefore proper to be insisted upon. We do not, for example, say that\nHerr Joachim played such and such a sonata without the music, because he\nwas such and such an arrangement of matter in such and such\ncircumstances, resembling those under which he played without music on\nsome past occasion. This goes without saying; we say only that he played\nthe music by heart or by memory, as he had often played it before.\n\nTo the objector that a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis not because it\nremembers and takes the action taken by its fathers and mothers in due\ncourse before it, but because when matter is in such a physical and\nmental state as to be called caterpillar, it must perforce assume\npresently such another physical and mental state as to be called\nchrysalis, and that therefore there is no memory in the case\u2014to this\nobjector I rejoin that the offspring caterpillar would not have become so\nlike the parent as to make the next or chrysalis stage a matter of\nnecessity, unless both parent and offspring had been influenced by\nsomething that we usually call memory. For it is this very possession of\na common memory which has guided the offspring into the path taken by,\nand hence to a virtually same condition with, the parent, and which\nguided the parent in its turn to a state virtually identical with a\ncorresponding state in the existence of its own parent. To memory,\ntherefore, the most prominent place in the transaction is assigned\nrightly.\n\nTo deny that will guided by memory has anything to do with the\ndevelopment of embryos seems like denying that a desire to obstruct has\nanything to do with the recent conduct of certain members in the House of\nCommons. What should we think of one who said that the action of these\ngentlemen had nothing to do with a desire to embarrass the Government,\nbut was simply the necessary outcome of the chemical and mechanical\nforces at work, which being such and such, the action which we see is\ninevitable, and has therefore nothing to do with wilful obstruction? We\nshould answer that there was doubtless a great deal of chemical and\nmechanical action in the matter; perhaps, for aught we knew or cared, it\nwas all chemical and mechanical; but if so, then a desire to obstruct\nparliamentary business is involved in certain kinds of chemical and\nmechanical action, and that the kinds involving this had preceded the\nrecent proceedings of the members in question. If asked to prove this,\nwe can get no further than that such action as has been taken has never\nyet been seen except as following after and in consequence of a desire to\nobstruct; that this is our nomenclature, and that we can no more be\nexpected to change it than to change our mother tongue at the bidding of\na foreigner.\n\nA little reflection will convince the reader that he will be unable to\ndeny will and memory to the embryo without at the same time denying their\nexistence everywhere, and maintaining that they have no place in the\nacquisition of a habit, nor indeed in any human action. He will feel\nthat the actions, and the relation of one action to another which he\nobserves in embryos is such as is never seen except in association with\nand as a consequence of will and memory. He will therefore say that it\nis due to will and memory. To say that these are the necessary outcome\nof certain antecedents is not to destroy them: granted that they are\u2014a\nman does not cease to be a man when we reflect that he has had a father\nand mother, nor do will and memory cease to be will and memory on the\nground that they cannot come causeless. They are manifest minute by\nminute to the perception of all sane people, and this tribunal, though\nnot infallible, is nevertheless our ultimate court of appeal\u2014the final\narbitrator in all disputed cases.\n\nWe must remember that there is no action, however original or peculiar,\nwhich is not in respect of far the greater number of its details founded\nupon memory. If a desperate man blows his brains out\u2014an action which he\ncan do once in a lifetime only, and which none of his ancestors can have\ndone before leaving offspring\u2014still nine hundred and ninety-nine\nthousandths of the movements necessary to achieve his end consist of\nhabitual movements\u2014movements, that is to say, which were once difficult,\nbut which have been practised and practised by the help of memory until\nthey are now performed automatically. We can no more have an action than\na creative effort of the imagination cut off from memory. Ideas and\nactions seem almost to resemble matter and force in respect of the\nimpossibility of originating or destroying them; nearly all that are, are\nmemories of other ideas and actions, transmitted but not created,\ndisappearing but not perishing.\n\nIt appears, then, that when in Chapter X. we supposed the clerk who\nwanted his dinner to forget on a second day the action he had taken the\nday before, we still, without perhaps perceiving it, supposed him to be\nguided by memory in all the details of his action, such as his taking\ndown his hat and going out into the street. We could not, indeed,\ndeprive him of all memory without absolutely paralysing his action.\n\nNevertheless new ideas, new faiths, and new actions do in the course of\ntime come about, the living expressions of which we may see in the new\nforms of life which from time to time have arisen and are still arising,\nand in the increase of our own knowledge and mechanical inventions. But\nit is only a very little new that is added at a time, and that little is\ngenerally due to the desire to attain an end which cannot be attained by\nany of the means for which there exists a perceived precedent in the\nmemory. When this is the case, either the memory is further ransacked\nfor any forgotten shreds of details, a combination of which may serve the\ndesired purpose; or action is taken in the dark, which sometimes succeeds\nand becomes a fertile source of further combinations; or we are brought\nto a dead stop. All action is random in respect of any of the minute\nactions which compose it that are not done in consequence of memory, real\nor supposed. So that random, or action taken in the dark, or illusion,\nlies at the very root of progress.\n\nI will now consider the objection that the phenomena of instinct and\nembryonic development ought not to be ascribed to memory, inasmuch as\ncertain other phenomena of heredity, such as gout, cannot be ascribed to\nit.\n\nThose who object in this way forget that our actions fall into two main\nclasses: those which we have often repeated before by means of a regular\nseries of subordinate actions beginning and ending at a certain tolerably\nwell-defined point\u2014as when Herr Joachim plays a sonata in public, or when\nwe dress or undress ourselves; and actions the details of which are\nindeed guided by memory, but which in their general scope and purpose are\nnew\u2014as when we are being married or presented at court.\n\nAt each point in any action of the first of the two kinds above referred\nto there is a memory (conscious or unconscious according to the less or\ngreater number of times the action has been repeated), not only of the\nsteps in the present and previous performances which have led up to the\nparticular point that may be selected, but also of the particular point\nitself; there is, therefore, at each point in a habitual performance a\nmemory at once of like antecedents and of a like present.\n\nIf the memory, whether of the antecedent or the present, were absolutely\nperfect; if the vibration (according to Professor Hering) on each\nrepetition existed in its full original strength and without having been\ninterfered with by any other vibration; and if, again, the new wave\nrunning into it from exterior objects on each repetition of the action\nwere absolutely identical in character with the wave that ran in upon the\nlast occasion, then there would be no change in the action and no\nmodification or improvement could take place. For though indeed the\nlatest performance would always have one memory more than the latest but\none to guide it, yet the memories being identical, it would not matter\nhow many or how few they were.\n\nOn any repetition, however, the circumstances, external or internal, or\nboth, never are absolutely identical: there is some slight variation in\neach individual case, and some part of this variation is remembered, with\napprobation or disapprobation as the case may be.\n\nThe fact, therefore, that on each repetition of the action there is one\nmemory more than on the last but one, and that this memory is slightly\ndifferent from its predecessor, is seen to be an inherent and, _ex\nhypothesi_, necessarily disturbing factor in all habitual action\u2014and the\nlife of an organism should be regarded as the habitual action of a single\nindividual, namely, of the organism itself, and of its ancestors. This\nis the key to accumulation of improvement, whether in the arts which we\nassiduously practise during our single life, or in the structures and\ninstincts of successive generations. The memory does not complete a true\ncircle, but is, as it were, a spiral slightly divergent therefrom. It is\nno longer a perfectly circulating decimal. Where, on the other hand,\nthere is no memory of a like present, where, in fact, the memory is not,\nso to speak, spiral, there is no accumulation of improvement. The effect\nof any variation is not transmitted, and is not thus pregnant of still\nfurther change.\n\nAs regards the second of the two classes of actions above referred\nto\u2014those, namely, which are not recurrent or habitual, _and at no point\nof which is there a memory of a past present like the one which is\npresent now_\u2014there will have been no accumulation of strong and well-knit\nmemory as regards the action as a whole, but action, if taken at all,\nwill be taken upon disjointed fragments of individual actions (our own\nand those of other people) pieced together with a result more or less\nsatisfactory according to circumstances.\n\nBut it does not follow that the action of two people who have had\ntolerably similar antecedents and are placed in tolerably similar\ncircumstances should be more unlike each other in this second case than\nin the first. On the contrary, nothing is more common than to observe\nthe same kind of people making the same kind of mistake when placed for\nthe first time in the same kind of new circumstances. I did not say that\nthere would be no sameness of action without memory of a like present.\nThere may be sameness of action proceeding from a memory, conscious or\nunconscious, of like antecedents, and _a presence only of like presents\nwithout recollection of the same_.\n\nThe sameness of action of like persons placed under like circumstances\nfor the first time, resembles the sameness of action of inorganic matter\nunder the same combinations. Let us for the moment suppose what we call\nnon-living substances to be capable of remembering their antecedents, and\nthat the changes they undergo are the expressions of their recollections.\nThen I admit, of course, that there is not memory in any cream, we will\nsay, that is about to be churned of the cream of the preceding week, but\nthe common absence of such memory from each week\u2019s cream is an element of\nsameness between the two. And though no cream can remember having been\nchurned before, yet all cream in all time has had nearly identical\nantecedents, and has therefore nearly the same memories, and nearly the\nsame proclivities. Thus, in fact, the cream of one week is as truly the\nsame as the cream of another week from the same cow, pasture, &c., as\nanything is ever the same with anything; for the having been subjected to\nlike antecedents engenders the closest similarity that we can conceive\nof, if the substances were like to start with.\n\nThe manifest absence of any connecting memory (or memory of like\npresents) from certain of the phenomena of heredity, such as, for\nexample, the diseases of old age, is now seen to be no valid reason for\nsaying that such other and far more numerous and important phenomena as\nthose of embryonic development are not phenomena of memory. Growth and\nthe diseases of old age do indeed, at first sight, appear to stand on the\nsame footing, but reflection shows us that the question whether a certain\nresult is due to memory or no must be settled not by showing that\ncombinations into which memory does not certainly enter may yet generate\nlike results, and therefore considering the memory theory disposed of,\nbut by the evidence we may be able to adduce in support of the fact that\nthe second agent has actually remembered the conduct of the first,\ninasmuch as he cannot be supposed able to do what it is plain he can do,\nexcept under the guidance of memory or experience, and can also be shown\nto have had every opportunity of remembering. When either of these tests\nfails, similarity of action on the part of two agents need not be\nconnected with memory of a like present as well as of like antecedents,\nbut must, or at any rate may, be referred to memory of like antecedents\nonly.\n\nReturning to a parenthesis a few pages back, in which I said that\nconsciousness of memory would be less or greater according to the greater\nor fewer number of times that the act had been repeated, it may be\nobserved as a corollary to this, that the less consciousness of memory\nthe greater the uniformity of action, and _vice versa_. For the less\nconsciousness involves the memory\u2019s being more perfect, through a larger\nnumber (generally) of repetitions of the act that is remembered; there is\ntherefore a less proportionate difference in respect of the number of\nrecollections of this particular act between the most recent actor and\nthe most recent but one. This is why very old civilisations, as those of\nmany insects, and the greater number of now living organisms, appear to\nthe eye not to change at all.\n\nFor example, if an action has been performed only ten times, we will say\nby A, B, C, &c., who are similar in all respects, except that A acts\nwithout recollection, B with recollection of A\u2019s action, C with\nrecollection of both B\u2019s and A\u2019s, while J remembers the course taken by\nA, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I\u2014the possession of a memory by B will indeed\nso change his action, as compared with A\u2019s, that it may well be hardly\nrecognisable. We saw this in our example of the clerk who asked the\npoliceman the way to the eating-house on one day, but did not ask him the\nnext, because he remembered; but C\u2019s action will not be so different from\nB\u2019s as B\u2019s from A\u2019s, for though C will act with a memory of two occasions\non which the action has been performed, while B recollects only the\noriginal performance by A, yet B and C both act with the guidance of a\nmemory and experience of some kind, while A acted without any. Thus the\nclerk referred to in Chapter X. will act on the third day much as he\nacted on the second\u2014that is to say, he will see the policeman at the\ncorner of the street, but will not question him.\n\nWhen the action is repeated by J for the tenth time, the difference\nbetween J\u2019s repetition of it and I\u2019s will be due solely to the difference\nbetween a recollection of nine past performances by J against only eight\nby I, and this is so much proportionately less than the difference\nbetween a recollection of two performances and of only one, that a less\nmodification of action should be expected. At the same time\nconsciousness concerning an action repeated for the tenth time should be\nless acute than on the first repetition. Memory, therefore, though\ntending to disturb similarity of action less and less continually, must\nalways cause some disturbance. At the same time the possession of a\nmemory on the successive repetitions of an action after the first, and,\nperhaps, the first two or three, during which the recollection may be\nsupposed still imperfect, will tend to ensure uniformity, for it will be\none of the elements of sameness in the agents\u2014they both acting by the\nlight of experience and memory.\n\nDuring the embryonic stages and in childhood we are almost entirely under\nthe guidance of a practised and powerful memory of circumstances which\nhave been often repeated, not only in detail and piecemeal, but as a\nwhole, and under many slightly varying conditions; thus the performance\nhas become well averaged and matured in its arrangements, so as to meet\nall ordinary emergencies. We therefore act with great unconsciousness\nand vary our performances little. Babies are much more alike than\npersons of middle age.\n\nUp to the average age at which our ancestors have had children during\nmany generations, we are still guided in great measure by memory; but the\nvariations in external circumstances begin to make themselves perceptible\nin our characters. In middle life we live more and more continually upon\nthe piecing together of details of memory drawn from our personal\nexperience, that is to say, upon the memory of our own antecedents; and\nthis resembles the kind of memory we hypothetically attached to cream a\nlittle time ago. It is not surprising, then, that a son who has\ninherited his father\u2019s tastes and constitution, and who lives much as his\nfather had done, should make the same mistakes as his father did when he\nreaches his father\u2019s age\u2014we will say of seventy\u2014though he cannot possibly\nremember his father\u2019s having made the mistakes. It were to be wished we\ncould, for then we might know better how to avoid gout, cancer, or what\nnot. And it is to be noticed that the developments of old age are\ngenerally things we should be glad enough to avoid if we knew how to do\nso.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XIII\n\n\nConclusion.\n\nIF we observed the resemblance between successive generations to be as\nclose as that between distilled water and distilled water through all\ntime, and if we observed that perfect unchangeableness in the action of\nliving beings which we see in what we call chemical and mechanical\ncombinations, we might indeed suspect that memory had as little place\namong the causes of their action as it can have in anything, and that\neach repetition, whether of a habit or the practice of art, or of an\nembryonic process in successive generations, was an original performance,\nfor all that memory had to do with it. I submit, however, that in the\ncase of the reproductive forms of life we see just so much variety, in\nspite of uniformity, as is consistent with a repetition involving not\nonly a nearly perfect similarity in the agents and their circumstances,\nbut also the little departure therefrom that is inevitably involved in\nthe supposition that a memory of like presents as well as of like\nantecedents (as distinguished from a memory of like antecedents only) has\nplayed a part in their development\u2014a cyclonic memory, if the expression\nmay be pardoned.\n\nThere is life infinitely lower and more minute than any which our most\npowerful microscopes reveal to us, but let us leave this upon one side\nand begin with the am\u0153ba. Let us suppose that this structureless morsel\nof protoplasm is, for all its structurelessness, composed of an infinite\nnumber of living molecules, each one of them with hopes and fears of its\nown, and all dwelling together like Tekke Turcomans, of whom we read that\nthey live for plunder only, and that each man of them is entirely\nindependent, acknowledging no constituted authority, but that some among\nthem exercise a tacit and undefined influence over the others. Let us\nsuppose these molecules capable of memory, both in their capacity as\nindividuals, and as societies, and able to transmit their memories to\ntheir descendants, from the traditions of the dimmest past to the\nexperiences of their own lifetime. Some of these societies will remain\nsimple, as having had no history, but to the greater number unfamiliar,\nand therefore striking, incidents will from time to time occur, which,\nwhen they do not disturb memory so greatly as to kill, will leave their\nimpression upon it. The body or society will remember these incidents,\nand be modified by them in its conduct, and therefore more or less in its\ninternal arrangements, which will tend inevitably to specialisation.\nThis memory of the most striking events of varied lifetimes I maintain,\nwith Professor Hering, to be the differentiating cause, which,\naccumulated in countless generations, has led up from the am\u0153ba to man.\nIf there had been no such memory, the am\u0153ba of one generation would have\nexactly resembled time am\u0153ba of the preceding, and a perfect cycle would\nhave been established; the modifying effects of an additional memory in\neach generation have made the cycle into a spiral, and into a spiral\nwhose eccentricity, in the outset hardly perceptible, is becoming greater\nand greater with increasing longevity and more complex social and\nmechanical inventions.\n\nWe say that the chicken grows the horny tip to its beak with which it\nultimately pecks its way out of its shell, because it remembers having\ngrown it before, and the use it made of it. We say that it made it on\nthe same principles as a man makes a spade or a hammer, that is to say,\nas the joint result both of desire and experience. When I say\nexperience, I mean experience not only of what will be wanted, but also\nof the details of all the means that must be taken in order to effect\nthis. Memory, therefore, is supposed to guide the chicken not only in\nrespect of the main design, but in respect also of every atomic action,\nso to speak, which goes to make up the execution of this design. It is\nnot only the suggestion of a plan which is due to memory, but, as\nProfessor Hering has so well said, it is the binding power of memory\nwhich alone renders any consolidation or coherence of action possible,\ninasmuch as without this no action could have parts subordinate one to\nanother, yet bearing upon a common end; no part of an action, great or\nsmall, could have reference to any other part, much less to a combination\nof all the parts; nothing, in fact, but ultimate atoms of actions could\never happen\u2014these bearing the same relation to such an action, we will\nsay, as a railway journey from London to Edinburgh as a single molecule\nof hydrogen to a gallon of water. If asked how it is that the chicken\nshows no sign of consciousness concerning this design, nor yet of the\nsteps it is taking to carry it out, we reply that such unconsciousness is\nusual in all cases where an action, and the design which prompts it, have\nbeen repeated exceedingly often. If, again, we are asked how we account\nfor the regularity with which each step is taken in its due order, we\nanswer that this too is characteristic of actions that are done\nhabitually\u2014they being very rarely misplaced in respect of any part.\n\nWhen I wrote \u201cLife and Habit,\u201d I had arrived at the conclusion that\nmemory was the most essential characteristic of life, and went so far as\nto say, \u201cLife is that property of matter whereby it can remember\u2014matter\nwhich can remember is living.\u201d I should perhaps have written, \u201cLife is\nthe being possessed of a memory\u2014the life of a thing at any moment is the\nmemories which at that moment it retains\u201d; and I would modify the words\nthat immediately follow, namely, \u201cMatter which cannot remember is dead\u201d;\nfor they imply that there is such a thing as matter which cannot remember\nanything at all, and this on fuller consideration I do not believe to be\nthe case; I can conceive of no matter which is not able to remember a\nlittle, and which is not living in respect of what it can remember. I do\nnot see how action of any kind is conceivable without the supposition\nthat every atom retains a memory of certain antecedents. I cannot,\nhowever, at this point, enter upon the reasons which have compelled me to\nthis conclusion. Whether these would be deemed sufficient or no, at any\nrate we cannot believe that a system of self-reproducing associations\nshould develop from the simplicity of the am\u0153ba to the complexity of the\nhuman body without the presence of that memory which can alone account at\nonce for the resemblances and the differences between successive\ngenerations, for the arising and the accumulation of divergences\u2014for the\ntendency to differ and the tendency not to differ.\n\nAt parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader to see every atom in\nthe universe as living and able to feel and to remember, but in a humble\nway. He must have life eternal, as well as matter eternal; and the life\nand the matter must be joined together inseparably as body and soul to\none another. Thus he will see God everywhere, not as those who repeat\nphrases conventionally, but as people who would have their words taken\naccording to their most natural and legitimate meaning; and he will feel\nthat the main difference between him and many of those who oppose him\nlies in the fact that whereas both he and they use the same language, his\nopponents only half mean what they say, while he means it entirely.\n\nThe attempt to get a higher form of a life from a lower one is in\naccordance with our observation and experience. It is therefore proper\nto be believed. The attempt to get it from that which has absolutely no\nlife is like trying to get something out of nothing. The millionth part\nof a farthing put out to interest at ten per cent, will in five hundred\nyears become over a million pounds, and so long as we have any millionth\nof a millionth of the farthing to start with, our getting as many million\npounds as we have a fancy for is only a question of time, but without the\ninitial millionth of a millionth of a millionth part, we shall get no\nincrement whatever. A little leaven will leaven the whole lump, but\nthere must be _some_ leaven.\n\nI will here quote two passages from an article already quoted from on\npage 55 of this book. They run:\u2014\n\n \u201cWe are growing conscious that our earnest and most determined\n efforts to make motion produce sensation and volition have proved a\n failure, and now we want to rest a little in the opposite, much less\n laborious conjecture, and allow any kind of motion to start into\n existence, or at least to receive its specific direction from\n psychical sources; sensation and volition being for the purpose\n quietly insinuated into the constitution of the ultimately moving\n particles.\u201d {177a}\n\nAnd:\u2014\n\n \u201cIn this light it can remain no longer surprising that we actually\n find motility and sensibility so intimately interblended in nature.\u201d\n {177b}\n\nWe should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living, in respect\nof the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather than the\norganic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in common with\nthe inorganic. True, it would be hard to place one\u2019s self on the same\nmoral platform as a stone, but this is not necessary; it is enough that\nwe should feel the stone to have a moral platform of its own, though that\nplatform embraces little more than a profound respect for the laws of\ngravitation, chemical affinity, &c. As for the difficulty of conceiving\na body as living that has not got a reproductive system\u2014we should\nremember that neuter insects are living but are believed to have no\nreproductive system. Again, we should bear in mind that mere\nassimilation involves all the essentials of reproduction, and that both\nair and water possess this power in a very high degree. The essence of a\nreproductive system, then, is found low down in the scheme of nature.\n\nAt present our leading men of science are in this difficulty; on the one\nhand their experiments and their theories alike teach them that\nspontaneous generation ought not to be accepted; on the other, they must\nhave an origin for the life of the living forms, which, by their own\ntheory, have been evolved, and they can at present get this origin in no\nother way than by the _Deus ex machin\u00e2_ method, which they reject as\nunproved, or a spontaneous generation of living from non-living matter,\nwhich is no less foreign to their experience. As a general rule, they\nprefer the latter alternative. So Professor Tyndall, in his celebrated\narticle (_Nineteenth Century_, November 1878), wrote:\u2014\n\n \u201cIt is generally conceded (and seems to be a necessary inference from\n the lessons of science) that _spontaneous generation must at one time\n have taken place_\u201d (italics mine).\n\nNo inference can well be more unnecessary or unscientific. I suppose\nspontaneous generation ceases to be objectionable if it was \u201conly a very\nlittle one,\u201d and came off a long time ago in a foreign country. The\nproper inference is, that there is a low kind of livingness in every atom\nof matter. Life eternal is as inevitable a conclusion as matter eternal.\n\nIt should not be doubted that wherever there is vibration or motion there\nis life and memory, and that there is vibration and motion at all times\nin all things.\n\nThe reader who takes the above position will find that he can explain the\nentry of what he calls death among what he calls the living, whereas he\ncould by no means introduce life into his system if he started without\nit. Death is deducible; life is not deducible. Death is a change of\nmemories; it is not the destruction of all memory. It is as the\nliquidation of one company, each member of which will presently join a\nnew one, and retain a trifle even of the old cancelled memory, by way of\ngreater aptitude for working in concert with other molecules. This is\nwhy animals feed on grass and on each other, and cannot proselytise or\nconvert the rude ground before it has been tutored in the first\nprinciples of the higher kinds of association.\n\nAgain, I would recommend the reader to beware of believing anything in\nthis book unless he either likes it, or feels angry at being told it. If\nrequired belief in this or that makes a man angry, I suppose he should,\nas a general rule, swallow it whole then and there upon the spot,\notherwise he may take it or leave it as he likes. I have not gone far\nfor my facts, nor yet far from them; all on which I rest are as open to\nthe reader as to me. If I have sometimes used hard terms, the\nprobability is that I have not understood them, but have done so by a\nslip, as one who has caught a bad habit from the company he has been\nlately keeping. They should be skipped.\n\nDo not let him be too much cast down by the bad language with which\nprofessional scientists obscure the issue, nor by their seeming to make\nit their business to fog us under the pretext of removing our\ndifficulties. It is not the ratcatcher\u2019s interest to catch all the rats;\nand, as Handel observed so sensibly, \u201cEvery professional gentleman must\ndo his best for to live.\u201d The art of some of our philosophers, however,\nis sufficiently transparent, and consists too often in saying \u201corganism\nwhich must be classified among fishes,\u201d instead of \u201cfish,\u201d {179a} and\nthen proclaiming that they have \u201can ineradicable tendency to try to make\nthings clear.\u201d {179b}\n\nIf another example is required, here is the following from an article\nthan which I have seen few with which I more completely agree, or which\nhave given me greater pleasure. If our men of science would take to\nwriting in this way, we should be glad enough to follow them. The\npassage I refer to runs thus:\u2014\n\n \u201cProfessor Huxley speaks of a \u2018verbal fog by which the question at\n issue may be hidden\u2019; is there no verbal fog in the statement that\n _the \u00e6tiology of crayfishes resolves itself into a gradual evolution\n in the course of the mesosoic and subsequent epochs of the world\u2019s\n history of these animals from a primitive astacomorphous form_?\n Would it be fog or light that would envelop the history of man if we\n said that the existence of man was explained by the hypothesis of his\n gradual evolution from a primitive anthropomorphous form? I should\n call this fog, not light.\u201d {180}\n\nEspecially let him mistrust those who are holding forth about protoplasm,\nand maintaining that this is the only living substance. Protoplasm may\nbe, and perhaps is, the _most_ living part of an organism, as the most\ncapable of retaining vibrations, but this is the utmost that can be\nclaimed for it.\n\nHaving mentioned protoplasm, I may ask the reader to note the breakdown\nof that school of philosophy which divided the _ego_ from the _non ego_.\nThe protoplasmists, on the one hand, are whittling away at the _ego_,\ntill they have reduced it to a little jelly in certain parts of the body,\nand they will whittle away this too presently, if they go on as they are\ndoing now.\n\nOthers, again, are so unifying the _ego_ and the _non ego_, that with\nthem there will soon be as little of the _non ego_ left as there is of\nthe _ego_ with their opponents. Both, however, are so far agreed as that\nwe know not where to draw the line between the two, and this renders\nnugatory any system which is founded upon a distinction between them.\n\nThe truth is, that all classification whatever, when we examine its\n_raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ closely, is found to be arbitrary\u2014to depend on our sense\nof our own convenience, and not on any inherent distinction in the nature\nof the things themselves. Strictly speaking, there is only one thing and\none action. The universe, or God, and the action of the universe as a\nwhole.\n\nLastly, I may predict with some certainty that before long we shall find\nthe original Darwinism of Dr. Erasmus Darwin (with an infusion of\nProfessor Hering into the bargain) generally accepted instead of the\nneo-Darwinism of to-day, and that the variations whose accumulation\nresults in species will be recognised as due to the wants and endeavours\nof the living forms in which they appear, instead of being ascribed to\nchance, or, in other words, to unknown causes, as by Mr. Charles Darwin\u2019s\nsystem. We shall have some idyllic young naturalist bringing up Dr.\nErasmus Darwin\u2019s note on _Trapa natans_, {181a} and Lamarck\u2019s kindred\npassage on the descent of _Ranunculus hederaceus_ from _Ranunculus\naquatilis_ {181b} as fresh discoveries, and be told, with much happy\nsimplicity, that those animals and plants which have felt the need of\nsuch or such a structure have developed it, while those which have not\nwanted it have gone without it. Thus, it will be declared, every leaf we\nsee around us, every structure of the minutest insect, will bear witness\nto the truth of the \u201cgreat guess\u201d of the greatest of naturalists\nconcerning the memory of living matter.\n\nI dare say the public will not object to this, and am very sure that none\nof the admirers of Mr. Charles Darwin or Mr. Wallace will protest against\nit; but it may be as well to point out that this was not the view of the\nmatter taken by Mr. Wallace in 1858 when he and Mr. Darwin first came\nforward as preachers of natural selection. At that time Mr. Wallace saw\nclearly enough the difference between the theory of \u201cnatural selection\u201d\nand that of Lamarck. He wrote:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe hypothesis of Lamarck\u2014that progressive changes in species have\n been produced by the attempts of animals to increase the development\n of their own organs, and thus modify their structure and habits\u2014has\n been repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers on the subject of\n varieties and species, . . . but the view here developed tenders such\n an hypothesis quite unnecessary. . . . The powerful retractile\n talons of the falcon and the cat tribes have not been produced or\n increased by the volition of those animals, neither did the giraffe\n acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of the more\n lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this purpose,\n but because any varieties which occurred among its antitypes with a\n longer neck than usual _at once secured a fresh range of pasture over\n the same ground as their shorter-necked companions_, _and on the\n first scarcity of food were thereby enabled to outlive them_\u201d\n (italics in original). {182a}\n\nThis is absolutely the neo-Darwinian doctrine, and a denial of the mainly\nfortuitous character of the variations in animal and vegetable forms cuts\nat its root. That Mr. Wallace, after years of reflection, still adhered\nto this view, is proved by his heading a reprint of the paragraph just\nquoted from {182b} with the words \u201cLamarck\u2019s hypothesis very different\nfrom that now advanced\u201d; nor do any of his more recent works show that he\nhas modified his opinion. It should be noted that Mr. Wallace does not\ncall his work \u201cContributions to the Theory of Evolution,\u201d but to that of\n\u201cNatural Selection.\u201d\n\nMr. Darwin, with characteristic caution, only commits himself to saying\nthat Mr. Wallace has arrived at _almost_ (italics mine) the same general\nconclusions as he, Mr. Darwin, has done; {182c} but he still, as in 1859,\ndeclares that it would be \u201ca serious error to suppose that the greater\nnumber of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation, and\nthen transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations,\u201d {183a} and he\nstill comprehensively condemns the \u201cwell-known doctrine of inherited\nhabit, as advanced by Lamarck.\u201d {183b}\n\nAs for the statement in the passage quoted from Mr. Wallace, to the\neffect that Lamarck\u2019s hypothesis \u201chas been repeatedly and easily refuted\nby all writers on the subject of varieties and species,\u201d it is a very\nsurprising one. I have searched Evolution literature in vain for any\nrefutation of the Erasmus Darwinian system (for this is what Lamarck\u2019s\nhypothesis really is) which need make the defenders of that system at all\nuneasy. The best attempt at an answer to Erasmus Darwin that has yet\nbeen made is \u201cPaley\u2019s Natural Theology,\u201d which was throughout obviously\nwritten to meet Buffon and the \u201cZoonomia.\u201d It is the manner of\ntheologians to say that such and such an objection \u201chas been refuted over\nand over again,\u201d without at the same time telling us when and where; it\nis to be regretted that Mr. Wallace has here taken a leaf out of the\ntheologians\u2019 book. His statement is one which will not pass muster with\nthose whom public opinion is sure in the end to follow.\n\nDid Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, \u201crepeatedly and easily refute\u201d\nLamarck\u2019s hypothesis in his brilliant article in the _Leader_, March 20,\n1852? On the contrary, that article is expressly directed against those\n\u201cwho cavalierly reject the hypothesis of Lamarck and his followers.\u201d\nThis article was written six years before the words last quoted from Mr.\nWallace; how absolutely, however, does the word \u201ccavalierly\u201d apply to\nthem!\n\nDoes Isidore Geoffroy, again, bear Mr. Wallace\u2019s assertion out better?\nIn 1859\u2014that is to say, but a short time after Mr. Wallace had written\u2014he\nwrote as follows:\u2014\n\n \u201cSuch was the language which Lamarck heard during his protracted old\n age, saddened alike by the weight of years and blindness; this was\n what people did not hesitate to utter over his grave yet barely\n closed, and what indeed they are still saying\u2014commonly too without\n any knowledge of what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at\n secondhand bad caricatures of his teaching.\n\n \u201cWhen will the time come when we may see Lamarck\u2019s theory\n discussed\u2014and, I may as well at once say, refuted in some important\n points {184a}\u2014with at any rate the respect due to one of the most\n illustrious masters of our science? And when will this theory, the\n hardihood of which has been greatly exaggerated, become freed from\n the interpretations and commentaries by the false light of which so\n many naturalists have formed their opinion concerning it? If its\n author is to be condemned, let it be, at any rate, not before he has\n been heard.\u201d {184b}\n\nIn 1873 M. Martin published his edition of Lamarck\u2019s \u201cPhilosophie\nZoologique.\u201d He was still able to say, with, I believe, perfect truth,\nthat Lamarck\u2019s theory has \u201cnever yet had the honour of being discussed\nseriously.\u201d {184c}\n\nProfessor Huxley in his article on Evolution is no less cavalier than Mr.\nWallace. He writes:\u2014{184d}\n\n \u201cLamarck introduced the conception of the action of an animal on\n itself as a factor in producing modification.\u201d\n\n[Lamarck did nothing of the kind. It was Buffon and Dr. Darwin who\nintroduced this, but more especially Dr. Darwin.]\n\n \u201cBut _a little consideration showed_\u201d (italics mine) \u201cthat though\n Lamarck had seized what, as far as it goes, is a true cause of\n modification, it is a cause the actual effects of which are wholly\n inadequate to account for any considerable modification in animals,\n and which can have no influence whatever in the vegetable world, &c.\u201d\n\nI should be very glad to come across some of the \u201clittle consideration\u201d\nwhich will show this. I have searched for it far and wide, and have\nnever been able to find it.\n\nI think Professor Huxley has been exercising some of his ineradicable\ntendency to try to make things clear in the article on Evolution, already\nso often quoted from. We find him (p. 750) pooh-poohing Lamarck, yet on\nthe next page he says, \u201cHow far \u2018natural selection\u2019 suffices for the\nproduction of species remains to be seen.\u201d And this when \u201cnatural\nselection\u201d was already so nearly of age! Why, to those who know how to\nread between a philosopher\u2019s lines, the sentence comes to very nearly the\nsame as a declaration that the writer has no great opinion of \u201cnatural\nselection.\u201d Professor Huxley continues, \u201cFew can doubt that, if not the\nwhole cause, it is a very important factor in that operation.\u201d A\nphilosopher\u2019s words should be weighed carefully, and when Professor\nHuxley says \u201cfew can doubt,\u201d we must remember that he may be including\nhimself among the few whom he considers to have the power of doubting on\nthis matter. He does not say \u201cfew will,\u201d but \u201cfew can\u201d doubt, as though\nit were only the enlightened who would have the power of doing so.\nCertainly \u201cnature,\u201d\u2014for this is what \u201cnatural selection\u201d comes to,\u2014is\nrather an important factor in the operation, but we do not gain much by\nbeing told so. If, however, Professor Huxley neither believes in the\norigin of species, through sense of need on the part of animals\nthemselves, nor yet in \u201cnatural selection,\u201d we should be glad to know\nwhat he does believe in.\n\nThe battle is one of greater importance than appears at first sight. It\nis a battle between teleology and non-teleology, between the\npurposiveness and the non-purposiveness of the organs in animal and\nvegetable bodies. According to Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Paley,\norgans are purposive; according to Mr. Darwin and his followers, they are\nnot purposive. But the main arguments against the system of Dr. Erasmus\nDarwin are arguments which, so far as they have any weight, tell against\nevolution generally. Now that these have been disposed of, and the\nprejudice against evolution has been overcome, it will be seen that there\nis nothing to be said against the system of Dr. Darwin and Lamarck which\ndoes not tell with far greater force against that of Mr. Charles Darwin\nand Mr. Wallace.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE END.\n\n * * * * *\n\n WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.\n PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n{0a} This is the date on the title-page. The preface is dated October\n15, 1886, and the first copy was issued in November of the same year.\nAll the dates are taken from the Bibliography by Mr. H. Festing Jones\nprefixed to the \u201cExtracts\u201d in the _New Quarterly Review_ (1909).\n\n{0b} I.e. after p. 285: it bears no number of its own!\n\n{0c} The distinction was merely implicit in his published writings, but\nhas been printed since his death from his \u201cNotebooks,\u201d _New Quarterly\nReview_, April, 1908. I had developed this thesis, without knowing of\nButler\u2019s explicit anticipation in an article then in the press:\n\u201cMechanism and Life,\u201d _Contemporary Review_, May, 1908.\n\n{0d} The term has recently been revived by Prof. Hubrecht and by myself\n(_Contemporary Review_, November 1908).\n\n{0e} See _Fortnightly Review_, February 1908, and _Contemporary Review_,\nSeptember and November 1909. Since these publications the hypnosis seems\nto have somewhat weakened.\n\n{0f} A \u201chormone\u201d is a chemical substance which, formed in one part of\nthe body, alters the reactions of another part, normally for the good of\nthe organism.\n\n{0g} Mr. H. Festing Jones first directed my attention to these passages\nand their bearing on the Mutation Theory.\n\n{0i} He says in a note, \u201cThis general type of reaction was described and\nillustrated in a different connection by Pfluger in \u2018Pfluger\u2019s Archiv.\nf.d. ges. Physiologie,\u2019 Bd. XV.\u201d The essay bears the significant title\n\u201cDie teleologische Mechanik der lebendigen Natur,\u201d and is a very\nremarkable one, as coming from an official physiologist in 1877, when the\nchemico-physical school was nearly at its zenith.\n\n{0j} \u201cContributions to the Study of the Lower Animals\u201d (1904),\n\u201cModifiability in Behaviour\u201d and \u201cMethod of Regulability in Behaviour and\nin other Fields,\u201d in _Journ. Experimental Zoology_, vol. ii. (1905).\n\n{0h} See \u201cThe Hereditary Transmission of Acquired Characters\u201d in\n_Contemporary Review_, September and November 1908, in which references\nare given to earlier statements.\n\n{0k} Semon\u2019s technical terms are exclusively taken from the Greek, but\nas experience tells that plain men in England have a special dread of\nsuchlike, I have substituted \u201cimprint\u201d for \u201cengram,\u201d \u201coutcome\u201d for\n\u201cecphoria\u201d; for the latter term I had thought of \u201cefference,\u201d\n\u201cmanifestation,\u201d etc., but decided on what looked more homely, and at the\nsame time was quite distinctive enough to avoid that confusion which\nSemon has dodged with his Gr\u00e6cisms.\n\n{0l} \u201cBetween the \u2018me\u2019 of to-day and the \u2018me\u2019 of yesterday lie night and\nsleep, abysses of unconsciousness; nor is there any bridge but memory\nwith which to span them.\u201d\u2014_Unconscious Memory_, p. 71.\n\n{0m} Preface by Mr. Charles Darwin to \u201cErasmus Darwin.\u201d The Museum has\ncopies of a _Kosmos_ that was published 1857\u201360 and then discontinued;\nbut this is clearly not the _Kosmos_ referred to by Mr. Darwin, which\nbegan to appear in 1878.\n\n{0n} Preface to \u201cErasmus Darwin.\u201d\n\n{2} May 1880.\n\n{3} _Kosmos_, February 1879, Leipsic.\n\n{4} Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 459.\n\n{8a} Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 1.\n\n{8b} _Kosmos_, February 1879, p. 397.\n\n{8c} Erasmus Darwin, by Ernest Krause, pp. 132, 133.\n\n{9a} Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 242.\n\n{9b} Ibid., p. 427.\n\n{10a} _Nineteenth Century_, November 1878; Evolution, Old and New, pp.\n360. 361.\n\n{10b} Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, ed. ix., art. \u201cEvolution,\u201d p. 748.\n\n{11} Ibid.\n\n{17} Encycl. Brit., ed. ix., art. \u201cEvolution,\u201d p. 750.\n\n{23a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., 1876, p. 206.\n\n{23b} Ibid., p. 233.\n\n{24a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 171, 1876.\n\n{24b} Pp. 258\u2013260.\n\n{26} Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 484; Evolution, Old and New, p. 214.\n\n{27} \u201cErasmus Darwin,\u201d by Ernest Krause, p. 211, London, 1879.\n\n{28a} See \u201cEvolution, Old and New,\u201d p. 91, and Buffon, tom. iv. p. 383,\ned. 1753.\n\n{28b} Evolution, Old and New, p. 104.\n\n{29a} Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. \u201cEvolution,\u201d p. 748.\n\n{29b} Paling\u00e9n\u00e9sie Philosophique, part x. chap. ii. (quoted from\nProfessor Huxley\u2019s article on \u201cEvolution,\u201d Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., p.\n745).\n\n{31} The note began thus: \u201cI have taken the date of the first\npublication of Lamarck from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire\u2019s (Hist. Nat.\nG\u00e9n\u00e9rale tom. ii. p. 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion upon this\nsubject. In this work a full account is given of Buffon\u2019s fluctuating\nconclusions upon the same subject.\u201d\u2014_Origin of Species_, 3d ed., 1861, p.\nxiv.\n\n{33a} Life of Erasmus Darwin, pp. 84, 85.\n\n{33b} See Life and Habit, p. 264 and pp. 276, 277.\n\n{33c} See Evolution, Old and New, pp. 159\u2013165.\n\n{33d} Ibid., p. 122.\n\n{34} See Evolution, Old and New, pp. 247, 248.\n\n{35a} Vestiges of Creation, ed. 1860, \u201cProofs, Illustrations, &c.,\u201d p.\nlxiv.\n\n{35b} The first announcement was in the _Examiner_, February 22, 1879.\n\n{36} _Saturday Review_, May 31, 1879.\n\n{37a} May 26, 1879.\n\n{37b} May 31, 1879.\n\n{37c} July 26, 1879.\n\n{37d} July 1879.\n\n{37e} July 1879.\n\n{37f} July 29, 1879.\n\n{37g} January 1880.\n\n{39} How far _Kosmos_ was \u201ca well-known\u201d journal, I cannot determine.\nIt had just entered upon its second year.\n\n{41} Evolution, Old and New, p. 120, line 5.\n\n{43} _Kosmos_, February 1879, p. 397.\n\n{44a} _Kosmos_, February 1879, p. 404.\n\n{44b} Page 39 of this volume.\n\n{50} See Appendix A.\n\n{52} Since published as \u201cGod the Known and God the Unknown.\u201d Fifield,\n1s. 6d. net. 1909.\n\n{54a} \u201cContemplation of Nature,\u201d Engl. trans., Lond. 1776. Preface, p.\nxxxvi.\n\n{54b} _Ibid._, p. xxxviii.\n\n{55} Life and Habit, p. 97.\n\n{56} \u201cThe Unity of the Organic Individual,\u201d by Edward Montgomery,\n_Mind_, October 1880, p. 466.\n\n{58} Life and Habit, p. 237.\n\n{59a} Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. Lardner\u2019s Cab.\nCyclo., vol. xcix. p. 24.\n\n{59b} Young\u2019s Lectures on Natural Philosophy, ii. 627. See also Phil.\nTrans., 1801\u20132.\n\n{63} The lecture is published by Karl Gerold\u2019s Sohn, Vienna.\n\n{69} See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume.\n\n{70} Professor Hering is not clear here. Vibrations (if I understand\nhis theory rightly) should not be set up by faint _stimuli_ from within.\nWhence and what are these _stimuli_? The vibrations within are already\nexisting, and it is they which are the _stimuli_ to action. On having\nbeen once set up, they either continue in sufficient force to maintain\naction, or they die down, and become too weak to cause further action,\nand perhaps even to be perceived within the mind, until they receive an\naccession of vibration from without. The only \u201cstimulus from within\u201d\nthat should be able to generate action is that which may follow when a\nvibration already established in the body runs into another similar\nvibration already so established. On this consciousness, and even\naction, might be supposed to follow without the presence of an external\nstimulus.\n\n{71} This expression seems hardly applicable to the overtaking of an\ninternal by an external vibration, but it is not inconsistent with it.\nHere, however, as frequently elsewhere, I doubt how far Professor Hering\nhas fully realised his conception, beyond being, like myself, convinced\nthat the phenomena of memory and of heredity have a common source.\n\n{72} See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume. By \u201cpreserving\nthe memory of habitual actions\u201d Professor Hering probably means, retains\nfor a long while and repeats motion of a certain character when such\nmotion has been once communicated to it.\n\n{74a} It should not be \u201cif the central nerve system were not able to\nreproduce whole series of vibrations,\u201d but \u201cif whole series of vibrations\ndo not persist though unperceived,\u201d if Professor Hering intends what I\nsuppose him to intend.\n\n{74b} Memory was in full operation for so long a time before anything\nlike what we call a nervous system can be detected, that Professor Hering\nmust not be supposed to be intending to confine memory to a motor nerve\nsystem. His words do not even imply that he does, but it is as well to\nbe on one\u2019s guard.\n\n{77} It is from such passages as this, and those that follow on the next\nfew pages, that I collect the impression of Professor Hering\u2019s meaning\nwhich I have endeavoured to convey in the preceding chapter.\n\n{78} That is to say, \u201can infinitely small change in the kind of\nvibration communicated from the parent to the germ.\u201d\n\n{79} It may be asked what is meant by responding. I may repeat that I\nunderstand Professor Hering to mean that there exists in the offspring\ncertain vibrations, which are many of them too faint to upset equilibrium\nand thus generate action, until they receive an accession of force from\nwithout by the running into them of vibrations of similar characteristics\nto their own, which last vibrations have been set up by exterior objects.\nOn this they become strong enough to generate that corporeal earthquake\nwhich we call action.\n\nThis may be true or not, but it is at any rate intelligible; whereas much\nthat is written about \u201cfraying channels\u201d raises no definite ideas in the\nmind.\n\n{80a} I interpret this, \u201cWe cannot wonder if often-repeated vibrations\ngather strength, and become at once more lasting and requiring less\naccession of vibration from without, in order to become strong enough to\ngenerate action.\u201d\n\n{80b} \u201cCharacteristics\u201d must, I imagine, according to Professor Hering,\nresolve themselves ultimately into \u201cvibrations,\u201d for the characteristics\ndepend upon the character of the vibrations.\n\n{81} Professor Hartog tells me that this probably refers to Fritz\nM\u00fcller\u2019s formulation of the \u201crecapitulation process\u201d in \u201cFacts for\nDarwin,\u201d English edition (1869), p. 114.\u2014R.A.S.\n\n{82} This is the passage which makes me suppose Professor Hering to mean\nthat vibrations from exterior objects run into vibrations already\nexisting within the living body, and that the accession to power thus\nderived is his key to an explanation of the physical basis of action.\n\n{84} I interpret this: \u201cThere are fewer vibrations persistent within the\nbodies of the lower animals; those that there are, therefore, are\nstronger and more capable of generating action or upsetting the _status\nin quo_. Hence also they require less accession of vibration from\nwithout. Man is agitated by more and more varied vibrations; these,\ninterfering, as to some extent they must, with one another, are weaker,\nand therefore require more accession from without before they can set the\nmechanical adjustments of the body in motion.\u201d\n\n{89} I am obliged to Mr. Sully for this excellent translation of\n\u201cHellsehen.\u201d\n\n{90a} _Westminster Review_, New Series, vol. xlix. p. 143.\n\n{90b} Ibid., p. 145.\n\n{90c} Ibid., p. 151.\n\n{92a} \u201cInstinct ist zweckm\u00e4ssiges Handeln ohne Bewusstsein des\nZwecks.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., Berlin, 1871, p. 70.\n\n{92b} \u201c1. Eine blosse Folge der k\u00f6rperlichen Organisation.\n\n\u201c2. Ein von der Natur eingerichteter Gehirn-oder Geistesmechanismus.\n\n\u201c3. Eine Folge unbewusster Geistesthiitigkeit.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the\nUnconscious_, 3d ed., p. 70.\n\n{97} \u201cHiermit ist der Annahme das Urtheil gesprochen, welche die\nunbewusste Vorstellung des Zwecks in jedem einzelnen Falle vorwiegt; denn\nwollte man nun noch die Vorstellung des Geistesmechanismus festhalten so\nm\u00fcsste f\u00fcr jede Variation und Modification des Instincts, nach den\n\u00e4usseren Umst\u00e4nden, eine besondere constante Vorrichtung . . . eingef\u00fcgt\nsein.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_ 3d ed., p. 74.\n\n{99} \u201cIndessen glaube ich, dass die angef\u00fchrten Beispiele zur Gen\u00fcge\nbeweisen, dass es auch viele F\u00e4lle giebt, wo ohne jede Complication mit\nder bewussten Ueberlegung die gew\u00f6hnliche und aussergew\u00f6hnliche Handlung\naus derselben Quelle stammen, dass sie entweder beide wirklicher\nInstinct, oder beide Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung sind.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy\nof the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 76.\n\n{100} \u201cDagegen haben wir nunmehr unseren Blick noch einmal sch\u00e4rfer auf\nden Begriff eines psychischen Mechanismus zu richten, und da zeigt sich,\ndass derselbe, abgesehen davon, wie viel er erkl\u00e4rt, so dunke list, dass\nman sich kaum etwas dabei denken kann.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_,\n3d ed., p. 76.\n\n{101} \u201cDas Endglied tritt als bewusster Wille zu irgend einer Handlung\nauf; beide sind aber ganz ungleichartig und haben mit der gew\u00f6hnlichen\nMotivation nichts zu thun, welche ausschliesslich darin besteht, dass die\nVorstellung einer Lust oder einer Unlust das Begehren erzeugr, erstere zu\nerlangen, letztere sich fern zu halten.\u201d\u2014_Ibid._, p. 76.\n\n{102a} \u201cDiese causale Verbindung f\u00e4llt erfahrungsm\u00e4ssig, wie wir von\nunsern menschlichen Instincten wissen, nicht in\u2019s Bewussisein; folglich\nkann dieselbe, wenn sie ein Mechanismus sein soll, nur entweder ein nicht\nin\u2019s Bewusstsein fallende mechanische Leitung und Umwandlung der\nSchwingungen des vorgestellten Motivs in die Schwingungen der gewollten\nHandlung im Gehirn, oder ein unbewusster geistiger Mechanismus\nsein.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_ 3d ed., p. 77.\n\n{102b} \u201cMan hat sich also zwischen dem bewussten Motiv, und dem Willen\nzur Insticthandlung eine causale Verbindung durch unbewusstes Vorstellen\nund Wollen zu denken, und ich weiss nicht, wie diese Verbindung einfacher\ngedacht werden k\u00f6nnte, als durch den vorgestellten und gewollten Zweck.\nDamit sind wir aber bei dem allen Geistern eigenth\u00fcmlichen und immanenten\nMechanismus der Logik angelangt, und haben die unbewusster\nZweckvorstellung bei jeder einzelnen Instincthandlung als unentbehrliches\nGlied gefunden; hiermit hat also der Begrift des todten, \u00e4usserlich\npr\u00e4destinirten Geistesmechanismus sich selbst aufgehoben und in das\nimmanente Geistesleben der Logik umgewandelt, und wir sind bei der\nletzten M\u00f6glichkeit angekommen, welche f\u00fcr die Auffassung eines\nwirklichen Instincts \u00fcbrig bleibt: der Instinct ist bewusstes Wollen des\nMittels zu einem unbewusst gewollten Zweck.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the\nUnconscious_, 3d ed., p. 78.\n\n{105a} \u201cAlso der Instinct ohne H\u00fclfsmechanismus die Ursache der\nEntstehung des H\u00fclfsmechanismus ist.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d\ned., p. 79.\n\n{105b} \u201cDass auch der fertige H\u00fclfsmechanismus das Unbewusste nicht etwa\nzu dieser bestimmten Instincthandlung necessirt, sondern blosse\npr\u00e4disponirt.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 79.\n\n{105c} \u201cGiebt es einen wirklichen Instinct, oder sind die sogenannten\nInstincthandlungen nur Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung?\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of\nthe Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 79.\n\n{111} \u201cDieser Beweis ist dadurch zu f\u00fchren; erstens dass die\nbetreffenden Thatsachen in; der Zukunft liegen, und dem Verstande die\nAnhaltepunkte fehlen, um ihr zuk\u00fcnftiges Eintreten aus den gegenw\u00e4rtigen\nVerh\u00e4ltnissen zu erschliessen; zweitens, dass die betreffenden Thatsachen\naugenscheinlich der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung verschlossen liegen, weil nur\ndie Erfahrung fr\u00fcherer F\u00e4lle \u00fcber sie belehren kann, und diese laut der\nBeobachtung ausgeschlossen ist. Es w\u00fcrde f\u00fcr unsere Interessen keinen\nUnterschied machen, wenn, was ich wahrscheinlich halte, bei\nfortschreitender physiologischer Erkenntniss alle jetzt f\u00fcr den ersten\nFall anzuf\u00fchrenden Beispiele sich als solche des zweiten Falls ausweisen\nsollten, wie dies unleugbar bei vielen fr\u00fcher gebrauchten Beispielen\nschon geschehen ist; denn ein apriorisches Wissen ohne jeden sinnlichen\nAnstoss ist wohl kaum wunderbarer zu nennen, als ein Wissen, welches zwar\n_bei Gelegenheit_ gewisser sinnlicher Wahrnehmung zu Tage tritt, aber mit\ndiesen nur durch eine solche Kette von Schl\u00fcssen und angewandten\nKenntnissen in Verbindung stehend gedacht werden k\u00f6nnte, dass deren\nM\u00f6glichkeit bei dem Zustande der F\u00e4higkeiten und Bildung der betreffenden\nThiere entschieden geleugnet werden muss.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the\nUnconscious_, 3d ed., p. 85.\n\n{113} \u201cMan hat dieselbe jederzeit anerkannt und mit den Worten Vorgef\u00fchl\noder Ahnung bezeichnet; indess beziehen sich diese W\u00f6rte einerseits nur\nauf zuk\u00fcnftiges, nicht auf gegenw\u00e4rtiges, r\u00e4umlich getrenntes\nUnwahmehrnbares, anderseits bezeichnen sie nur die leise, dumpfe,\nunbestimmte Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit dem unfehlbar bestimmten\nZustande der unbewussten Erkenntniss. Daher das Wort Vorgef\u00fchl in\nR\u00fccksicht auf die Dumpfheit und Unbestimmtheit, w\u00e4hrend doch leicht zu\nsehen ist, dass das von allen, auch den unbewussten Vorstellungen\nentbl\u00f6sste Gef\u00fchl f\u00fcr das Resultat gar keinen Einfluss haben kann,\nsondern nur eine Vorstellung, weil diese allein Erkenntniss enth\u00e4lt. Die\nin Bewusstsein mitklingende Ahnung kann allerdings unter Umst\u00e4nden\nziemlich deutlich sein, so dass sie sich beim Menschen in Gedanken und\nWort fixiren l\u00e4sst; doch ist dies auch im Menschen erfahrungsm\u00e4ssig bei\nden eigenth\u00fcmlichen Instincten nicht der Fall, vielmehr ist bei diesen\ndie Resonanz der unbewussten Erkenntniss im Bewusstsein meistens so\nschwach, dass sie sich wirklich nur in begleitenden Gef\u00fchlen oder der\nStimmung \u00e4ussert, dass sie einen unendlich kleinen Bruchtheil des\nGemeingef\u00fchls bildet.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 86.\n\n{115a} \u201cIn der Bestimmung des Willens durch einen im Unbewussten\nliegenden Process . . . f\u00fcr welchen sich dieser Character der\nzweifellosen Selbstgewissheit in allen folgenden Untersuchungen bew\u00e4hren\nwird.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, p. 87.\n\n{115b} \u201cSondern als unmittelbarer Besitz vorgefunden wird.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy\nof the Unconscious_, p. 87.\n\n{115c} \u201cHellsehen.\u201d\n\n{119a} \u201cDas Hellsehon des Unbewussten hat sie den rechten Weg ahnen\nlassen.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, p. 90, 3d ed., 1871.\n\n{119b} \u201cMan wird doch wahrlich nicht den Thieren zumuthen wollen, durch\nmeteorologische Schl\u00fcsse das Wetter auf Monate im Voraus zu berechnen, ja\nsogar Ueberschwemmungen vorauszusehen. Vielmehr ist eine solche\nGef\u00fchlswahrnehmung gegenw\u00e4rtiger atmosph\u00e4rischer Einfl\u00fcsse nichts weiter\nals die sinnliche Wahrnehmung, welche als Motiv wirkt, und ein Motiv muss\nja doch immer vorhanden sein, wenn ein Instinct functioniren soll. Es\nbleibt also trotzdem bestehen dass das Voraussehen der Witterung ein\nunbewusstes Hellsehen ist, von dem der Storch, der vier Wochen fr\u00fcher\nnach S\u00fcden aufbricht, so wenig etwas weiss, als der Hirsch, der sich vor\neinem kalten Winter einen dickeren Pelz als gew\u00f6hnlich wachsen l\u00e4sst.\nDie Thiere haben eben einerseits das gegenw\u00e4rtige Witterungsgef\u00fchl im\nBewusstsein, daraus folgt andererseits ihr Handeln gerade so, als ob sie\ndie Vorstellung der zuk\u00fcnftigen Witterung h\u00e4tten; im Bewusstsein haben\nsie dieselbe aber nicht, also bietet sich als einzig nat\u00fcrliches\nMittelglied die unbewusste Vorstellung, die nun aber immer ein Hellsehen\nist, weil sie etwas enth\u00e4lt, was dem Thier weder dutch sinnliche\nWahrnehmung direct gegeben ist, noch durch seine Verstandesmittel aus der\nWahrnehmung geschlossen werden kann.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, p.\n91, 3d ed., 1871.\n\n{124} \u201cMeistentheils tritt aber hier der h\u00f6heren Bewusstseinstufe der\nMenschen entsprechend eine st\u00e4rkete Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit dem\nbewussten Hellsehen hervor, die sich also mehr odor minder deutliche\nAhnung darstellt. Ausserdem entspricht es der gr\u00f6sseren\nSelbstst\u00e4ndigkeit des menschlichen Intellects, dass diese Ahnung nicht\nausschliesslich Behufs der unmittelbaren Ausf\u00fchrung einer Handlung\neintritt, sondern bisweilen auch unab\u00e4ngig von der Bedingung einer\nmomentan zu leistenden That als blosse Vorstellung ohne bewussten Willen\nsich zeigte, wenn nur die Bedingung erf\u00fcllt ist, dass der Gegenstand\ndieses Ahnens den Willen des Ahnenden im Allgemeinen in hohem Grade\ninteressirt.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 94.\n\n{126} \u201cH\u00e4ufig sind die Ahnungen, in denen das Hellsehen des Unbewussten\nsich dem Bewusstsein offenbart, dunkel, unverst\u00e4ndlich und symbolisch,\nweil sie im Gehirn sinnliche Form annehmen m\u00fcssen, w\u00e4hrend die unbewusste\nVorstellung an der Form der Sinnlichkeit kein Theil haben\nkann.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 96.\n\n{128} \u201cEbenso weil es diese Reihe nur in gesteigerter\nBewusstseinresonanz fortsetzt, st\u00fctzt es jene Aussagen der\nInstincthandlungen \u00fcher ihr eigenes Wesen ebenso sehr,\u201d &c.\u2014_Philosophy\nof the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 97.\n\n{129} \u201cWir werden trotzdem diese gomeinsame Wirkung eines\nMasseninstincts in der Entstehung der Sprache und den grossen politischen\nund socialen Bewegungen in der Woltgeschichte deutlich wieder erkennen;\nhier handelt es sich um m\u00f6glichst einfache und deutliche Beispiele, und\ndarum greifen wir zu niederen Thieren, wo die Mittel der\nGedankenmittheilung bei fehlender Stimme, Mimik und Physiognomie so\nunvollkommen sind, dass die Uebereinstimmung und das Ineinandergreifen\nder einzelnen Leistungen in den Hauptsachen unm\u00f6glich der bewussten\nVerst\u00e4ndigung durch Sprache zugeschrieben werden darf.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of\nthe Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 98.\n\n{131a} \u201cUnd wie durch Instinct dot Plan des ganzen Stocks in unbewusstem\nHellsehen jeder einzelnen Biene einwohnt.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the\nUnconscious_, 3d ed., p. 99.\n\n{131b} \u201cIndem jedes Individuum den Plan des Ganzen und S\u00e4mmtliche\ngegenwartig zu ergreifende Mittel im unbewussten Hellsehen hat, wovon\naber nut das Eine, was ihm zu thun obliegt, in sein Bewusstsein\nf\u00e4llt.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 99.\n\n{132} \u201cDer Instinct ist nicht Resultat bewusster Ueberlegung, nicht\nFolge der k\u00f6rperlichen Organisation, nicht blosses Resultat eines in der\nOrganisation des Gehirns gelegenen Mechanismus, nicht Wirkung eines dem\nGeiste von aussen angeklebten todten, seinem innersten Wesen fremden\nMechanismus, sondern selbsteigene Leistung des Individuum aus seinem\ninnersten Wesen und Character entspringend.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the\nUnconscious_, 3d ed., p. 100.\n\n{133} \u201cH\u00e4ufig ist die Kenntniss des Zwecks der bewussten Erkenntniss\ndurch sinnliche Wahrnehmung gar nicht zug\u00e4nglich; dann documentirt sich\ndie Eigenth\u00fcmlichkeit des Unbewussten im Hellsehen, von welchem das\nBewusstsein theils nar eine verschwindend dumpfe, theils auch namentlich\nbeim Menschen mehr oder minder deutliche Resonanz als Ahnung\nversp\u00fctt.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 100.\n\n{135} \u201cUnd eine so d\u00e4monische Gewalt sollte durch etwas ausge\u00fcbt werden\nk\u00f6nnon, was als ein dem inneren Wesen fremder Mechanismus dem Geiste\naufgepfropft ist, oder gar durch eine bewusste Ueberlegung, welche doch\nstets nur im kahlen Egoismus stecken bleibt,\u201d &c.\u2014_Philosophy of the\nUnconscious_, 3d ed., p. 101.\n\n{139a} Page 100 of this vol.\n\n{139b} Pp. 106, 107 of this vol.\n\n{140} Page 100 of this vol.\n\n{141} Page 99 of this vol.\n\n{144a} See page 115 of this volume.\n\n{144b} Page 104 of this vol.\n\n{146} The Spirit of Nature. J. A. Churchill & Co., 1880, p. 39.\n\n{149} I have put these words into the mouth of my supposed objector, and\nshall put others like them, because they are characteristic; but nothing\ncan become so well known as to escape being an inference.\n\n{153} Erewhon, chap. xxiii.\n\n{160} It must be remembered that this passage is put as if in the mouth\nof an objector.\n\n{177a} \u201cThe Unity of the Organic Individual,\u201d by Edward Montgomery.\n_Mind_, October 1880, p. 477.\n\n{177b} Ibid., p. 483.\n\n{179a} Professor Huxley, Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. Evolution, p.\n750.\n\n{179b} \u201cHume,\u201d by Professor Huxley, p. 45.\n\n{180} \u201cThe Philosophy of Crayfishes,\u201d by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop\nof Carlisle. _Nineteenth Century_ for October 1880, p. 636.\n\n{181a} Les Amours des Plantes, p. 360. Paris, 1800.\n\n{181b} Philosophie Zoologique, tom. i. p. 231. Ed. M. Martin. Paris,\n1873.\n\n{182a} Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Williams &\nNorgate, 1858, p. 61.\n\n{182b} Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, 2d ed., 1871,\np. 41.\n\n{182c} Origin of Species, p. 1, ed. 1872.\n\n{183a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 206. I ought in fairness to Mr.\nDarwin to say that he does not hold the error to be quite as serious as\nhe once did. It is now \u201ca serious error\u201d only; in 1859 it was \u201cthe most\nserious error.\u201d\u2014Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 209.\n\n{183b} Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 242; 6th ed., p. 233.\n\n{184a} I never could find what these particular points were.\n\n{184b} Isidore Geoffroy, Hist. Nat. Gen., tom. ii. p. 407, 1859.\n\n{184c} M. Martin\u2019s edition of the \u201cPhilosophie Zoologique\u201d (Paris,\n1873), Introduction, p. vi.\n\n{184d} Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, 9th ed., p. 750.","title":"Unconscious Memory","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":72673}