Life and habit

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Ob. A.D. 1892.

Life and Habit

By

Samuel Butler

Author of "Erewhon," "The Way of All Flesh,'
• Unconscious Memory," etc.

Tolovtol Se 6vt€S avdp&iruv p.h airavruv Kara<f>povov<n.

Lucian, lcarotnenippusy 30
" We are all terribly afraid of them." — Paraphrase
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6tl fir] 8vuar6v iari fioi Kara x&>po.v pbw, rjv /mt] tovs (pvaiKobs

itcdvovs iiriTpiiprj. . . .

Eoreu TCLvra, yv 5' ^70;. — Lucian, Icaromenippusy 21, 22

"Lay it well, therefore, before Jupiter, that if he will not bring

these men of science to their proper bearings, I can stay here no

longer." . . .

"It shall be done," I answered. — Paraphrase

NEW EDITION, WITH AUTHOR'S ADDENDA

MiCROFORMSp ?7

Op. 3

I DAiE. .. .,;..(,, ....
London*"

A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford's Inn, E.G. >s
1910

tAll rights reserved

&7S'
tf/o

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED
TO

CHARLES PAINE PAULI, Esq.

BARRISTER-AT-LAW

IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS INVALUABLE

CRITICISM OF THE PROOF-SHEETS OF THIS AND

OF MY PREVIOUS BOOKS

AND IN RECOGNITION OF AN OLD AND

WELL-TRIED FRIENDSHIP

\

CONTENTS.

PREFACE BY R. A. STREATFEILD . ,

author's ORIGINAL PREFACE

CHAPTKR

I. ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS

II. CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS — THE LAW

AND GRACE . . . .

III. APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS TO CERTAIN

HABITS ACQUIRED AFTER BIRTH WHICH ARE

COMMONLY CONSIDERED INSTINCTIVE

IV. APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES TO

ACTIONS AND HABITS ACQUIRED BEFORE BIRTH

V. PERSONAL IDENTITY

VI. PERSONAL IDENTITY (continued)

VII. OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES

Vlli. APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS — THE

ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER

IX. ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY

X. WHAT WE SHOULD EXPECT TO FIND IF DIFFEREN

TIATIONS OF STRUCTURE AND INSTINCT ARE

MAINLY DUE TO MEMORY

XI. INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY

XII. INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS

XIII. LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN

XIV. MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN
XV. CONCLUDING REMARKS .

APPENDIX — AUTHOR'S ADDENDA

PAGE

vii
x
i

20

43

59
78

91
104

125
150

166
198
220
252

273;
294
308

PREFACE.

Since Samuel Butler published "Life and Habit" thirty-
three1 years have elapsed — years fruitful in change
and discovery, during which many of the mighty have
been put down from their seat and many of the humble
have been exalted. I do not know that Butler can
truthfully be called humble, indeed, I think he had
very few misgivings as to his ultimate triumph, but he
has certainly been exalted with a rapidity that he him-
self can scarcely have foreseen. During his lifetime
he was a literary pariah, the victim of an organized
conspiracy of silence. He is now, I think it may be
said without exaggeration, universally accepted as one
of the most remarkable English writers of the latter
part of the nineteenth century. I will not weary my
readers by quoting the numerous tributes paid by dis-
tinguished contemporary writers to Butler's origin-
ality and force of mind, but I cannot refrain from
illustrating the changed attitude of the scientific world
to Butler and his theories by a reference to " Darwin
and Modern Science," the collection of essays published
in 1909 by the University of Cambridge, in com-
memoration of the Darwin centenary. In that work
Professor Bateson, while referring repeatedly to Butler's
biological works, speaks of him as " the most brilliant
and by far the most interesting of Darwin's opponents,
whose works are at length emerging from oblivion."

1 Although the original edition of "Life and Habit" is dated
1878, the book was actually published in December, 1877.

vii

viii PREFACE

With the growth of Butler's reputation "Life and
Habit" has had much to do. It was the first and
is undoubtedly the most important of his writings on
evolution. From its loins, as it were, sprang his three
later books, " Evolution Old and New " " Unconscious
Memory," and " Luck or Cunning ? ", which carried its
arguments further afield. It will perhaps interest
Butler's readers if I here quote a passage from his
note-books, lately published in the "New Quarterly
Review " (Vol. III. No. 9), in which he summarizes his
work in biology :

" To me it seems that my contributions to the theory
of evolution have been mainly these :

" 1. The identification of heredity and memory, and
the corollaries relating to sports, the reversion to
remote ancestors, the phenomena of old age, the causes
of the sterility of hybrids, and the principles under-
lying longevity — all of which follow as a matter of
course. This was ■ Life and Habit ' [1877].

"2. The re-introduction of teleology into organic
life, which to me seems hardly, if at all, less important
than the ' Life and Habit ' theory. This was ■ Evolu-
tion Old and New ' [1879].

"3. An attempt to suggest an explanation of the
physics of memory. This was 'Unconscious Memory'
[1880]. I was alarmed by the suggestion and fathered
it upon Professor Hering, who never, that I can see,
meant to say anything of the kind, but I forced my
view upon him, as it were, by taking hold of a sentence
or two in his lecture, 'On Memory as a Universal
Function of Organised Matter/ and thus connected
memory with vibrations.

" What I want to do now (1885) is to connect vibra-
tions not only with memory but with the physical con-
stitution of that body in which the memory resides,

PREFACE ix

thus adopting Newland's law (sometimes called Men-
delejeff s law) that there is only one substance, and
that the characteristics of the vibrations going on
within it at any given time will determine whether it
will appear to us as, we will say, hydrogen, or sodium,
or chicken doing this, or chicken doing the other."
[This is touched upon in the concluding chapter of
" Luck or Cunning ? " 1887].

The present edition of " Life and Habit " is practi-
cally a re-issue of that of 1878. I find that about the
year 1890, although the original edition was far from
being exhausted, Butler began to make corrections of
the text of "Life and Habit," presumably with the
intention of publishing a revised edition. The copy of
the book so corrected is now in my possession. In the
first five chapters there are numerous emendations,
very few of which, however, affect the meaning to any
appreciable extent, being mainly concerned with the
excision of redundancies and the simplification of style.
I imagine that by the time he had reached the end of
the fifth chapter Butler realised that the corrections
he had made were not of sufficient importance to
warrant a new edition, and determined to let the book
stand as it was. I believe, therefore, that I am carry-
ing out his wishes in reprinting the present edition
from the original plates. I have found, however,
among his papers three entirely new passages, which
he probably wrote during the period of correction and
no doubt intended to incorporate into the revised
edition. Mr. Henry Festing Jones has also given me
a copy of a passage which Butler wrote and gummed
into Mr. Jones's copy of " Life and Habit." These four
passages I have printed as an appendix at the end of
the present volume.

x PREFACE

One more point deserves notice. Butler often refers
in "Life and Habit" to Darwin's "Variations of
Animals and Plants under Domestication." When he
does so it is always under the name " Plants and
Animals." More often still he refers to Darwin's
" Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection,"
terming it at one time " Origin of Species " and at
another " Natural Selection," sometimes, as on p. 278,
using both names within a few lines of each other.
Butler was as a rule scrupulously careful about quota-
tions, and I can offer no explanation of this curious
confusion of titles.

E. A. STREATFEILD.

November, 1910.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The Italics in the passages quoted in this book are
generally mine, but I found it almost impossible to
call the reader's attention to this upon every occasion.
I have done so once or twice, as thinking it necessary
in these cases that there should be no mistake ; on the
whole, however, I thought it better to content myself
with calling attention in a preface to the fact that the
author quoted is not, as a general rule, responsible for
the Italics.

S. BUTLER.

November 13, 1877.

LIFE AND HABIT.

CHAPTER I.

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS.

It will be our business in the following chapters to
consider whether the unconsciousness, or quasi- uncon-
sciousness, with which we perform certain acquired
actions, would seem to throw any light upon Embry-
ology and inherited instincts, and otherwise to follow
the train of thought which the class of actions above-
mentioned would suggest ; more especially in so far as
they appear to bear upon the origin of species and the
continuation of life by successive generations, whether
in the animal or vegetable kingdoms.

In the outset, however, I would wish most distinctly
to disclaim for these pages the smallest pretension
to scientific value, originality, or even to accuracy
of more than a very rough and ready kind — for unless
a matter be true enough to stand a good deal of
misrepresentation, its truth is not of a very robust
order, and the blame will rather lie with its own
delicacy if it be crushed, than with the carelessness of

2 LIFE AND HABIT.

the crusher. I have no wish to instruct, and not much
to be instructed ; my aim is simply to entertain and
interest the numerous class of people who, like myself,
know nothing of science, but who enjoy speculating
and reflecting (not too deeply) upon the phenomena
around them. I have therefore allowed myself a loose
rein, to run on with whatever came uppermost, without
regard to whether it was new or old ; feeling sure that
if true, it must be very old or it never could have
occurred to one so little versed in science as myself;
and knowing that it is sometimes pleasanter to meet
the old under slightly changed conditions, than to go
through the formalities and uncertainties of making
new acquaintance. At the same time, I should say
that whatever I have knowingly taken from any one
else, I have always acknowledged.

It is plain, therefore, that my book cannot be
intended for the perusal of scientific people; it is
intended for the general public only, with whom I
believe myself to be in harmony, as knowing neither
much more nor much less than they do.

Taking then, the art of playing the piano as an
example of the kind of action we are in search of, we
observe that a practised player will perform very diffi-
cult pieces apparently without effort, often, indeed,
while thinking and talking of something quite other
than his music ; yet he will play accurately and, pos-
sibly, with much expression. If he has been playing a
fugue, say in four parts, he will have kept each part
well distinct, in such a manner as to prove that his
mind was not prevented, by its other occupations, from

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 3

consciously or unconsciously following four distinct
trains of musical thought at the same time, nor from
making his fingers act in exactly the required manner
as regards each note of each part.

It commonly happens that in the course of four or
five minutes a player may have struck four or five
thousand notes. If we take into consideration the
rests, dotted notes, accidentals, variations of time, &c,
we shall find his attention must have been exercised
on many more occasions than when he was actually
striking notes : so that it may not be too much to say
that the attention of a first-rate player may have been
exercised — to an infmitesimally small extent — but
still truly exercised — on as many as ten thousand
occasions within the space of five minutes, for no note
can be struck nor point attended to without a certain
amount of attention, no matter how rapidly or uncon-
sciously given.

Moreover, each act of attention has been followed
by an act of volition, and each act of volition by a
muscular action, which is composed of many minor
actions ; some so small that we can no more follow
them than the player himself can perceive them ;
nevertheless, it may have been perfectly plain that the
player was not attending to what he was doing, but
was listening to conversation on some other subject,
not to say joining in it himself. If he has been play-
ing the violin, he may have done all the above, and
may also have been walking about. Herr Joachim
would unquestionably be able to do all that has here
been described.

4 LIFE AND HABIT.

So complete would the player's unconsciousness
of the attention he is giving, and the brain power he is
exerting appear to be, that we shall find it difficult to
awaken his attention to any particular part of his
performance without putting him out. Indeed we
cannot do so. We shall observe that he finds it hardly
less difficult to compass a voluntary consciousness
of what he has once learnt so thoroughly that it
has passed, so to speak, into the domain of uncon-
sciousness, than he found it to learn the note or
passage in the first instance. The effort after a
second consciousness of detail baffles him — compels
him to turn to his music or play slowly. In fact it
seems as though he knew the piece too well to be able
to know that he knows it, and is only conscious of
knowing those passages which he does not know
so thoroughly.

At the end of his performance, his memory would
appear to be no less annihilated than was his con-
sciousness of attention and volition. For of the thou-
sands of acts requiring the exercise of both the one
and the other, which he has done during the five
minutes, we will say, of his performance, he will
remember hardly one when it is over. If he calls to
mind anything beyond the main fact that he has
played such and such a piece, it will probably be
some passage which he has found more difficult than
the others, and with the like of which he has not been
so long familiar. All the rest he will forget as com-
pletely as the breath which he has drawn while
playing.

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 7

our memories must revert (with an intensity too rapid
for our perception) to many if not to all the occasions
on which we have ever written the same letter pre-
viously— the memory of these occasions dwelling in our
minds as what has been called a residuum — an un-
consciously struck balance or average of them all —
a fused mass of individual reminiscences of winch no
trace can be found in our consciousness, and of which
the only effect would seem to lie in the gradual
changes of handwriting which are perceptible in most
people till they have reached middle-age, and some-
times even later. So far are we from consciously re-
membering any one of the occasions on which we have
written such and such a letter, that we are not even
conscious of exercising our memory at all, any more
than we are in health conscious of the action of our
heart. But, if we are writing in some unfamiliar way,
as when printing our letters instead of writing them
in our usual running hand, our memory is so far
awakened that we become conscious of every character
we form ; sometimes it is even perceptible as memory
to ourselves, as when we try to remember how to
print some letter, for example a g, and cannot call to
mind on which side of the upper half of the letter we
ought to put the link which connects it with the
lower, and are successful in remembering ; but if we
become very conscious of remembering, it shows that
we are on the brink of only trying to remember, —
that is to say, of not remembering at all.

As a general rule, we remember for a time the sub-
stance of what we have written, for the subject is

8 LIFE AND HABIT.

generally new to us ; but if we are writing what we
have often written before, we lose consciousness of
this too, as fully as we do of the characters necessary
to con\«ey the substance to another person, and we
shall find ourselves writing on as it were mechanically
while thinking and talking of something else. So a
paid copyist, to whom the subject of what he is writing
is of no importance, does not even notice it. He
deals only with familiar words and familiar characters
without caring to go behind them, and thereupon
writes on in a ^asi-unconscious manner ; but if he
comes to a word or to characters with which he is but
little acquainted, he becomes immediately awakened
to the consciousness of either remembering or trying
to remember. His consciousness of his own know-
ledge or memory would seem to belong to a period, so
to speak, of twilight between the thick darkness of
ignorance and the brilliancy of perfect knowledge ; as
colour which vanishes with extremes of light or of
shade. Perfect ignorance and perfect knowledge are
alike unselfconscious.

The above holds good even more noticeably in
respect of reading. How many thousands of indi-
vidual letters do our eyes run over every morning in
the "Times" newspaper, how few of them do we
notice, or remember having noticed ? Yet there was a
time when we had such difficulty in reading even the
simplest words, that we had to take great pains to
impress them upon our memory so as to know them
when we came to them again. Now, not even a single
word of all we have seen will remain with us, unless

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 9

it is a new one, or an old one used in an unfamiliar
sense, in which case we notice, and may very likely
remember it. Our memory retains the substance only,
the substance only being unfamiliar. Nevertheless,
although we do not perceive more than the general
result of our perception, there can be no doubt of our
having perceived every letter in every word that
we have read at all, for if we come upon a word
misspelt our attention is at once aroused; unless,
indeed, we have actually corrected the misspelling, as
well as noticed it, unconsciously, through exceeding
familiarity with the way in which it ought to be
spelt. Not only do we perceive the letters we have
seen without noticing that we have perceived them, but
we find it almost impossible to notice that we notice
them when we have once learnt to read fluently. To
try to do so puts us out, and prevents our being able
to read. We may even go so far as to say that if a
man can attend to the individual characters, it is a
sign that he cannot yet read fluently. If we know
how to read well, we are as unconscious of the means
and processes whereby we attain the desired result as
we are about the growth of our hair or the circulation
of our blood. So that here again it would seem that
we only know what we know still to some extent
imperfectly, and that what we know thoroughly
escapes our conscious perception though none the less
actually perceived. Our perception in fact passes into
a latent stage, as also our memory and volition.

Walking is another example of the rapid exercise of
volition with but little perception of each individual

io LIFE AND HABIT.

act of exercise. We notice any obstacle in our path,
but it is plain we do not notice that we perceive
much that we have nevertheless been perceiving ; for
if a man goes down a lane by night he will stumble over
many things which he would have avoided by day, al-
though he would not have noticed them. Yet time was
when walking was to each one of us a new and arduous
task — as arduous as we should now find it to wheel a
wheelbarrow on a tight-rope ; whereas, at present,
though we can think of our steps to a certain extent
without checking our power to walk, we certainly can-
not consider our muscular action in detail without
having to come to a dead stop.

Talking — especially in one's mother tongue — may
serve as a last example. We find it impossible to
follow the muscular action of the mouth and tongue
in framing every letter or syllable we utter. We have
probably spoken for years and years before we became
aware that the letter b is a labial sound, and until we
have to utter a word which is difficult from its un-
familiarity we speak " trippingly on the tongue " with
no attention except to the substance of what we
wish to say. Yet talking was not always the easy
matter to us which it is at present — as we perceive
more readily when we are learning a new language
which it may take us months to master. Nevertheless,
when we have once mastered it we speak it without
further consciousness of knowledge or memory, as
regards the more common words, and without even
noticing our unconsciousness. Here, as in the other
instances already given, as long as we did not know

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 1 1

perfectly, we were conscious of our acts of perception,
volition, and reflection, but when our knowledge has
become perfect we no longer notice our consciousness,
nor our volition ; nor can we awaken a second artificial
consciousness without some effort, and disturbance of
the process of which we are endeavouring to become
conscious. We are no longer, so to speak, under the
law, but under grace.

An ascending scale may be perceived in the above
instances.

In playing, we have an action acquired long after
birth, difficult of acquisition, and never thoroughly
familiarised to the power of absolutely unconscious
performance, except in the case of those who have
either an exceptional genius for music, or who have
devoted the greater part of their time to practising.
Except in the case of these persons it is generally
found easy to become more or less conscious of any
passage without disturbing the performance, and our
action remains so completely within our control that
we can stop playing at any moment we please.

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

Reading is usually acquired earlier still. We read

12 LIFE AND HABIT.

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

Walking is so early an acquisition that we cannot
remember having acquired it. In running fast over
average ground we find it very difficult to become
conscious of each individual step, and should possibly
find it more difficult still, if the inequalities and
roughness of uncultured land had not perhaps caused
the development of a power to create a second con-
sciousness of our steps without hindrance to our
running or walking. Pursuit and flight, whether in the
chase or in war, must for many generations have played
a much more prominent part in the lives of our ancestors
than they do in our own. If the ground over which
they had to travel had been generally as free from
obstruction as our modern cultivated lands, it is pos-
sible that we might not find it as easy to notice our
several steps as we do at present. Even as it is,
if while we are running we would consider the action
of our muscles, we come to a dead stop, and should
probably fall if we tried to observe too suddenly ; for
we must stop to do this, and running, when we
have once committed ourselves to it beyond a certain
point, is not controllable to a step or two without loss
of equilibrium.

We learn to talk, much about the same time that we
learn to walk, but talking requires less muscular effort

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 13

than walking, and makes generally less demand upon
our powers. A man may talk a long while before he
has done the equivalent of a five-mile walk; it is
natural, therefore, that we should have had more prac-
tice in talking than in walking, and hence that we
should find it harder to pay attention to our words
than to our steps. Certainly it is very hard to become
conscious of every syllable or indeed of every word we
say ; the attempt to do so will often bring us to a
check at once; nevertheless we can generally stop
talking if we wish to do so, unless the crying of
infants be considered as a kind of quasi-sipeech. : this
comes earlier, and is often quite uncontrollable, or
more truly perhaps is done with such complete control
over the muscles by the will, and with such absolute
certainty of his own purpose on the part of the wilier,
that there is no longer any more doubt, uncertainty, or
suspense, and hence no power of perceiving any of the
processes whereby the result is attained — as a wheel
which may look fast fixed because it is so fast re-
volving.1

We may observe therefore in this ascending scale,
imperfect as it is, that the older the habit the longer
the practice, the longer the practice the more know-
ledge— or, the less uncertainty; the less uncertainty
the less power of conscious self-analysis and control.

It will occur to the reader that in all the instances
given above, different individuals attain the unconscious
stage of perfect knowledge with very different degrees
of facility. Some have to attain it with a great sum ;
others are free born. Some learn to play, to read, write,

1 See Appendix.

i4 LIFE AND HABIT.

and talk, with hardly an effort — some show such an
instinctive aptitude for arithmetic that, like Zerah Col-
burn, at eight years old, they achieve results without
instruction, which in the case of most people would
require a long education. The account of Zerah Col-
burn, as quoted from Mr. Baily in Dr. Carpenter's
" Mental Physiology," may perhaps be given here.

" He raised any number consisting of one figure pro-
gressively to the tenth power, giving the results (by
actual multiplication and not by memory) faster than
they could he set dcnun in figures by the person appointed
to record them. He raised the number 8 progressively
to the sixteenth power, and in naming the last result,
which consisted of I 5 figures, he was right in every
one. Some numbers consisting of two figures he raised
as high as the eighth power, though he found a diffi-
culty in proceeding when the products became very
large.

"On being asked the square root of 106,929, he
answered 327 before the original number could be
written down. He was then required to find the cube
root of 268,336,125, and with equal facility and
promptness he replied 645.

" He was asked how many minutes there are in 48
years, and before the question could be taken down he
replied 25,228,800, and immediately afterwards he
gave the correct number of seconds.

"On being requested to give the factors which would
produce the number 247,483, he immediately named
941 and 263, which are the only two numbers from
the multiplication of which it would result. On

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 15

1 7r>395 being proposed, he named 5 x 34,279,
7x24,485, 59x2905, 83x2065, 35x4897,
295 x 581, and 413 x 415.

"He was then asked to give the factors of 36,083,
but he immediately replied that it had none, which was
really the case, this being a prime number. Other
numbers being proposed to him indiscriminately, he
always succeeded in giving the correct factors except
in the case of prime numbers, which he generally dis-
covered almost as soon as they were proposed to him.
The number 4,294,967,297, which is 232 + 1, having
been given him, he discovered, as Euler had previously
done, that it was not the prime number which Fermat
had supposed it to be, but that it is the product of the
factors 6,700,417 X 641. The solution of this
problem was only given after the lapse of some weeks,
but the method he took to obtain it clearly showed
that he had not derived his information from any
extraneous source.

" When he was asked to multiply together numbers
both consisting of more than these figures, he seemed
to decompose one or both of them into its factors, and
to work with them separately. Thus, on being asked
to give the square of 4395, he multiplied 293 by
itself, and then twice multiplied the product by 1 5.
And on being asked to tell the square of 999,999 he
obtained the correct result, 999,998,000,001, by twice
multiplying the square of 37,037 by 27. He then
of his own accord multiplied that product by 49, and
said that the result (viz., 48,999,902,000,049) was
equal to the square of 6,999,993. He afterwards

16 LIFE AND HABIT.

multiplied this product by 49, and observed that the
result (viz., 2,400,995,198,002,401) was equal to the
square of 48,999,95 1. He was again asked to multi-
ply the product by 25, and in naming the result (viz.,
60,024,879,950,060,025), he said it was equal to the
square of 244,999,75 5.

" On being interrogated as to the manner in which he
obtained these results, the boy constantly said he did
not know how the answers came into his mind. In
the act of multiplying two numbers together, and in
the raising of powers, it was evident (alike from the
facts just stated and from the motion of his lips) that
some operation was going forward in his mind ; yet
that operation could not (from the readiness with
which his answers were furnished) have been at all
allied to the usual modes of procedure, of which, in-
deed, he was entirely ignorant, not being able to per-
form on paper a simple sum in multiplication or
division. But in the extraction of roots, and in the
discovery of the factors of large numbers, it did not
appear that any operation could take place, since he
gave answers immediately, or in a very few seconds,
which, according to the ordinary methods, would have
required very difficult and laborious calculations, and
prime numbers cannot be recognised <as such by any
known rule."

I should hope that many of the above figures are
wrong. I have verified them carefully with Dr. Car-
penter's quotation, but further than this I cannot and
will not go. Also I am happy to find that in the end
the boy overcame the mathematics, and turned out a

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 17

useful but by no means particularly calculating mem-
ber of society.

The case, however, is typical of others in which per-
sons have been found able to do without apparent effort
what in the great majority of cases requires a long
apprenticeship. It is needless to multiply instances ;
the point that concerns us is, that knowledge under
such circumstances being very intense, and the ease with
which the result is produced extreme, it eludes the
conscious apprehension of the performer himself, who
only becomes conscious when a difficulty arises which
taxes even his abnormal power. Such a case, there-
fore, confirms rather than militates against our opinion
that consciousness of knowledge vanishes on the know-
ledge becoming perfect — the only difference between
those possessed of any such remarkable special power
and the general run of people being, that the first are
born with such an unusual aptitude for their particular
specialty that they are able to dispense with all or
nearly all the preliminary exercise of their faculty,
while the latter must exercise it for a considerable
time before they can get it to work smoothly and
easily ; but in either case when once the knowledge is
intense it is unconscious.

Nor again would such an instance as that of Zerah
Colburn warrant us in believing that this white heat,
as it were, of unconscious knowledge can be at-
tained by any one without his ever having been
originally cold. Young Colburn, for example, could
not extract roots when he was an embryo of three
weeks' standing. It is true we can seldom follow the

1 8 LIFE AND HABIT.

process, but we know there must have been a time
in every case when even the desire for information or
action had not been kindled ; the forgetfulness of
effort on the part of those with exceptional genius for
a special subject is due to the smallness of the effort
necessary, so that it makes no impression upon the
individual himself, rather than to the absence of any
effort at alL1

It would, therefore, appear as though perfect know-
ledge and perfect ignorance were extremes which meet
and become indistinguishable from one another; so
also perfect volition and perfect absence of volition,
perfect memory and utter forgetfulness ; for we are
unconscious of knowing, willing, or remembering, either
from not yet having known or willed, or from knowing
and willing so well and so intensely as to be no longer
conscious of either. Conscious knowledge and volition
are of attention ; attention is of suspense ; suspense is
of doubt; doubt is of uncertainty; uncertainty is of
ignorance ; so that the mere fact of conscious knowing
or willing implies the presence of more or less novelty
and doubt.

It would also appear as a general principle on a
superficial view of the foregoing instances (and the
reader may readily supply himself with others which
are perhaps more to the purpose), that unconscious |
knowledge and unconscious volition are never acquired
otherwise than as the result of experience, familiarity,
or habit ; so that whenever we observe a person able
to do any complicated action unconsciously, we may
assume both that he must have done it very often

1 See Appendix.

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. 19

jbefore he could acquire so great proficiency, and also
/that there must have been a time when he did not
know how to do it at all.

We may assume that there was a time when he
was yet so nearly on the point of neither knowing nor
willing perfectly, that he was quite alive to whatever
knowledge or volition he could exert; going further
back, we shall find him still more keenly alive to a
less perfect knowledge ; earlier still, we find him well
aware that he does not know nor will correctly, but
trying hard to do both the one and the other ; and so
on, back and back, till both difficulty and consciousness
become little more than a sound of going in the brain,
a flitting to and fro of something barely recognisable
as the desire to will or know at all — much less as the
desire to know or will definitely this or that. Finally,
they retreat beyond our ken into the repose — the in-
organic kingdom — of as yet unawakened interest.

In either case, — the repose of perfect ignorance
or of perfect knowledge — disturbance is troublesome.
When first starting on an Atlantic steamer, our rest
is hindered by the screw; after a short time, it is
hindered if the screw stops. A uniform impression is
practically no impression. One cannot either learn or
unlearn without pains or pain.

(20)

CHAPTER II.

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KN0WERS — THE LAW
AND GRACE.

In this chapter we shall show that the law, which we
have observed to hold as to the vanishing tendency of
knowledge upon becoming perfect, holds good not only
concerning acquired actions or habits of body, but con-
cerning opinions, modes of thought, and mental habits
generally, which are no more recognised as soon as
firmly fixed, than are the steps with which we go about
our daily avocations. I am aware that I may appear
in the latter part of the chapter to have wandered
somewhat beyond the limits of my subject, but, on
the whole, decide upon leaving what I have written,
inasmuch as it serves to show how far-reaching is the
principle on which I am insisting. Having said so
much, I shall during the remainder of the book keep
more closely to the point.

Certain it is that we know best what we are least
conscious of knowing, or at any rate least able to prove,
as, for example, our own existence, or that there is a
country England. If any one asks us for proof on
matters of this sort, we have none ready, and are justly

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 21

annoyed at being called to consider what we regard as
settled questions. Again, there is hardly anything
which so much affects our actions as the centre of the
earth (unless, perhaps, it be that still hotter and more
unprofitable spot the centre of the universe), for we
are incessantly trying to get as near it as circum-
stances will allow, or to avoid getting nearer than is
for the time being convenient. Walking, running,
standing, sitting, lying, waking, or sleeping, from birth
till death it is a paramount object with us ; even after
death — if it be not fanciful to say so— it is one of the
few things of which what is left of us can still feel the
influence; yet what can engross less of our attention
than this dark and distant spot so many thousands of
miles away ?

The air we breathe, so long as it is neither too hot
nor cold, nor rough, nor full of smoke — that is to say,
so long as it is in that state with which we are best
acquainted — seldom enters into our thoughts ; yet there
is hardly anything with which we are more incessantly
occupied night and day.

Indeed, it is not too much to say that we have no
really profound knowledge upon any subject — n?
knowledge on the strength of which we are ready to
act at all moments unhesitatingly without either pre-
paration or after-thought — till we have left off feeling
conscious of the possession of such knowledge, and of
the grounds on which it rests. A lesson thoroughly
learned must be like the air which feels so light,
though pressing so heavily against us, because every
pore of our skin is saturated, so to speak, with it on

22 LIFE AND HABIT.

all sides equally. This perfection of knowledge some-
times extends to positive disbelief in the thing known,
so that the most thorough knower shall believe him-
self altogether ignorant. No thief, for example, is such
an utter thief — so good a thief — as the kleptomaniac.
Until he has become a kleptomaniac, and can steal a
horse as it were by a reflex action, he is still but half
a thief, with many unthievish notions still clinging to
him. Yet the kleptomaniac is probably unaware that
he can steal at all, much less that he can steal so well.
He would be shocked if he were to know the truth.
So again, no man is a great hypocrite until he has left
off knowing that he is a hypocrite. The great hypo-
crites of the world are almost invariably under the
impression that they are among the very few really
honest people to be found ; and, as we must all have
observed, it is rare to find any one strongly under this
impression without ourselves having good reason to
differ from him.

Our own existence is another case in point. When
we have once become articulately conscious of existing,
it is an easy matter to begin doubting whether we
exist at all. As long as man was too unreflecting a
creature to articulate in words his consciousness of his
own existence, he knew very well that he existed, but
he did not know that he knew it. With introspection,
and the perception recognised, for better or worse,
that he was a fact, came also the perception that he
had no solid ground for believing that he was a fact at
all. That nice, sensible, unintrospective people who
were too busy trying to exist pleasantly to trouble their

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 23

heads as to whether they existed or no — that this best
part of mankind should have gratefully caught at such
a straw as " cogito ergo sum" is intelligible enough.
They felt the futility of the whole question, and were
thankful to one who seemed to clench the matter with
a cant catchword, especially with a catchword in a
foreign language ; but how one, who was so far gone as
to recognise that he could not prove his own existence,
should be able to comfort himself with such a begging
of the question, would seem unintelligible except upon
the ground of sheer exhaustion.

At the risk of appearing to wander too far from the
matter in hand, a few further examples may perhaps
be given of that irony of nature, by which it comes
about that we so often most know and are, what we
least think ourselves to know and be — and on the other
hand hold most strongly what we are least capable of
demonstrating.

Take the existence of a Personal God, — one of the
most profoundly-received and widely-spread ideas that
have ever prevailed among mankind. Has there ever
been a demonstration of the existence of such a God as
has satisfied any considerable section of thinkers for
long together ? Hardly has what has been conceived
to be a demonstration made its appearance and re-
ceived a certain acceptance as though it were actual
proof, when it has been impugned with sufficient
success to show that, however true the fact itself, the
demonstration is naught. I do not say that this is an
argument against the personality of God; the drift,
indeed, of the present reasoning would be towards an

24 LIFE AND HABIT.

opposite conclusion, inasmuch as it insists upon tire
fact that what is most true and best known is ofteO
least susceptible of demonstration, owing to the very
perfectness with which it is known ; nevertheless, the
fact remains that many men in many ages and countries
— the subtlest thinkers over the whole world for some
fifteen hundred years — have hunted for a demonstration
of God's personal existence ; yet though so many have
sought, — so many, and so able, and for so long a time
— none have found. There is no demonstration which
can be pointed to with any unanimity as settling the
matter beyond power of reasonable cavil. On the con-
trary, it may be observed that from the attempt to prove
the existence of a personal God to the denial of that
existence altogether, the path is easy. As in the case
of our own existence, it will be found that they alone
are perfect believers in a personal Deity and in the
Christian religion who have not yet begun to feel that
either stands in need of demonstration. We observe
that most people, whether Christians, or Jews, or
Mohammedans, are unable to give their reasons for the
faith that is in them with any readiness or complete-
ness ; and this is sure proof that they really hold it
so utterly as to have no further sense that it either
can be demonstrated or ought to be so, but feel
towards it as towards the air which they breathe but
do not notice. On the other hand, a living prelate was
reported in the " Times " to have said in one of his
latest charges : " My belief is that a widely extended
good practice must be founded upon Christian doc-
trine." The fact of the Archbishop's recognising this

CONSCIQUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 25

as among the number of his beliefs is conclusive evi-
dence with those who have devoted attention to the
laws of thought, that his mind is not yet clear as to
whether or no there is any connection at all between
Christian doctrine and widely extended good prac-
tice.1

Again, it has been often and very truly said that it is
not the conscious and self-styled sceptic, as Shelley for
example, who is the true unbeliever. Such a man as
Shelley will, as indeed his life abundantly proves, have
more in common than not with the true unself-con-
scious believer. Gallio again, whose indifference to
religious animosities has won him the cheapest im-
mortality which, so far as I can remember, was ever
yet won, was probably, if the truth were known, a
person of the sincerest piety. It is the unconscious
unbeliever who is the true infidel, however greatly
he would be surprised to know the truth. Mr. Spur-
geon was reported as having recently asked the
Almighty to " change our rulers as soon as possible."
There lurks a more profound distrust of God's power
in these words than in almost any open denial of His
existence.

So it rather shocks us to find Mr. Darwin writing
(" Plants and Animals under Domestication," vol. ii.,
p. 275): "No doubt, in every case there must have
been some exciting cause." And again, six or seven
pages later : " No doubt, each slight variation must
have its efficient cause." The repetition within so
short a space of this expression of confidence in the
impossibility of causeless effects would suggest that

1 See Appendix.

26 LIFE AND HABIT.

Mr. Darwin's mind at the time of writing was, un-
consciously to himself, in a state of more or less
uneasiness as to whether effects conld not occasionally
come about of themselves, and without cause of any sort,
— that he may have been standing, in fact, for a short
time upon the brink of a denial of the indestructibility
of force and matter.

In like manner, the most perfect humour and irony
is generally quite unconscious. Examples of both are
frequently given by men whom the world considers as
deficient in humour; it is more probably true that
these persons are unconscious of their own delightful
power .through the very mastery and perfection with
which they hold it. There is a play, for instance, of
genuine fun in some of the more serious scientific
and theological journals which for some time past we
have looked for in vain in " ."

The following extract, from a journal which I will
not advertise, may serve as an example :

" Lycurgus, when they had abandoned to his revenge
him who had put out his eyes, took him home, and the
punishment he inflicted upon him was sedulous in-
structions to virtue." Yet this truly comic paper does
not probably know that it is comic, any more than
the kleptomaniac knows that he steals, or than John
Milton knew he was a humorist when he wrote a
hymn upon the circumcision, and spent his honeymoon
in composing a treatise on divorce. No more again
did Goethe know how exquisitely humorous he was
when he wrote, in his Wilhelm Meister, that a beauti-
ful tear glistened in Theresa's right eye, and then went

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 27

on to explain that it glistened in her right eye and not
in her left, because she had had a wart on her left
which had been removed — and successfully. Goethe
probably wrote this without a chuckle ; he believed
what a good many people who have never read Wil-
helm Meister believe still, namely, that it was a
work full of pathos, of fine and tender feeling ; yet a
less consummate humorist must have felt that there
was scarcely a paragraph in it from first to last the
chief merit of which did not lie in its absurdity.

Another example may be taken from Bacon of the
manner in which sayings which drop from men un-
consciously, give the key of their inner thoughts to
another person, though they themselves know not
that they have such thoughts at all ; much less that
these thoughts are their only true convictions. In his
Essay on Friendship the great philosopher writes:
" Reading good books on morality is a little flat and
dead." Innocent, not to say pathetic, as this passage
may sound it is pregnant with painful inferences con-
cerning Bacon's moral character. For if he knew that
he found reading good books of morality a little flat
and dead, it follows he must have tried to read them ;
nor is he saved by the fact that he found them a little
flat and dead ; for though this does indeed show that
he had begun to be so familiar with a few first princi-
ples as to find it more or less exhausting to have his
attention directed to them further — yet his words
prove that they were not so incorporate with him
that he should feel the loathing for further discourse
upon the matter which honest people commonly feel

28 LIFE AND HABIT.

now. It will be remembered that he took bribes when
he came to be Lord Chancellor.

It is on the same principle that we find it so
distasteful to hear one praise another for earnestness.
For such praise raises a suspicion in our minds ('pace
the late Dr. Arnold and his following) that the
praiser's attention must have been arrested by sin-
cerity, as by something more or less unfamiliar to him-
self. So universally is this recognised that the word has
for some time been discarded entirely by all reputable
people. Truly, if there is one who cannot find himself
in the same room with the life and letters of an earnest
person without being made instantly unwell, the same
is a just man and perfect in all his ways.

But enough has perhaps been said. As the fish in
the sea, or the bird in the air, so unreasoningly and
inarticulately safe must a man feel before he can be
said to know. It is only those who are ignorant and
uncultivated who can know anything at all in a
proper sense of the words. Cultivation will breed in
any man a certainty of the uncertainty even of his
most assured convictions. It is perhaps fortunate for
our comfort that we can none of us be cultivated upon
very many subjects, so that considerable scope for
assurance will still remain to us; but however this may
be, we certainly observe it as a fact that the greatest
men are they who are most uncertain in spite of
certainty, and at the same time most certain in spite
of uncertainty, and who are thus best able to feel that
there is nothing in such complete harmony with itself as
a flat contradiction in terms. For nature hates that any

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 29

principle should breed, so to speak, hermaphroditically,
but will give to each an help meet for it which shall
cross it and be the undoing of it ; as in the case of
descent with modification, of which the essence would
appear to be that every offspring should resemble its
parents, and yet, at the same time, that no offspring
should resemble its parents. But for the slightly irri-
tating stimulant of this perpetual crossing, we should
pass our lives unconsciously as though in slumber.

Until we have got to understand that though black
is not white, yet it may be whiter than white itself
(and any painter will readily paint that which shall
show obviously as black, yet it shall be whiter than
that which shall show no less obviously as white), we
may be good logicians, but we are still poor reasoners.
Knowledge is in an inchoate state as long as it is
capable of logical treatment; it must be transmuted
into that sense or instinct which rises altogether above
the sphere in which words can have being at all, other-
wise it is not yet vital. For sense is to knowledge
what conscience is to reasoning about right and wrong;
the reasoning must be so rapid as to defy conscious
reference to first principles, and even at times to be
apparently subversive of them altogether, or the action
will halt. It must, in fact, become automatic before
we are safe with it. While we are fumbling for the
grounds of our conviction, our conviction is prone to
fall, as Peter for lack of faith sinking into the waves
of Galilee ; so that the very power to prove at all is
an d priori argument against the truth — or at any
rate the practical importance to the vast majority of

i

30 LIFE AND HABIT.

mankind — of all that is supported by demonstration.
For the power to prove implies a sense of the need of
proof, and things which the majority of mankind find
practically important are in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred above proof. The need of proof becomes as
obsolete in the case of assured knowledge, as the prac-
tice of fortifying towns in the middle of an old and long
settled country. Who builds defences for that which
is impregnable or little likely to be assailed ? The
answer is ready, that unless the defences had been
built in former times it would be impossible to do
without them now ; but this does not touch the argu-
ment, which is not that demonstration is unwise, but
that as long as a demonstration is still felt necessary,
and therefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such
demonstration is not yet securely known. Qui sex-'
cuse, s' accuse ; and unless a matter can hold its own
without the brag and self-assertion of continual demon-
stration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we
shall not lose much by neglecting till it has less occa-
sion to blow its own trumpet. The only alternative is I
that it is an error in process of detection, for if evi-
dence concerning any opinion has long been deemed
superfluous, and ever after this comes to be again felt
necessary, we know that the opinion is doomed.

If there is any truth in the above, it should follow
that our conception of the words " science " and
" scientific " should undergo some modification. Not
that we should speak slightingly of science, but that
we should recognise more than we do, that there are
two distinct classes of scientific people, corresponding

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 31

not inaptly with the two main parties into which the
political world is divided. The one class is deeply
versed in those sciences which have already become
the common property of mankind ; enjoying, enforcing,
perpetuating, and engraining still more deeply into the
mind of man acquisitions already approved by common
experience, but somewhat careless about extension of
empire, or at any rate disinclined, for the most part, to
active effort on their own part for the sake of such ex-
tension— neither progressive, in fact, nor aggressive —
but quiet, peaceable people, who wish to live and let
live, as their fathers before them ; while the other class
is chiefly intent upon pushing forward the boundaries
of science, and is comparatively indifferent to what is
known already save in so far as necessary for pur-
poses of extension. These last are called pioneers of
science, and to them alone is the title " scientific "
commonly accorded ; but pioneers, important to an army
as they are, are still not the army itself, which can get
on better without the pioneers than the pioneers with-
out the army. Surely the class which knows thoroughly
well what it knows, and which adjudicates upon the
value of the discoveries made by the pioneers — surely
this class has as good a right or better to be called
scientific than the pioneers themselves.

These two classes above described blend into one
another with every shade of gradation. Some are ad-
mirably proficient in the well-known sciences — that is
to say, they have good health, good looks, good temper,
common sense, and energy, and they hold all these good
things in such perfection as to be altogether without

32 LIFE AND HABIT.

introspection — to be not under the law, but so utterly
and entirely under grace that every one who sees them
likes them. But such may, and perhaps more commonly
will, have very little inclination to extend the boundaries
of human knowledge ; their aim is in another direction
altogether. Of the pioneers, on the other hand, some
are agreeable people, well versed in the older sciences,
though still more eminent as pioneers, while others,
whose services in this last capacity have been of in-
estimable value, are noticeably ignorant of the sciences
which have already become current with the larger part
of mankind — in other words, they are ugly, rude, and
disagreeable people, very progressive, it may be, but
very aggressive to boot.

The main difference between these two classes lies
in the fact that the knowledge of the one, so far as
it is new, is known consciously, while that of the
other is unconscious, consisting of sense and instinct
rather than of recognised knowledge. So long as a man
has these, and of the same kind as the more powerful
body of his fellow-countrymen, he is a true man of
science, though he can hardly read or write. As my
great namesake said so well, " He knows what's what,
and that's as high as metaphysic wit can fly." As usual,
these true and thorough knowers do not know that
they are scientific, and can seldom give a reason for the
faith that is in them. They believe themselves to be
ignorant, uncultured men, nor can even the professors
whom they sometimes outwit in their own professorial
domain perceive that they have been outwitted by men
of superior scientific attainments to their own. The

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 33

following passage from Dr. Carpenter's "Mesmerism,
Spiritualism," &c., may serve as an illustration : —

" It is well known that persons who are conversant
with the geological structure of a district are often able
to indicate with considerable certainty in what spot
and at what depth water will be found ; and men of
less scientific knoivlcdge, but of considerable Radical ex-
perience " — (so that in Dr. Carpenter's mind there
seems to be some sort of contrast or difference in kind
between the knowledge which is derived from obser-
vation of facts and scientific knowledge) — " frequently
arrive at a true conclusion upon this point without
being able to assign reasons for their opinions.

" Exactly the same may be said in regard to the
mineral structure of a mining district ; the course of a
metallic vein being often correctly indicated by the
shrewd guess of an observant workman, when the
scientific reasoning of the mining engineer altogether
faHs."

Precisely. Here W3 have exactly the kind of thing
we are in search of: the man who has observed and
observed till the facts are so thoroughly in his head
that through familiarity he has lost sight both of them
and of the processes whereby he deduced his conclu-
sions from them — is apparently not considered scientific,
though he knows how to solve the problem before him ;
the mining engineer, on the other hand, who reasons
scientifically — that is to say, with a knowledge of his
own knowledge — is found not to know, and to fail in
discovering the mineral.

" It is an experience we are continually encounter-

34 LIFE AND HABIT.

ing in other walks of life," continues Dr. Carpenter,
" that particular persons are guided — some apparently
by an original and others by an acquired intuition —
to conclusions for which they can give no adequate
reason, but which subsequent events prove to have
been correct." And this, I take it, implies what I have
been above insisting on, namely, that on becoming in-
tense, knowledge seems also to become unaware of the
grounds on which it rests, or that it has or requires
grounds at all, or indeed even exists. The only issue
between myself and Dr. Carpenter would appear to be,
that Dr. Carpenter, himself an acknowledged leader in
the scientific world, restricts the term " scientific " to the
people who know that they know, but are beaten by
those who are not so conscious of their own knowledge ;
while I say that the term " scientific " should be applied
(only that they would not like it) to the nice sensible
people who know what's what rather than to the dis-
covering class.

And this is easily understood when we remember
that the pioneer cannot hope to acquire any of the
ne'vv sciences in a single lifetime so perfectly as to be-
come unaware of his own knowledge. As a general
rule, we observe him to be still in a state of active
consciousness concerning whatever particular science
he is extending, and as long as he is in this state
he cannot know utterly. It is, as I have already so
often insisted on, those who do not know that they
know so much who have the firmest grip of their
knowledge : the best class, for example, of our English
youth, who live much in the open air, and, as Lord

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 35

Beaconsfield finely said, never read. These are the
people who know best those things which are best
worth knowing — that is to say, they are the most truly
scientific. Unfortunately, the apparatus necessary for
this kind of science is so costly as to be within the
reach of few, involving, as it does, an experience in the
use of it for some preceding generations. Even those
who are born with the means within their reach must
take no less pains, and exercise no less self-control,
before they can attain the perfect unconscious use of
them, than would go to the making of a James Watt
or a Stephenson ; it is vain, therefore, to hope that this
best kind of science can ever be put within the reach
of the many ; nevertheless it may be safely said that
all the other and more generally recognised kinds of
science are valueless except in so far as they tend to
minister to this the highest kind. They have no
raison d'etre except so far as they tend to do away
with the necessity for work, and to diffuse good health,
and that good sense which is above self-consciousness.
They are to be encouraged because they have rendered
the most fortunate kind of modern European possible,
and because they tend to make possible a still more
fortunate kind than any now existing. But the man
who devotes himself to science cannot — with the rarest,
if any, exceptions — belong to this most fortunate class
himself. He occupies a lower place, both scientifically
and morally, for it is not possible but that his drudgery
should somewhat soil him both in mind and health of
body, or, if this be denied, surely it must let him and
hinder him in running the race for unconsciousness.

36 LI BE AND HABIT.

We do not feel that it increases the glory of a king
or great nobleman that he should excel in what is
commonly called science. Certainly he should not go
further than Prince Eupert's drops. Nor should he
excel in music, art, literature, or theology — all which
things are more or less parts of science. He should be
above them all, save in so far as he can without effort
reap renown from the labours of others. It is a Idche
in him that he should write music or books, or paint
pictures at all ; but if he must do so, his work should
be at best contemptible. Much as we must condemn
Marcus Aurelius, we condemn James I. even more
severely.

It is a pity there should exist so general a confusion
of thought upon this subject, for it may be asserted
without fear of contradiction that there is hardly any
form of immorality now rife which produces more dis-
astrous effects upon those who give themselves up to it,
and upon society in general, than the so-called science of
those who know that they know too well to be able to
know truly. With very clever people — the people
who know that they know — it is much as with the
members of the early Corinthian Church, to whom St.
Paul wrote, that if they looked their numbers over,
they would not find many wise, nor powerful, nor well-
born people among them. Dog-fanciers tell us that
performing dogs never carry their tails ; such dogs have
eaten of the tree of knowledge, and are convinced of
sin accordingly — they know that they know things, in
respect of which, therefore, they are no longer under
grace, but under the law, and they have yet so much

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 37

grace left as to be ashamed. So with the human
clever dog ; he may speak with the tongues of men
and angels, but so long as he knows that he knows, his
tail will droop. More especially does this hold in
the case of those who are born to wealth and of old
family. We must all feel that a rich young nobleman
with a taste for science and principles is rarely a plea-
sant object. We do not even like the rich young man
in the Bible who wanted to inherit eternal life, unless,
indeed, he merely wanted to know whether there was
not some way by which he could avoid dying, and
even so he is hardly worth considering. Principles
are like logic, which never yet made a good reasoner of
a bad one, but might still be occasionally useful if they
did not invariably contradict each other whenever there
is any temptation to appeal to them. They are like
fire, good servants but bad masters. As many people or
more have been wrecked on principle as from want of
principle. They are, as their name implies, of an
elementary character, suitable for beginners only, and
he who has so little mastered them as to have occasion
to refer to them consciously, is out of place in the
society of well-educated people. The truly scientific
invariably hate him, and, for the most part, the more
profoundly in proportion to the unconsciousness with
which they do so.

If the reader hesitates, let him go down into the
streets and look in the shop-windows at the photo-
graphs of eminent men, whether literary, artistic, or
scientific, and note the work which the consciousness
of knowledge has wrought on nine out of every ten of

38 LIFE AND HABIT.

them ; then let him go to the masterpieces of Greek and
Italian art, the truest preachers of the truest gospel of
grace ; let him look at the Venus of Milo, the Discobo-
lus, the St. George of Donatello. If it had pleased
these people to wish to study, there was no lack of
brains to do it with ; but imagine " what a deal of
scorn " would " look beautiful " upon the Venus of
Milo's face if it were suggested to her that she should
learn to read. Which, think you, knows most, the
Theseus, or any modern professor taken at random ?
True, the advancement of learning must have had a
great share in the advancement of beauty, inasmuch
as beauty is but knowledge perfected and incarnate —
but with the pioneers it is sic vos non vobis ; the grace
is not for them, but for those who come after. Science
is like offences. It must needs come, but woe unto
that man through whom it comes ; for there cannot be
much beauty where there is consciousness of know-
ledge, and while knowledge is still new it must in the
nature of things involve much consciousness.

It is not knowledge, then, that is incompatible with
beauty ; there cannot be too much knowledge, but it
must have passed through many people who it is to be
feared must be more or less disagreeable, before beauty
or grace will have anything to say to it ; it must
be so incarnate in a man's whole being that he shall
not be aware of it, or it will fit him constrainedly as
one under the law, and not as one under grace.

And grace is best, for where grace is, love is not dis-
tant. Grace ! the old Pagan ideal whose charm even
unlovely Paul coidd not withstand, but, as the legend

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 39

tells us, his soul fainted within him, his heart misgave
him, and, standing alone on the seashore at dusk, he
" troubled deaf heaven with his bootless cries," his thin
voice pleading for grace after the flesh.

The waves came in one after another, the sea-gulls
cried together after their kind, the wind rustled among
the dried canes upon the sandbanks, and there came a
voice from heaven saying, " Let My grace be sufficient
for thee." Whereon, failing of the thing itself, he stole
the word and strove to crush its meaning to the mea-
sure of his own limitations. But the true grace, with
her groves and high places, and troups of young men
and maidens crowned with flowers, and singing of love
and youth and wine — the true grace he drove out into
the wilderness — high up, it may be, into Piora, and into
such-like places. Happy they who harboured her in
her ill report.

It is common to hear men wonder what new faith
will be adopted by mankind if disbelief in the Christian
religion should become general. They seem to expect
that some new theological or quasi-theological system
will arise, which, mutatis mutandis, shall be Christianity
over again. It is a frequent reproach against those who
maintain that the supernatural element of Christianity
is without foundation, that they bring forward no such
system of their own. They pull down but cannot
build. We sometimes hear even those who have come
to the same conclusions as the destroyers say, that
having nothing new to set up, they will not attack the
old. But how can people set up a new superstition,
knowing it to be a superstition ? Without faith in

4o LIFE AND HABIT.

their own platform, a faith as intense as that mani-
fested by the early Christians, how can they preach ?
A new superstition will come, but it is in the very
essence of things that its apostles should have no sus-
picion of its real nature ; that they should no more
recognise the common element between the new and the
old than the early Christians recognised it between
their faith and Paganism. If they did, they would be
paralysed. Others say that the new fabric may be seen
rising on every side, and that the coming religion is
science. Certainly its apostles preach it without mis-
giving, but it is not on that account less possible that
it may prove only to be the coming superstition —
like Christianity, true to its true votaries, and, like
Christianity, false to those who follow it introspec-
tively.

It may well be we shall find we have escaped from
one set of taskmasters to fall into the hands of others
far more rutliless. The tyranny of the Church is light
in comparison with that which future generations may
have to undergo at the hands of the doctrinaires. The
Church did uphold a grace of some sort as the summum
bonum, in comparison with which all so-called earthly
knowledge — knowledge, that is to say, which had not
passed through so many people as to have become
living and incarnate — was unimportant. Do what we
may, wTe are still drawn to the unspoken teaching of her
less introspective ages with a force which no falsehood
could command. Her buildings, her music, her archi-
tecture, touch us as none other on the whole can do ;
when she speaks there are many of us who think that

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 41

she denies the deeper truths of her own profounder
mind, and unfortunately her tendency is now towards
more rather than less introspection. The more she
gives way to this — the more she becomes conscious of
knowing — the less she will know. But still her ideal
is in grace.

The so-called man of science, on the other hand,
seems now generally inclined to make light of all know-
ledge, save of the pioneer character. His ideal is in self-
conscious knowledge. Let us have no more Lo, here,
with the professor ; he very rarely knows what he says
he knows ; no sooner has he misled the world for
a sufficient time with a great flourish of trumpets
than he is toppled over by one more plausible than
himself. He is but medicine-man, augur, priest, in its
latest development ; useful it may be, but requiring to
be well watched by those who value freedom. Wait
till he has become more powerful, and note the vagaries
which his conceit of knowledge will indulge in. The
Church did not persecute while she was still weak; Of
course every system has had, and will have, its heroes,
but, as we all very well know, the heroism of the hero
is but remotely due to system ; it is due not to argu-
ments, nor reasoning, nor to any consciously recognised
perceptions, but to those deeper sciences which lie far
beyond the reach of self-analysis, and for the study
of which there is but one schooling — to have had good
forefathers for many generations.

Above all things, let no unwary reader do me the
injustice of believing in me. In that I write at all I
am among the damned. If he must believe in any-

42 LIFE AND HABIT.

thing, let him believe in the music of Handel, the
painting of Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth
chapter of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians.

But to return. Whenever we find people knowing
that they know this or that, we have the same story over
and over again. They do not yet know it perfectly.

We come, therefore, to the conclusion that our know-
ledge and reasonings thereupon, only become perfect,
assured, unhesitating, when they have become auto-
matic, and are thus exercised without further con-
scious effort of the mind, much in the same way as we
cannot walk nor read nor write perfectly till we can
do so automatically.

( 43 )

CHAPTER III.

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS TO CERTAIN
HABITS ACQUIRED AFTER BIRTH WHICH ARE COM-
MONLY CONSIDERED INSTINCTIVE.

What is true of knowing is also true of willing. The
more intensely we will, the less is our will deliberate
and capable of being recognised as will at all. So
that it is common to hear men declare under certain
circumstances that they had no will, but were forced
into their own action under stress of passion or tempta-
tion. But in the more ordinary actions of life, we
observe, as in walking or breathing, that we do not
will anything utterly and without remnant of hesita-
tion, till we have lost sight of the fact that we are
exercising our will.

The question, therefore, is forced upon us, how far
this principle extends, and whether there may not be
unheeded examples of its operation which, if we con-
sider them, will land us in rather unexpected conclu-
sions. If it be granted that consciousness of knowledge
and of volition vanishes when the knowledge and the
volition have become intense and perfect, may it not
be possible that many actions which we do without

44 LIFE AND HABIT.

knowing how we do them, and without any con-
scious exercise of the will — actions which we certainly
could not do if we tried to do them, nor refrain from
doing if for any reason we wished to do so — are done
so easily and so unconsciously owing to excess of
knowledge or experience rather than deficiency, we
having done them too often, knowing how to do them
too well, and having too little hesitation as to the
method of procedure, to be capable of following our
own action without the utter derangement of such
action altogether ; or, in other cases, because wre have
so long settled the question, that we have stowed away
the whole apparatus with which we work in corners of
our system which we cannot now conveniently reach ?

It may be interesting to see whether we can find
any class or classes of actions which would seem to
link actions which for some time after birth we could
not do at all, and in which our proficiency has reached
the stage of unconscious performance obviously through
repeated effort and failure, and through this only, with
actions which we could do as soon as we were born,
and concerning which it would at first sight appear
absurd to say that they can have been acquired by any
process in the least analogous to that which we com-
monly call experience, inasmuch as the creature itself
which does them has only just begun to exist, and can-
not, therefore, in the very nature of things, have had
experience.

Can we see that actions, for the acquisition of
which experience is such an obvious necessity, that
whenever we see the acquisition we assume the ex-

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 45

perience, gradate away imperceptibly into actions v
which would seem, according to all reasonable analogy,
to presuppose experience, of which, however, the time
and place seem obscure, if not impossible ?

Eating and drinking would appear to be such actions.
The new-born child cannot eat, and cannot drink, but he
can swallow as soon as he is born; and swallowing would
appear (as we may remark in passing) to have been an
earlier faculty of animal life than that of eating with
teeth. The ease and unconsciousness with which we eat
and drink is clearly attributable to practice ; but a very
little practice seems to go a long way — a suspiciously
small amount of practice — as though somewhere or at
some other time there must have been more .practice
than we can account for. We can very readily stop eat-
ing or drinking, and can follow our own action without
difficulty in either process ; but, as regards swallowing,
which is the earlier habit, we have less power of self-
analysis and control : when we have once committed
ourselves beyond a certain point to swallowing, we
must finish doing so, — that is to say, our control over
the operation ceases. Also, a still smaller experience
seems necessary for the acquisition of the power to
swallow than appeared necessary in the case of eating ;
and if we get into a difficulty we choke, and are more
at a loss how to become introspective than we are about
eating and drinking.

Why should a baby be able to swallow — which
one would have said was the more complicated pro-
cess of the two — with so much less practice than
it takes him to learn to eat ? How comes it that he

46 LIFE AND HABIT.

exhibits in the case of the more difficult operation all
the phenomena which ordinarily accompany a more
complete mastery and longer practice ? Analogy
would certainly seem to point in the direction of
thinking that the necessary experience cannot have
been wanting, and that, too, not in such a quibbling
sort as when people talk about inherited habit or
the experience of the race, which, without explana-
tion, is to plain-speaking persons very much the same,
in regard to the individual, as no experience at all,
but bond fide in the child's own person.

Breathing, again, is an action acquired after birth,
generally with some little hesitation and difficulty, but
still acquired in a time seldom longer, as I am informed,
than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. For an art
which has to be acquired at all, there would seem here,
as in the case of eating, to be a disproportion between,
on the one hand, the intricacy of the process performed,
and on the other, the shortness of the time taken to
acquire the practice, and the ease and unconsciousness
with which its exercise is continued from the moment
of acquisition.

We observe that in later life much less difficult
and intricate operations than breathing require much
longer practice before they can be mastered to the
extent of unconscious performance. We observe also
that the phenomena attendant on the learning by an in-
fant to breathe are extremely like those attendant upon
the repetition of some performance by one who has done
it very often before, but who requires just a little prompt-
ing to set him off, on getting winch, the whole familiar

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 47

routine presents itself before him, and lie repeats his
task by rote. Surely then we are justified in suspect-
ing that there must have been more bond fide personal
recollection and experience, with more effort and failure
on the part of the infant itself than meet the eye.

It should be noticed, also, that our control over
breathing is very limited. We can hold our breath
a little, or breathe a little faster for a short time,
but we cannot do this for long, and after having gone
without air for a certain time we must breathe.

Seeing and hearing require some practice before
their free use is mastered, but not very much. They
are so far within our control that we can see more by
looking harder, and hear more by listening attentively
— but they are beyond our control in so far as that we
must see and hear the greater part of what presents
itself to us as near, and at the same time unfamiliar,
unless we turn away or shut our eyes, or stop our ears
by a mechanical process ; and when we do this it is a
sign that we have already involuntarily seen or heard
more than we wished. The familiar, whether sight or
sound, very commonly escapes us.

Take again the processes of digestion, the action of
the heart, and the oxygenisation of the blood — pro^
cesses of extreme intricacy, done almost entirely un-
consciously, and quite beyond the control of our
volition.

Is it possible that our unconsciousness concerning <
our own performance of all these processes arises from •
over-experience ? *

Is there anything in digestion, or the oxygenisation

48 LIFE AND HABIT.

of the blood, different in kind to the rapid unconscious
action of a man playing a difficult piece of music on
the piano ? There may be in degree, but as a man
who sits down to play what he well knows, plays
on, when once started, almost, as we say, mechanically,
so, having eaten his dinner, he digests it as a matter of
course, unless it has been in some way unfamiliar to
him, or he to it, owing to some derangement or occur-
rence with which he is unfamiliar, and under which
therefore he is at a loss how to comport himself, as a
player would be at a loss how to play with gloves on,
or with gout in his fingers, or if set to play music up-
side down.

Can we show that all the acquired actions of child-
hood and after-life, which we now do unconsciouslv, or
\ without conscious exercise of the will, are familiar
acts — acts which we have already done a very great
* I number of times ?

/v Can we also show that there are no acquired actions

jiv/* which we can perform in this automatic manner, which

were not at one time difficult, requiring attention, and

V liable to repeated failure, our volition failing to

\jt,J command obedience from the members which should

carry its purposes into execution ?

If so, analogy will point in the direction of thinking
that other acts which we do even more unconsciously
may only escape our power of self-examination and
control because they are even more familiar — because
( we have done them oftener ; and we may imagine that
if there wrere a microscope which could show us the
minutest atoms of consciousness and volition, wc should

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 49

find that even the apparently most automatic actions
were yet done in due course, upon a balance of con-
siderations, and under the deliberate exercise of the

win.

We shoidd also incline to think that even such an
action as the oxygenisation of its blood by an infant of
ten minutes' old, can only be done so well and so
unconsciously, after repeated failures on the part of the
infant itself.

True, as has been already implied, we do not imme-
diately see when the baby could have made the
necessary mistakes and acquired that infinite practice
without which it could never go through such complex
processes satisfactorily ; we have therefore invented
the words " hereditary instinct," and consider them as /
accounting for the phenomenon ; but a very little
reflection will show that though these words may be a
very good way of stating the difficulty, they do little
or nothing towards removing it.

Why should hereditary instinct enable a creature to /
dispense with the experience which we see to be neces-i
sary in all other cases before difficult operations can be
performed successfully ?

What is this talk that is made about the experience
of the race, as though the experience of one man could
profit another who knows nothing about him ? If a
man eats his dinner, it nourishes him and not his neigh-
bour ; if he learns a difficult art, it is he that can do it
and not his neighbour. Yet, practically, we see that
the vicarious experience, which seems so contrary to our
common observation, does nevertheless appear to hold

50 LIFE AND HABIT.

good in the case of creatures and their descendants.
Is there, then, any way of bringing these apparently
conflicting phenomena under the operation of one law ?
Is there any way of showing that this experience of the
race, of which so much is said without the least attempt
to show in what way it may or does become the ex-
perience of the individual, is in sober seriousness the
experience of one single being only, repeating in a great
many different ways certain performances with winch
he has become exceedingly familiar ?

It would seem that we must either suppose the con-
ditions of experience to differ during the earlier stages
of life from those which we observe them to become
during the heyday of any existence — and this would
appear very gratuitous, tolerable only as a suggestion
because the beginnings of life are so obscure, that in
such twilight we may do pretty much whatever we
please without danger of confutation — or that we must
suppose the continuity of life and sameness between
living beings, whether plants or animals, and their
descendants, to be far closer than we have hitherto
believed ; so that the experience of one person is not
enjoyed by his successor, so much as that the successor
is bond fide but a part of the life of his progenitor,
imbued with all his memories, profiting by all his
experiences — which are, in fact, his own — and only un-
conscious of the extent of Iris own memories and ex-
periences owing to their vastness and already infinite
1 repetitions.

Certainly it presents itself to us at once as a sin-
gular coincidence —

APPLICA TION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 51

I. That we are most conscious of, and have most con-
trol over, such habits as speech, the upright position, the
arts and sciences, which are acquisitions peculiar to
the human race, always acquired after birth, and not
common to ourselves and any ancestor who had not
become entirely human.

II. That we are less conscious of, and have less control
over, eating and drinking, swallowing, breathing, seeing
and hearing, which were acquisitions of our prehuman
ancestry, and for which we had provided ourselves
with all the necessary apparatus before we saw light,
but which are still, geologically speaking, recent, or
comparatively recent.

III. That we are most unconscious of, and have least
control over, our digestion and circulation, which belonged
even to our invertebrate ancestry, and which are habits,
geologically speaking, of extreme antiquity.

There is something too like method in this for it
to be taken as the result of mere chance — chance again
being but another illustration of Nature's love of a
contradiction in terms; for everything is chance, and
nothing is chance. And you may take it that all is
chance or nothing chance, according as you please,
but you must not have half chance and half not
chance.

Does it not seem as though the older and more
confirmed the habit, the more unquestioning the act
of volition, till, in the case of the oldest habits, the
practice of succeeding existences has so formulated the
procedure, that, on being once committed to such and
such a line beyond a certain point, the subsequent

52 LIFE AND HABIT.

course is so clear as to be open to no further doubt, to
admit of no alternative, till the very power of question-
ing is gone, and even the consciousness of volition ?
And this too upon matters which, in earlier stages of a
man's existence, admitted of passionate argument and
anxious deliberation whether to resolve them thus or
thus, with heroic hazard and experiment, which on
the losing side proved to be vice, and on the winning
virtue. For there was passionate argument once what
shape a man's teeth should be, nor can the colour
of his hair be considered as even yet settled, or likely
to be settled for a very long time.

It is one against legion when a creature tries to
differ from his own past selves. He must yield or
die if he wants to differ widely, so as to lack natural
instincts, such as hunger or thirst, or not to gratify
them. It is more righteous in a man that he should
" eat strange food," and that his cheek should " so
much as lank not," than that he should starve if
the strange food be at his command. His past selves
are living in him at this moment with the accumu-
lated life of centuries. "Do this, this, this, which
we too have done, and found our profit in it," cry the
souls of his forefathers within him. Faint are the far
ones, coming and going as the sound of bells wafted
on to a high mountain ; loud and clear are the near
ones, urgent as an alarm of fire. " Withhold," cry some.
" Go on boldly," cry others. " Me, me, me, revert hither-
ward, my descendant," shouts one as it were from some
high vantage-ground over the heads of the clamorous
multitude. " Nay, but me, me, me," echoes another ;

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 53

and our former selves fight within us and wrangle for
our possession. Have we not here what is commonly
called an internal tumult, when dead pleasures and
pains tug within us hither and thither ? Then may
the battle be decided by what people are pleased to
call our own experience. Our own indeed ! What is
our own save by mere courtesy of speech ? A matter
of fashion. Sanction sanctifieth and fashion fashioneth.
And so with death — the most inexorable of all con-
ventions.

However this may be, we may assume it as an
axiom with regard to actions acquired after birth, that
we never do them automatically save as the result
of long practice, and after having thus acquired perfect
mastery over the action in question.

But given the practice or experience, and the
intricacy of the process to be performed appears to
matter very little. There is hardly anything con-
ceivable as being done by man, which a certain amount
of familiarity will not enable him to do, as it were
mechanically and without conscious effort. " The
most complex and difficult movements," writes Mr.
Darwin, " can in time be performed without the least
effort or consciousness." All the main business of life
is done thus unconsciously or semi-unconsciously.
For what is the main business of life ? We work
that we may eat and digest, rather than eat and digest
that we may work ; this, at any rate, is the normal
state of things : the more important business then is
that which is carried on unconsciously. So again
the action of the brain, which goes on prior to

54 LIFE AND HABIT.

our realising the idea in which it results, is not
perceived by the individual. So also all the deeper
springs of action and conviction. The residuum with
which we fret and worry ourselves is a mere matter
of detail, as the higgling and haggling of the market,
which is not over the bulk of the price, but over the
last halfpenny.

Shall we say, then, that a baby of a day old sucks
(which involves the whole principle of the pump, and
hence a profound practical knowledge of the laws of
pneumatics and hydrostatics), digests, oxygenises its
blood (millions of years before Sir Humphry Davy
discovered oxygen), sees and hears — all most difficult
and complicated operations, involving a knowledge of
the facts concerning optics and acoustics, compared
with which the discoveries of Newton sink into utter
insignificance ? Shall we say that a baby can do all
these things at once, doing them so well and so
regularly, without being even able to direct its
attention to them, and without mistake, and at the
same time not know how to do them, and never have
done them before ?

Such an assertion would be a contradiction to the
whole experience of mankind. Surely the onus pro-
bandi must rest with him who makes it.

A man may make a lucky hit now and again by
what is called a fluke, but even this must be only
a little in advance of his other performances of the
same kind. He may multiply seven by eight by a
fluke after a , little study of the multiplication table,
but he will not be able to extract the cube root of

APPLICA TION OF FOREGOING CHA PTERS. 5 5

4913 by a fluke, without long training in arithmetic,
any more than an agricultural labourer would be able
to operate successfully for cataract. If, then, a grown
man cannot perform so simple an operation as that,
we will say, for cataract, unless he have been long
trained in other similar operations, and until he has
done what comes to the same thing many times over,
with what show of reason can we maintain that one
who is so far less capable than a grown man, can
perform such vastly more difficult operations, without
knowing how to do them, and without ever having
done them before ? There is no sign of ■ fluke "
about the circulation of a baby's blood. There may
perhaps be some little hesitation about its earliest
breathing, but this, as a general rule, soon passes
over, both breathing and circulation, within an hour
after birth, being as regular and easy as at any time
during life. Is it reasonable, then, to say that the
baby does these things without knowing how to do
them, and without ever having done them before, and
continues to do them by a series of lifelong flukes ?

It would be well if those who feel inclined to
hazard such an assertion would find some other
instances of intricate processes gone through by people
who know nothing about them, and never had any
practice therein. What is to know how to do a
thing? Surely to do it. What is proof that we
know how to do a thing ? Surely the fact that we can
do it. A man shows that he knows how to throw
the boomerang by throwing the boomerang. No
amount of talking or writing can get over this ; ipso

£

56 LIFE AND HABIT.

facto, that a baby breathes and makes its blood circulate,
it knows how to do so ; and the fact that it does not
know its own knowledge is only proof of the perfection
of that knowledge, and of the vast number of past
occasions on which it must have been exercised
already. As we have said already, it is less obvious
when the baby could have gained its experience, so
as to be able so readily to remember exactly what to
do ; but it is more easy to suppose that the necessary
occasions cannot have been wanting, than that the
power which we observe should have been obtained
without practice and memory.

If we saw any self- consciousness on the baby's part
about its breathing or circulation, we might suspect
that it had had less experience, or profited less by its
experience, than its neighbours — exactly in the same
manner as we suspect a deficiency of any quality
which we see a man inclined to parade. We all
become introspective when we find that we do not
know our business, and whenever we are introspective
we may generally suspect that we are on the verge of
unproficiency. Unfortunately, in the case of sickly
children, we observe that they sometimes do become
conscious of their breathing and circulation, just as in
later life we become conscious that we have a liver
or a digestion. In that case there is always some-
thing wrong. The baby that becomes aware of its
breathing does not know how to breathe, and will
suffer for his ignorance and incapacity, exactly in the
same way as he will suffer in later life for ignorance
and incapacity in any other respect in which his peers

APPLICA TION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 57

are commonly knowing and capable. In the case of
inability to breathe, the punishment is corporal, breath-
ing being a matter of fashion, so old and long settled
that nature can admit of no departure from the esta-
blished custom, and the procedure in case of failure
is as much formulated as the fashion itself. In the
case of the circulation, the whole performance has
become one so utterly of rote, that the mere discovery
that we could do it at all was considered one of the
highest flights of human genius.

It has been said a day will come when the Polar
ice shall have accumulated, till it forms vast continents
many thousands of feet above the level of the sea, all of
solid ice. The weight of this mass will, it is believed,
cause the world to topple over on its axis, so that the
earth will be upset as an ant-heap overturned by
a ploughshare. In that day the icebergs will come
crunching against our proudest cities, razing them from
off the face of the earth as though they were made
of rotten blotting-paper. There is no respect now of
Handel nor of Shakespeare; the works of Rembrandt
and Bellini fossilise at the bottom of the sea. Grace,
beauty, and wit, all that is precious in music, literature,
and art — all gone. In the morning there was Europe.
In the evening there are no more populous cities nor
busy hum of men, but a sea of jagged ice, a lurid sun-
set, and the doom of many ages. Then shall a scared
remnant escape in places, and settle upon the changed
continent when the waters have subsided — a simple
people, busy hunting shellfish on the drying ocean
beds, and with little time for introspection ; yet they

58 LIFE AND HABIT.

can read and write and sum, for by that time these
accomplishments will have become universal, and will
be acquired as easily as we now learn to talk ; but
they do so as a matter of course, and without self-
consciousness. Also they make the simpler kinds of
machinery too easily to be able to follow their own
operations — the manner of their own apprenticeship
being to them as a buried city. May we not imagine
that, after the lapse of another ten thousand years or
so, some one of them may again become cursed with
lust of introspection, and a second Harvey may astonish
the world by discovering that it can read and write,
and that steam-engines do not grow, but are made ?
It may be safely prophesied that he will die a martyr,
and be honoured in the fourth generation.

( 59)

CHAPTER IV.

APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES TO ACTIONS
AND HABITS ACQUIRED BEFORE BIRTH.

But if we once admit the principle that consciousness
and volition have a tendency to vanish as soon as
practice has rendered any habit exceedingly familiar,
so that the mere presence of an elaborate but uncon-
scious performance shall carry with it a presumption
of infinite practice, we shall find it impossible to draw
the line at those actions which we see acquired after
birth, no matter at how early a period. The whole
history and development of the embryo in all its
stages forces itself on our consideration. Birth has
been made too much of. It is a salient feature in the
history of the individual, but not more salient than a
hundred others, and far less so than the commence-
ment of his existence as a single cell uniting in
itself elements derived from both parents, or perhaps
than any point in his whole existence as an embryo.
For many years after we are born we are still very
incomplete. We cease to oxygenise our blood vicari-
ously as soon as we are born, but we still derive our
sustenance from our mothers. Birth is but the begin-
ning of doubt, the first hankering after scepticism, the

60 LIFE AND HABIT.

dreaming of a dawn of trouble, the end of certainty
and of settled convictions. Not but what before birth
there have been unsettled convictions (more's the pity)
with not a few, and after birth we have still so made
up our minds upon many points as to have no further
need of reflection concerning them ; nevertheless, in
the main, birth is the end of that time when we really
knew our business, and the beginning of the days
wherein we know not what we would do, or do. It is
therefore the beginning of consciousness, and infancy
is as the dosing of one who turns in his bed on waking,
and takes another short sleep before he rises. When
we were yet unborn, our thoughts kept the roadway
decently enough ; then were we blessed ; we thought
as every man thinks, and held the same opinions
as our fathers and mothers had done upon nearly
every subject. Life was not an art — and a very
difficult art — much too difficult to be acquired in a
lifetime ; it was a science of which we were consum-
mate masters.

In this sense, then, birth may indeed be looked upon
as the most salient feature in a man's life; but this
is not at all the sense in which it is commonly so
regarded. It is commonly considered as the point at
which we begin to live. More truly it is the point
at which we leave off knowing how to live.

A chicken, for example, is never so full oNconscious-
ness} activity, reasoning faculty, and volition, as when
it is an embryo in the eggshell, making bones, and flesh,
and feathers, and eyes, and claws, with nothing but a
little warmth and white of egg to make them from.

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 61

This is indeed to make bricks with but a small
modicum of straw. There is no man in the whole
world who knows consciously and articulately as much
as a half-hatched hen's egg knows ^unconsciously. )
Surely the egg in its own way must know quite as
much as the chicken does. We say of the chicken that
it knows how to run about as soon as it is hatched.
So it does ; but had it no knowledge before it was
hatched ? What made it lay the foundations of those
limbs which should enable it to run about ? What
made it grow a horny tip to its bill before it was
hatched, so that it might peck all round the larger end
of the eggshell and make a hole for itself to get out
at ? Having once got outside the eggshell, the chicken
throws away this horny tip ; but is it reasonable to
suppose that it would have grown it at all unless it
had known that it would want something with which
to break the eggshell ? And again, is it in the least j
agreeable to our experience that such elaborate j
machinery should be made without endeavour, failure, ;
perseverance, intelligent contrivance, 'experience, and \
practice ?

In the presence of such considerations, it seems
impossible to refrain from thinking that there must
be a closer continuity of identity, life, and memory,
between successive generations than we generally
imagine. To shear the thread of life, and hence ot
memory, between one generation and its successor, is,
so to speak, a brutal measure, an act of intellectual
butchery, and like all such strong high-handed measures,
a sign of weakness in him who is capable of it till all

62 LIFE AND HABIT.

other remedies have been exhausted. It is mere horse
science, akin to the theories of the convulsionists in
the geological kingdom, and of the believers in the
supernatural origin of the species of plants and animals.
Yet it is to be feared that we have not a few among us
who would feel shocked rather at the attempt towards
a milder treatment of the facts before them, than at a
continuance of the present crass tyranny with which
we try to crush them inside our preconceived opinions.
It is quite common to hear men of education maintain
that not even when it was on the point of being
hatched, had the chicken sense enough to know that it
wanted to get outside the eggshell. It did indeed
peck all round the end of the shell, which, if it
wanted to get out, would certainly be the easiest way
of effecting its purpose ; but it did not, they say, peck
because it was aware of this, but "promiscuously."
Curious, such a uniformity of promiscuous action
among so many eggs for so many generations. If we
see a man knock a hole in a wall on finding that
he cannot get out of a place by any other means, and
if we see him knock this hole in a very workmanlike
way, with an implement with which he has been at great
pains to make for a long time past, but which he throws
away as soon as he has no longer use for it, thus
showing that he had made it expressly for the purpose of
escape, do we say that this person made the implement
and broke the wall of his prison promiscuously ? No
jury would acquit a burglar on these grounds. Then
why, without much more evidence to the contrary than
we have, or can hope to have, should we not suppose

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 63

that With chickens, as with men, signs of contrivance
are indeed signs of contrivance, however quick, subtle,
and untraceable, the contrivance may be ? Again, I
have heard people argue that though the chicken, when
nearly hatched, had such a glimmering of sense that
it pecked the shell because it wanted to get out, yet
that it is not conceivable that, so long before it was
hatched, it should have had the sense to grow the horny
tip to its bill for use when wanted. This, at any rate,
they say, it must have growTn, as the persons previously
referred to would maintain, promiscuously.

Now no one indeed supposes that the chicken does
what it does, with the same self-consciousness with
which a tailor makes a suit of clothes. Not any one
who has thought upon the subject is likely to do it
so great an injustice. The probability is that it knows
what it is about to an extent greater than any tailor
ever did or will, for, to say the least of it, many
thousands of years to come. It works with such absolute
certainty and so vast an experience, that it is utterly
incapable of following the operations of its own mind
— as accountants have been known to add up long
columns of pounds, shillings, and pence, running the
three fingers of one hand, a finger for each column, up
the page, and putting the result down correctly at the
bottom, apparently without an effort. In the case of
the accountant, we say that the processes which his
mind goes through are so rapid and subtle as to elude
his own power of observation as well as ours. We do
not deny that his mind goes through processes of some
kind ; we very readily admit that it must do so, and

64 LIFE AND HABIT.

say that these processes are so rapid and subtle, owing,
as a general rule, to long experience in addition. Why
then should we find it so difficult to conceive that
this principle, which we observe to play so large a part
in mental physiology, wherever we can observe mental
physiology at all, may have a share also in the per-
formance of intricate operations otherwise inexplicable,
though the creature performing them is not man, or
man only in embryo ?

Again, after the chicken is hatched, it grows more
feathers and bones and blood, but we still say that it
knows nothing about all this. What then do we say
it does know ? One is almost ashamed to confess that
we only credit it with knowing what it appears to
know by processes which we find it exceedingly easy
to follow, or perhaps rather, which we find it abso-
lutely impossible to avoid following, as recognising
too great a family likeness between them, and those
which are most easily followed in our own minds, to
be able to sit down in comfort under a denial of the
resemblance. Thus, for example, if we see a chicken
running away from a fox, we do admit that the
chicken knows the fox would kill it if it caught it.

On the other hand, if we allow that the half-
hatched chicken grew the horny tip to be ready for
use, with an intensity of unconscious contrivance
which can be only attributed to experience, we are
driven to admit that from the first moment the hen
began to sit upon it — and earlier too than this — the
egg was always full of consciousness and volition, and
that during its embryological condition the unhatched

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 65

chicken is doing exactly what it continues doing from
the moment it is hatched till it dies ; that is to say,
attempting to better itself, doing (as Aristotle says
all creatures do all things upon all occasions) what it
considers most for its advantage under the existing
circumstances. What it may think most advantageous
will depend, while it is in the eggshell, upon exactly
the same causes as will influence its opinions in
later life — to wit, upon its habits, its past circum-
stances and ways of thinking ; for there is nothing, as . ,
Shakespeare tells us, good or ill, but thinking makes * .
it so.

The egg thinks feathers much more to its advantage
than hair or fur, and much more easily made. If it
could speak, it would probably tell us that we could
make them ourselves very easily after a few lessons,
if we took the trouble to try, but that hair was
another matter, which it really could not see how any
protoplasm could be got to make. Indeed, during the
more intense and active part of our existence, in the
earliest stages, that is to say, of our embryological life,
we could probably have turned our protoplasm into
feathers instead of hair if we had cared about doing
so. If the chicken can make feathers, there seems no
sufficient reason for thinking that we cannot do so,
beyond the fact that we prefer hair, and have preferred
it for so many ages, that we have lost the art along
with the desire of making feathers, if indeed any of
our ancestors ever possessed it. The stuff with which
we make hair is practically the same as that with
which chickens make feathers. It is nothing but

66 LIFE AND HABIT.

protoplasm, and protoplasm is like certain prophecies,
out of which anything can be made by the creature
which wants to make it. Everything depends upon
I ; whether a creature knows its own mind sufficiently
I well, and has enough faith in its own powers of
■achievement. When thSse two requisites are wanting,
the strongest giant cannot lift a two-ounce weight;
when they are given, a bullock can take an eyelash
out of its eye with its hind-foot, or a minute jelly
speck can build itself a house out of various materials
which it will select according to its purpose with the
nicest care, though it have neither brain to think with,
nor eyes to see with, nor hands nor feet to work with,
nor is it anything but a minute speck of jelly — faith
and protoplasm only.

That this is indeed so, the following passage from
Dr. Carpenter's " Mental Physiology " may serve to
show : —

"The simplest type of an animal consists of a
minute mass of ' protoplasm/ or living jelly, which is
not yet differentiated into ' organs ; ' every part having
the same endowments, and taking an equal share in
every action which the creature performs. One of
these 'jelly specks,' the amoeba, moves itself about
by changing the form of its body, extemporising a foot
(or pseudopodium), first in one direction, and then in
another ; and then, when it has met with a nutritive
particle, extemporises a stomach for its reception, by
wrapping its soft body around it. Another, instead
of going about in search of food, remains in one place,
but projects its protoplasmic substance into long

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 67

pseudopodia, which entrap and draw in very minute
particles, or absorb nutrient material from the liquid
through which they extend themselves, and are con-
tinually becoming fused (as it were) into the central
body, which is itself continually giving off new pseudo-
podia. Now we can scarcely conceive that a crea-
ture of such simplicity should possess any distinct
consciousness of its needs " (why not ?), " or that its
actions shoiild be directed by any intention of its owrn ;
and yet the writer has lately found results of the
most singular elaborateness to be wrought out by the
instrumentality of these minute jelly specks, which
build up tests or casings of the most regular geo-
metrical symmetry of form, and of the most artificial
construction."

On this Dr. Carpenter remarks : — " Suppose a human
mason to be put down by the side of a pile of stones
of various shapes and sizes, and to be told to build a
dome of these, smooth on both surfaces, without using
more than the least possible quantity of a very tena-
cious, but very costly, cement, in holding the stones
together. If he accomplished this well, he would
receive credit for great intelligence and skill. Yet
this is exactly what these little 'jelly specks ' do on
a most minute scale ; the ' tests ' they construct, when
highly magnified, bearing comparison with the most
skilful masonry of man. From the same sandy bottom
one species picks up the coarser quartz grains, cements
them together with 'plwspliate of iron secreted from its
own substance " (should not this rather be, " which it
has contrived in some way or other to manufacture " ?),

68 LIFE AND HABIT.

and thus constructs a flask-shaped ' test/ having a
short neck and a large single orifice. Another picks up
the finest grains, and puts them together, with the
same cement, into perfectly spherical 'tests' of the
most extraordinary finish, perforated with numerous
small pores disposed at pretty regular intervals. An-
other selects the minutest sand grains and the termi-
nal portions of sponge spicules, and works them up
together — apparently with no cement at all, by the
mere laying of the spicules — into perfect white
spheres, like homo2opathic globules, each having a
single-fissured orifice. And another, which makes a
straight, many-chambered ' test/ that resembles in
form the chambered shell of an orthoceratite — the
conical mouth of each chamber projecting into the
cavity of the next — while forming the walls of its
chambers of ordinary sand grains rather loosely held
together, shapes the conical mouth of the successive
chambers by firmly cementing together grains of ferru-
ginous quartz, which it must have picked out from the
general mass."

"To give these actions," continues Dr. Carpenter,
" the vague designation of ' instinctive ' does not in the
least help us to account for them, since what we want
is to discover the mechanism by which they are worked
out; and it is most difficult to conceive how so
artificial a selection can be made by a creature so
simple " (Mental Physiology, 4th ed., pp. 41--43).

This is what protoplasm can do when it has the
talisman of faith — of faith which worketh all wonders,
either in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath,

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 69

or in the waters under the earth. Truly if a man
have faith, even as a grain of mustard seed, though he
may not be able to remove mountains, he will at any
rate be able to do what is no less difficult — make a
mustard plant.

Yet this is but a barren kind of comfort, for we
have not, and in the nature of things cannot have,
sufficient faith in the unfamiliar, inasmuch as the very
essence of faith involves the notion of familiarity,
which can grow but slowly, from experience to con-
fidence, and can make no sudden leap at any time.
Such faith cannot be founded upon reason, — that is to
say, upon a recognised perception on the part of the
person holding it that he is holding it, and of the
reasons for his doing so — or it will shift as other
reasons come to disturb it. A house built upon reason
is a house built upon the sand. It must be built
upon the current cant and practice of one's peers, for
this is the rock which, though not immovable, is still
most hard to move.

But however this may be, we observe broadly
that the intensity of the will to make this or that, and
of the confidence that one can make it, depends upon
the length of time during which the maker's forefathers
have wanted the same thing before it ; the older the
custom the more inveterate the habit, and, with the
exception, perhaps, that the reproductive system is
generally the crowning act of development — an exception
which I will hereafter explain — the earlier its manifesta-
tion, until, for some reason or another, we relinquish
it and take to another, which we must, as a general

70 LIFE AND HABIT.

rule, again adhere to for a vast number of generations,
before it will permanently supplant the older habit.
In our own case, the habit of breathing like a fish
through gills may serve as an example. We have now
left off this habit, yet we did it formerly for so many
generations that we still do it a little ; it still crosses
our embryological existence like a faint memory or
dream, for not easily is an inveterate habit broken.
On the other hand — again speaking broadly — the more
recent the habit the later the fashion of its organ, as
with the teeth, speech, and the higher intellectual
powers, which are too new for development before
we are actually born.

But to return for a short time to Dr. Carpenter.
Dr. Carpenter evidently feels, what must indeed be
felt by every candid mind, that there is no sufficient
reason for supposing that these little specks of jelly,
without brain, or eyes, or stomach, or hands, or feet,
but the very lowest known form of animal life, are not
imbued with a consciousness of their needs, and the
reasoning faculties which shall enable them to gratify
those needs in a manner, all things considered, equalling
the highest flights of the ingenuity of the highest
animal — man. This is no exaggeration. It is true, that
in an earlier part of the passage, Dr. Carpenter has said
that we can scarcely conceive so simple a creature to
" possess any distinct consciousness of its needs, or that
its actions should be directed by any intention of its
own ; " but, on the other hand, a little lower down he
says, that if a workman did what comes to the same
thing as what the amoeba does, he " would receive credit

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 71

for great intelligence and skill." Now if an amceba can
do that, for which a workman would receive credit as
for a highly skilful and intelligent performance, the
amceba should receive no less credit than the work-
man ; he should also be no less credited with skill and
intelligence, which words unquestionably involve a
distinct consciousness of needs and an action directed
by an intention of its own. So that Dr. Carpenter
seems rather to blow hot and cold with one breath.
Nevertheless there can be no doubt to which side the
minds of the great majority of mankind will incline
upon the evidence before them; they will say that
the creature is highly reasonable and intelligent,
though they would readily admit that long practice
and familiarity may have exhausted its powers of
attention to all the stages of its own performance, just
as a practised workman in building a wall certainly
does not consciously follow all the processes which he
goes through.

As an example, however, of the extreme dislike which
philosophers of a certain school have for making the
admissions which seem somewhat grudgingly conceded
by Dr. Carpenter, we may take the paragraph which
immediately follows the ones which we have just quoted.
Dr. Carpenter there writes : —

" The writer has often amused himself and others,
when by the seaside, with getting a terebella (a marine
worm that cases its body in a sandy tube) out of its
house, and then, putting it into a saucer of water with
a supply of sand and comminuted shell, watching its
appropriation of these materials in constructing a new

F

72 LIFE AND HABIT.

tube. The extended tentacles soon spread themselves
over the bottom of the saucer and lay hold of whatever
comes in their way, ' all being fish that comes to their
net/ and in half an hour or thereabouts the new house
is finished, though on a very rude and artificial type.
Now here the organisation is far higher; the instru-
mentality obviously serves the needs of the animal and
suffices for them ; and we characterise the action, on
account of its uniformity and apparent ^intelligence,
as instinctive."

No comment will, one would think, be necessary to
make the reader feel that the difference between the
terebella and the amoeba i3 one of degree rather than
kind, and that if the action of the second is as
conscious and reasonable as that, we will say, of a bird
making her nest, the action of the first should be so
also. It is only a question of being a little less
skilful, or more so, but skill and intelligence would
seem present in both cases. Moreover, it is more
clever of the terebella to have made itself the limbs
with which it can work, than of the amoeba to be able
to work without the limbs ; and perhaps it is more
sensible also to want a less elaborate dwelling, provided
it is sufficient for practical purposes. But whether
the terebella be less intelligent than the amoeba or not,
it does quite enough to establish its claim to intelli-
gence of a higher order ; and one does not see ground
for the satisfaction which Dr. Carpenter appears to
find at having, as it were, taken the taste of the
amoeba's performance out of our mouth, by setting us
about the less elaborate performance of the terebella,

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 73

which he thinks he can call unintelligent and in-
stinctive.

I may be mistaken in the impression I have derived
from the paragraphs I have quoted. I can only say they
give me the impression that I have tried to convey to
the reader, i.e.t that the writer's assent to anything like
intelligence, or consciousness of needs, in an animal
low down in the scale of life, is grudging, and that
he is more comfortable when he has got hold of one
to which he can point and say that here, at any rate,
is an unintelligent and merely instinctive creature.
I have only called attention to the passage as an
example of the intellectual bias of a large number of
exceedingly able and thoughtful persons, among whom,
so far as I am able to form an opinion at all, few have
greater claims to our respectful attention than Dr.
Carpenter himself.

For the embryo of a chicken, then, we claim exactly
the same kind of reasoning power and contrivance
which we claim for the amoeba, or for our own
intelligent performances in later life. We do not
claim for it much, if any, perception of its own fore-
thought, for we know very well that it is among the
most prominent features of intellectual activity that,
after a number of repetitions, it ceases to be per-
ceived, and that it does not, in ordinary cases, cease
to be perceived till after a very great number of
repetitions. The fact that the embryo chicken makes
itself always as nearly as may be in the same way,
would lead us to suppose that it would be unconscious
of much of its own action, provided it were always the

74 LIFE AND HABIT.

same chicken which made itself over and over again.
So far we can see, it always is unconscious of the
greater part of its own wonderful performance. Surely-
then we have a presumption that it is the same chicken
which makes itself over and over again ; for such uncon-
sciousness is not won, so far as our experience goes,
by any other means than by frequent repetition of the
same act on the part of one and the same individual.
How this can be we shall perceive in subsequent
chapters. In the meantime, we may say that all
knowledge and volition would seem to be merely parts
of the knowledge and volition of the primordial cell
(whatever this may be), which slumbers but never
dies — which has grown, and multiplied, and differen-
tiated itself into the compound life of the world, and
which never becomes conscious of knowing what it
has once learnt effectually, till it is for some reason on
the point of, or in danger of, forgetting it.

The action, therefore, of an embryo making its way
up in the world from a simple cell to a baby, develop-
ing for itself eyes, ears, hands, and feet while yet
unborn, proves to be exactly of one and the same kind
as that of a man of fifty who goes into the City and
tells his broker to buy him so many Great Northern
A shares — that is to say, an effort of the will exercised
in due course on a balance of considerations as to the
immediate expediency, and guided by past experience ;
while children who do not reach birth are but pre-
natal spendthrifts, ne'er-do-weels, inconsiderate in-
novators, the unfortunate in business, either through
their own fault or that of others, or through inevitable

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 75

mischances, beings who are culled out before birth
instead of after ; so that even the lowest idiot, the
most contemptible in health or beauty, may yet reflect
with pride that they were horn. Certainly we observe
that those who have had good fortune (mother and
sole cause of virtue, and sole virtue in itself), and have
profited by their experience, and known their busi-
ness best before birth, so that they made themselves
both to be and to look well, do commonly on an aver-
age prove to know it best in after-life : they grow their
clothes best who have grown their limbs best. It is rare
that those who have not remembered how to finish their
own bodies fairly well should finish anything well in
later life. But how small is the addition to their
unconscious attainments which even the Titans of
human intellect have consciously accomplished, in
comparison with the problems solved by the meanest
baby living, nay, even by one whose birth is untimely !
In other words, how vast is that back knowledge
over which we have gone fast asleep, through the
prosiness of perpetual repetition ; and how little in
comparison, is that whose novelty keeps it still within
the scope of our conscious perception ! What is the
discovery of the laws of gravitation as compared with
the knowledge which sleeps in every hen's egg upon a
kitchen shelf?

It is all a matter of habit and fashion. Thus we
see kings and councillors of the earth admired for
facing death before what they are pleased to call dis-
honour. If, on being required to go without anything

76 LIFE AND HABIT.

they have been accustomed to, or to change their
habits, or do what is unusual in the case of other
kings under like circumstances, then, if they but fold
their cloak decently around them, and die upon the
spot of shame at having had it even required of them
to do thus or thus, then are they kings indeed, of old
race, that know their business from generation to
generation. Or if, we will say, a prince, on having his
dinner brought to him ill-cooked, were to feel the indig-
nity so keenly as that he should turn his face to the
wall, and breathe out his wounded soul in one sigh,
do we not admire him as a " real prince," who knows
the business of princes so well that he can conceive of
nothing foreign to it in connection with himself, the
bare effort to realise a state of things other than what
princes have been accustomed to being immediately
fatal to him ? Yet is there no less than this in the
demise of every half-hatched hen's egg, shaken rudely
by a schoolboy, or neglected by a truant mother ; for
surely the prince would not die if he knew how to do
otherwise, and the hen's egg only dies of being required
to do something to which it is not accustomed.

But the further consideration of this and other
like reflections would too long detain us. Suffice itf
that we have established the position that all living
creatures which show any signs of intelligence, must
certainly each one have already gone through the
embryonic stages an infinite number of times, or they
could no more have achieved the intricate process of
self-development unconsciously, than they could play

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 77

the piano unconsciously without any previous know-
ledge of the instrument. It remains, therefore, to
show the when and where of their having done so,
and this leads us naturally to the subject of the
following chapter — Personal Identity.

(;8)

CHAPTER V.

PERSONAL IDENTITY.

" Strange difficulties have been raised by some," says
Bishop Butler, " concerning personal identity, or the
sameness of living agents as implied in the notion of
our existing now and hereafter, or indeed in any two
consecutive moments." But in truth it is not easy to
see the strangeness of the difficulty, if the words either
" personal " or " identity " are used in any strictness.

Personality is one of those ideas with which we are
so familiar that we have lost sight of the foundations
upon which it rests. We regard our personality as a
simple definite whole ; as a plain, palpable, individual
thing, which can be seen going about the streets or
sitting indoors at home, which lasts us our lifetime,
and about the confines of which no doubt can exist
in the minds of reasonable people. But in truth this
" we," which looks so simple and definite, is a nebulous
and indefinable aggregation of many component parts
which war not a little among themselves, our per-
ception of our existence at all being perhaps due to
this very clash of warfare, as our sense of sound
and light is due to the jarring of vibrations.

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 79

Moreover, as the component parts of our identity-
change from moment to moment, our personality-
becomes a thing dependent upon time present, which
has no logical existence, but lives only upon the suffer-
ance of times past and future, slipping out of our
hands into the domain of one or other of these two
claimants the moment we try to apprehend it. And
not only is our personality as fleeting as the present
moment, but the parts which compose it blend some
of them so imperceptibly into, and are so inextricably
linked on to, outside things which clearly form no
part of our personality, that when we try to bring
ourselves to book, and determine wherein we consist,
or to draw a line as to where we begin or end, we find
ourselves completely baffled. There is nothing but
fusion and confusion.

Putting theology on one side, and dealing only with
the common daily experience of mankind, our body
is certainly part of our personality. With the de-
struction of our bodies, our personality, as far as we
can follow it, comes to a full stop ; and with every
modification of them it is correspondingly modified.
But what are the limits of our bodies ? They are
composed of parts, some of them so unessential as to
be hardly included in personality at all, and to be
separable from ourselves without perceptible effect, as
the hair, nails, and daily waste of tissue. Again, other
parts are very important, as our hands, feet, arms, legs,
&c, but still are no essential parts of our " self " or
"soul," which continues to exist in spite of their
amputation. Other parts, as the brain, heart, and

So LIFE AND HABIT.

blood, are so essential that they cannot be dispensed
with, yet it is impossible to say that personality consists
in any one of them.

Each one of these component members of our per-
sonality is continually dying and being born again,
supported in this process by the food we eat, the water
we drink, and the air we breathe ; which three things
link us on, and fetter us down, to the organic and
inorganic world about us. For our meat and drink,
though no part of our personality before we eat and
drink, cannot, after we have done so, be separated
entirely from us without the destruction of our person-
ality altogether, so far as we can follow it ; and who
shall say at what precise moment our food has or has
not become part of ourselves ? A famished man eats
food ; after a short time his whole personality is so
palpably affected that we know the food to have entered
into him and taken, as it were, possession of him ; but
who can say at what precise moment it did so ? Thus
we find that we are rooted into outside things and melt
away into them, nor can any man say he consists
absolutely in this or that, nor define himself so certainly
as to include neither more nor less than himself ; many
undoubted parts of his personality being more separable
from it, and changing it less when so separated, both
to his own senses and those of other people, than other
parts which are strictly speaking no parts at all.

A man's clothes, for example, as they lie on a chair
at night are no part of him, but when he wears them
they would appear to be so, as being a kind of food
which warms him and hatches him, and the loss of

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 81

which may kill him of cold. If this be denied, and a
man's clothes be considered as no part of his self, never-
theless they, with his money, and it may perhaps be
added his religious opinions, stamp a man's indivi-
duality as strongly as any natural feature could stamp
it. Change in style of dress, gain or loss of money,
make a man feel and appear more changed than having
his chin shaved or his nails cut. In fact, as soon as
we leave common parlance on one side, and try for a
scientific definition of personality, we find that there
is none possible, any more than there can be a demon-
stration of the fact that we exist at all — a demonstration
for which, as for that of a personal God, many have
hunted but none have found. The only solid foundation
is, as in the case of the earth's crust, pretty near the
surface of things ; the deeper we try to go, the damper
and darker and altogether more uncongenial we find it.
There is no knowing into what quagmire of superstition
we may not find ourselves drawn, if we once cut our-
selves adrift from those superficial aspects of things, in
which alone our nature permits us to be comforted.

Common parlance, however, settles the difficulty
readily enough (as indeed it settles most others if they
show signs of awkwardness) by the simple process of
ignoring it : we decline, and very properly, to go into
the question of where personality begins and ends, but
assume it to be known by every one, and throw the
onus of not knowing it upon the over-curious, who had
better think as their neighbours do, right or wrong, or
there is no knowing into what villainy they may not
presently fall.

82 LIFE AND HABIT.

Assuming, then, that every one knows what is
meant by the word " person " (and such superstitious
bases as this are the foundations upon which all action,
whether of man, beast, or plant, is constructed and
rendered possible ; for even the corn in the fields
grows upon a superstitious basis as to its own existence,
and only turns the earth and moisture into wheat
through the conceit of its own ability to do so, with-
out which faith it were powerless; and the lichen
only grows upon the granite rock by first saying to
itself, " I think I can do it ; " so that it would not be
able to grow unless it thought it could grow, and
would not think it could grow unless it found itself
able to grow, and thus spends its life arguing in a most
vicious circle, basing its action upon a hypothesis, which
hypothesis is in turn based upon its action) — assuming
that we know what is meant by the word " person," we
say that we are one and the same from the moment of
our birth to the moment of our death, so that whatever
is done by or happens to any one between birth and
death, is said to happen to or be done by one individual.
This in practice is found to be sufficient for the law
courts and the purposes of daily life, which, being full
of hurry and the pressure of business, can only tolerate
compromise, or conventional rendering of intricate
phenomena. When facts of extreme complexity have
to be daily and hourly dealt with by people whose
time is money, they must be simplified, and treated
much as a painter treats them, drawing them in
squarely, seizing the more important features, and
neglecting all that does not assert itself as too essential

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 83

to be passed over — hence the slang and cant words of
every profession, and indeed all language ; for language
at best is but a kind of " patter," the only way, it is
true, in many cases, of expressing our ideas to one
another, but still a very bad way, and not for one
moment comparable to the unspoken speech which we
may sometimes have recourse to. The metaphors and
fagons de parler to which even in the plainest speech
we are perpetually recurring (as, for example, in this
last two lines, "plain," "perpetually," and "recur-
ring," are all words based on metaphor, and hence
more or less liable to mislead) often deceive us, as though
there were nothing more than what we see and say,
and as though words, instead of being, as they are, the
creatures of our convenience, had some claim to be the
actual ideas themselves concerning which we are
conversing.

This is so well expressed in a letter I have recently
received from a friend, now in New Zealand, and
certainly not intended by him for publication, that I
shall venture to quote the passage, but should say that
I do so without his knowledge or permission which I
should not be able to receive before this book must be
completed.

" Words, words, words," he writes, " are the stum-
bling-blocks in the way of truth. Until you think of
things as they are, and not of the words that misre-
present them, you cannot think rightly. Words pro-
duce the appearance of hard and fast lines where there
are none. Words divide ; thus we call this a man, that
an ape, that a monkey, while they are all only

84 LIFE AND HABIT.

differentiations of the same thing. To think of a thing
they must be got rid of: they are the clothes that
thoughts wear — only the clothes. I say this over and
over again, for there is nothing of more importance.
Other men's words will stop you at the beginning of an
investigation. A man may play with words all his
life, arranging them and rearranging them like
dominoes. If I could think to you without words you
would understand me better."

If such remarks as the above hold good at all, they
do so with the words " personal identity." The least
reflection will show that personal identity in any sort
of strictness is an impossibility. The expression is one
of the many ways in which we are obliged to scamp
our thoughts through pressure of other business which
pays us better. For surely all reasonable people will
feel that an infant an hour before birth, when in the
eye of the law he has no existence, and could not be
called a peer for another sixty minutes, though his
father were a peer, and already dead, — surely such an
embryo is more personally identical with the baby into
which he develops within an hour's time than the born
baby is so with itself (if the expression may be
pardoned), one, twenty, or it may be eighty years after
birth. There is more sameness of matter ; there are
fewer differences, of any kind perceptible by a third
person; there is more sense of continuity on the
part of the person himself, and far more of all that
goes to make up our sense of sameness of personality
between an embryo an hour before birth and the child
on being born, than there is between the child just

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 85

born and the man of twenty. Yet there is no hesita-
tion about admitting sameness of personality between
these two last.

On the other hand, if that hazy contradiction in
terms, "personal identity," be once allowed to retreat
behind the threshold of the womb, it has eluded us
once for all. What is true of one hour before birth is
true of two, and so on till we get back to the impreg-
nate ovum, which may fairly claim to have been person-
ally identical with the man of eighty into which it
ultimately developed, in spite of the fact that there is
no particle of same matter nor sense of continuity
between them, nor recognised community of instinct,
nor indeed of anything which goes to the making up
of that which we call identity.

There is far more of all these things common to the
impregnate ovum and the ovum immediately before
impregnation, or again between the impregnate ovum,
and both the ovum before impregnation and the
spermatozoon which impregnated it. Nor, if we admit
personal identity between the ovum and the octogena-
rian, is there any sufficient reason why we should not
admit it between the impregnate ovum and the two
factors of which it is composed, which two factors are
but offshoots from two distinct personalities, of which
they are as much part as the apple is of the apple-tree;
so that an impregnate ovum cannot without a violation
of first principles be debarred from claiming personal
identity with both its parents, and hence, by an easy
chain of reasoning, with each of the impregnate ova
from which its parents were developed.

86 LIFE AND HABIT.

So that each ovum when impregnate should be con-
sidered not as descended from its ancestors, but as
being a continuation of the personality of every ovum
in the chain of its ancestry, which every ovum it
actually is quite as truly as the octogenarian is the
same identity with the ovum from which he has been
developed.

This process cannot stop short of the primordial cell,
which again will probably turn out to be but a brief
resting-place. We therefore prove each one of us to
be actually the primordial cell which never died nor
dies, but has differentiated itself into the life of the
world, all living beings whatever, being one with it,
and members one of another.

To look at the matter for a moment in another light,
it will be admitted that if the primordial cell had been
killed before leaving issue, all its possible descendants
would have been killed at one and the same time. It
is hard to see how this single fact does not establish
at the point, as it were, of a logical bayonet, an identity
between any creature and all others that are descended
from it.

In Bishop Butler's first dissertation on personality,
we find expressed very much the same opinions as
would follow from the above considerations, though
they are mentioned by the Bishop only to be con-
demned, namely, " that personality is not a permanent
but a transient thing ; that it lives and dies, begins and
ends continually; that no man can any more remain
one and the same person two moments together, than
two successive moments can be one and the same

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 87

moment ; " in wliicli case, he continues, our present self
would not be " in reality the same with the self of
yesterday, but another like self or person coming up
in its room and mistaken for it, to which another self
will succeed to-morrow." This view the Bishop pro-
ceeds to reduce to absurdity by saying, " It must be a
fallacy upon ourselves to charge our present selves
with anything we did, or to imagine our present selves
interested in anything which befell us yesterday ; or
that our present self will be interested in what will
befall us to-morrow. This, I say, must follow, for if
the self or person of to-day and that of to-morrow are
not the same, but only like persons, the person of to-
day is really no more interested in what will befall
the person of to-morrow than in what will befall any
other person. It may be thought, perhaps, that this
is not a just representation of the opinion we are
speaking of, because those who maintain it allow that
a person is the same as far back as his remembrance
reaches. And indeed they do use the words identity
and same person. Nor will language permit these
words to be laid aside, since, if they were, there must
be I know not what ridiculous periphrasis substituted
in the room of them. But they cannot consistently
with themselves mean that the person is really the
same. For it is self-evident that the personality
cannot be really the same, if, as they expressly assert,
that in which it consists is not the same. And as con-
sistently with themselves they cannot, so I think it
appears they do not mean that the person is really the
same, but only that he is so in a fictitious sense ; in such

88 LIFE AND HABIT.

a sense only as they assert — for tins they do assert —
that any number of persons whatever may be the same
person. The bare unfolding of this notion, and laying
it thus naked and open, seems the best confutation
of it."

This fencing, for it does not deserve the name of
serious disputation, is rendered possible by the laxness
with which the words " identical " and " identity " are
commonly used. Bishop Butler would not seriously
deny that personality undergoes great changes between
infancy and old age, and hence that it must undergo
some change from moment to moment. So universally
is this recognised, that it is common to hear it said of
such and such a man that he is not at all the person
he was, or of such and such another that he is twice
the man he used to be — expressions than which none
nearer the truth can well be found. On the other hand,
those whom Bishop Butler is intending to confute
would be the first to admit that, though there are many
changes between infancy and old age, yet they come
about in any one individual under such circumstances
as we are all agreed in considering as the factors of
personal identity rather than as hindrances thereto —
that is to say, there has been no death on the part of
the individual between any two phases of his existence,
and any one phase has had a permanent though perhaps
imperceptible effect upon all succeeding ones. So that
no one ever seriously argued in the manner supposed
by Bishop Butler, unless with modifications and saving
clauses, to which it does not suit his purpose to call
attention.

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 89

I Jeutical strictly means " one and the same ; " and if
it were tied down to its strictest usage, it would indeed
follow very logically, as we have said already, that no
such thing as personal identity is possible, but that the
case actually is as Bishop Butler has supposed his
opponents without qualification to maintain it. In
common use, however, the word " identical " is taken to
mean anything so like another that no vital or essential
differences can be perceived between them, as in the
case of two specimens of the same kind of plant, when
we say they are identical in spite of considerable in-
dividual differences. So with two impressions of a
print from the same plate ; so with the plate itself,
which is somewhat modified with every impression
taken from it. In like manner " identity " is not held
to its strict meaning — absolute sameness — but is pre-
dicated rightly of a past and present which are now
very widely asunder, provided they have been con-
tinuously connected by links so small as not to give
too sudden a sense of change at any one point ; as, for
instance, in the case of the Thames at Oxford and
Windsor or again at Greenwich, we say the same river
flows by all three places, by which we mean that much of
the water at Greenwich has come down from Oxford
and Windsor in a continuous stream. How sudden a
change at any one point, or how great a difference
between the two extremes is sufficient to bar identity,
is one of the most uncertain things imaginable, and
seems to be decided on different grounds in different
cases, sometimes very intelligibly, and again at others
arbitrarily and capriciously.

90 LIFE AND HABIT.

Personal identity is barred at one end, in the com-
mon opinion, by birth, and at the other by death.
Before birth, a child cannot complain either by himself
or another, in such way as to set the law in motion ;
after death he is in like manner powerless to make
himself felt by society, except in so far as he can do
so by acts done before the breath has left his body.
At any point between birth and death he is liable,
either by himself or another, to affect his fellow-crea-
tnres ; hence, no two other epochs can be found of
equal convenience for social purposes, and therefore
they have been seized by society as settling the whole
question of when personal identity begins and ends —
society being rightly concerned with its own practical
convenience, rather than with the abstract truth con-
cerning its individual members. No one who is cap-
able of reflection will deny that the limitation of
personality is certainly arbitrary to a degree as regards
birth, nor yet that it is very possibly arbitrary as regards
death ; and as for intermediate points, no doubt it
would be more strictly accurate to say, " you are the
now phase of the person I met last night," or " you
are the being which has been evolved from the being
I met last night," than " you are the person I met
last night." But life is too short for the peri-
phrases which would crowd upon us from every quarter,
if we did not set our face against all that is under the
surface of things, unless, that is to say, the going
beneath the surface is, for some special chance of pro-
fit, excusable or capable of extenuation.

(9i )

CHAPTER VI.

PERSONAL IDENTITY — (continued).

How arbitrary current notions concerning identity
really are, may perhaps be perceived by reflecting upon
some of the many different phases of reproduction.

Direct reproduction in which a creation reproduces
another, the facsimile, or nearly so, of itself may
perhaps occur among the lowest forms of animal life ;
but it is certainly not the rule among beings of a
higher order.

A hen lays an egg, which egg becomes a chicken,
which chicken, in the course of time, becomes a hen.

A moth lays an egg, which egg becomes a cater-
pillar, which caterpillar, after going through several
stages, becomes a chrysalis, which chrysalis becomes
a moth.

A medusa begets a ciliated larva, the larva begets a
polyp, the polyp begets a strobila, and the strobila
begets a medusa again ; the cycle of reproduction being
completed in the fourth generation.

A frog lays an egg, which egg becomes a tadpole ;
the tadpole, after more or fewer intermediate stages,
becomes a frog.

92 LIFE AND HABIT.

The mammals lay eggs, which they hatch inside
their own bodies, instead of outside them; but the
difference is one of degree and not of kind. In all
these cases how difficult is it to say where identity
begins or ends, or again where death begins or ends,
or where reproduction begins or ends.

How small and unimportant is the difference
between the changes which a caterpillar undergoes
before becoming a moth, and those of a strobila before
becoming a medusa. Yet in the one case we say the
caterpillar does not die, but is changed (though, if the
various changes in its existence be produced metageneti-
cally, as is the case with many insects, it would appear
to make a clean sweep of every organ of its exist-
ence, and start de novo, growing a head where its feet
were, and so on — at least twice between its lives as
caterpillar and butterfly) ; in this case, however, we say
the caterpillar does not die, but is changed; being,
nevertheless, one personality with the moth, into which
it is developed. But in the case of the strobila we say
that it is not changed, but dies, and is no part of the
personality of the medusa.

We say the egg becomes the caterpillar, not by the
death of the egg and birth of the caterpillar, but by
the ordinary process of nutrition and waste — waste
and repair — waste and repair continually. In like
manner we say the caterpillar becomes the chrysalis,
and the chrysalis the moth, not through the death of
either one or the other, but by the development of
the same creature, and the ordinary processes of waste
and repair. But the medusa after three or four cycles

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 93

becomes the medusa again, not, we say, by these same
processes of nutrition and waste, but by a series of
generations, each one involving an actual birth and
an actual death. Why this difference ? Surely only
because the changes in the offspring of the medusa are
marked by the leaving a little more husk behind them,
and that husk less shrivelled, than is left on the
occasion of each change between the caterpillar and
the butterfly. A little more residuum, which residuum,
it may be, can move about ; and though shrivelling from
hour to hour, may yet leave a little more offspring
before it is reduced to powder; or again, perhaps, be-
cause in the one case, though the actors are changed,
they are changed behind the scenes, and come on in
parts and dresses, more nearly resembling those of the
original actors, than in the other.

When the caterpillar emerges from the egg, almost
all that was inside the egg has become caterpillar ; the
shell is nearly empty, and cannot move ; therefore we
do not count it, and call the caterpillar a continuation
of the egg's existence, and personally identical with
the egg. So with the chrysalis and the moth ; but
after the moth has laid her eggs she can still move her
wings about, and she looks nearly as large as she did
before she laid them ; besides, she may yet lay a few
more, therefore we do not consider the moth's life as
continued in the life of her eggs, but rather in their
husk, which we still call the moth, and which we say
dies in a day or two, and there is an end of it.
Moreover, if we hold the moth's life to be continued
in that of her eggs, we shall be forced to admit her

94 LIFE AND HABIT.

to be personally identical with each single egg, and,
hence, each egg to be identical with every other egg, as
far as the past, and community of memories, are con-
cerned ; and it is not easy at first to break the spell
which words have cast around us, and to feel that one
person may become many persons, and that many
different persons may be practically one and the same
person, as far as their past experience is concerned ;
and again, that two or more persons may unite and
become one person, with the memories and experiences
of both, though this has been actually the case with
every one of us.

Our present way of looking at these matters is
perfectly right and reasonable, so long as we bear in
mind that it is a fagon de parlcr, a sort of hieroglyphic
which shall stand for the course of nature, but nothing
more. Eepair (as is now universally admitted by
physiologists) is only a phase of reproduction, or
rather reproduction and repair are only phases of the
same power ; and again, death and the ordinary daily
waste of tissue, are phases of the same thing. As for
identity it is determined in any true sense of the word,
not by death alone, but by a combination of death and
failure of issue, whether of mind or body.

To repeat. Wherever there is a separate centre of
thought and action, we see that it is connected with
its successive stages of being, by a series of infinitely
small changes from moment to moment, with, perhaps,
at times more startling and rapid changes, but, never-
theless, with no such sudden, complete, and unrepaired
break up of the preceding condition, as we shall agree

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 95

in calling death. The branching out from it at differ-
ent times of new centres of thought and action, has
commonly as little appreciable effect upon the parent-
stock as the fall of an apple full of ripe seeds has upon
an apple-tree ; and though the life of the parent, from
the date of the branching off of such personalities, is
more truly continued in these than in the residuum of
its own life, we should find ourselves involved in a
good deal of trouble if we were commonly to take
this view of the matter. The residuum has generally
the upper hand. He has more money, and can eat
up his new life more easily than his new life him. A
moral residuum will therefore prefer to see the re-
mainder of his life in his own person, than in that of
his descendants, and will act accordingly. Hence we,
in common with most other living beings, ignore the
offspring as forming part of the personality of the
parent, except in so far as that we make the father
liable for its support and for its extravagances (than
which no greater proof need be wished that the law is
at heart a philosopher, and perceives the completeness
of the personal identity between father and son) for
twenty- one years from birth. In other respects we
are accustomed, probably rather from considerations of
practical convenience than as the result of pure reason,
to ignore the identity between parent and offspring as
completely as we ignore personality before birth.
With these exceptions, however, the common opinion
concerning personal identity is reasonable enough, and
is found to consist neither in consciousness of such
identity, nor yet in the power of recollecting its

96 LIFE AND HABIT.

various phases (for it is plain that identity survives the
distinction or suspension of both these), but in the fact
that the various stages appear to the majority of people
to have been in some way or other linked together.

For a very little reflection will show that identity,
as commonly predicated of living agents, does not con-
sist in identity of matter, of which there is no same
particle in the infant, we will say, and the octogenarian
into whom he has developed. Nor, again, does it
depend upon sameness of form or fashion ; for person-
ality is felt to survive frequent and radical modification
of structure, as in the case of caterpillars and other
insects. Mr. Darwin, quoting from Professor Owen,
tells us (Plants and Animals under Domestication,
vol. ii. p. 362, ed. 1875), that in the case of what
is called metagenetic development, " the new parts are
not moulded upon the inner surfaces of the old ones.
The plastic force has changed its mode of operation.
The outer case, and all that gave form and character to
the precedent individual, perish, and are cast off ; they
are not changed into the corresponding parts of the
same individual. These are due to a new and distinct
developmental process." Assuredly, there is more
birth and death in the world than is dreamt of by the
greater part of us ; but it is so masked, and on the
whole, so little to our purpose, that we fail to see it.
Yet radical and sweeping as the changes of organism
above described must be, we do not feel them to be
more a bar to personal identity than the considerable
changes which take place in the structure of our own
bodies between youth and old age.

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 97

Perhaps the most striking illustration of this is to
be found in the case of some Echinoderms, con-
cerning which Mr. Darwin tells us, that " the animal
in the second stage of development is formed almost
like a bud within the animal of the first stage, the
latter being then cast off like an old vestment, yet
sometimes maintaining for a short period an inde-
pendent vitality" (" Plants and Animals under Domesti-
cation," vol. ii. p. 362, ed. 1875).

Nor yet does personality depend upon any con-
sciousness or sense of such personality on the part of
the creature itself — it is not likely that the moth re-
members having been a caterpillar, more than we our-
selves remember having been children of a day old. It
depends simply upon the fact that the various phases
of existence have been linked together, by links which
we agree in considering sufficient to cause identity,
and that they have flowed the one out of the other in
what we see as a continuous, though it may be at times, a
troubled stream. This is the very essence of personality,
but it involves the probable unity of all animal and
vegetable life, as being, in reality, nothing but one
single creature, of which the component members are
but, as it were, blood corpuscles or individual cells ;
life being a sort of leaven, which, if once introduced
into the world, will leaven it altogether; or of fire,
which will consume all it can burn; or of air or
water, which will turn most things into themselves.
Indeed, no difficulty would probably be felt about
admitting the continued existence of personal identity
between parents and their offspring through all time

98 LIFE AND HABIT.

(there being no sudden break at any time between the
existence of any maternal parent and that of its
offspring), were it not that after a certain time the
changes in outward appearance between descendants
and ancestors become very great, the two seeming to
stand so far apart, that it seems absurd in any way
to say that they are one and the same being ; much
in the same way as after a time — though exactly when
no one can say — the Thames becomes the sea. More-
over, the separation of the identity is practically of
far greater importance to it than its continuance. We
want to be ourselves ; we do not want any one else to
claim part and parcel of our identity. This community
of identities is not found to answer in everyday life.
When then our love of independence is backed up by
the fact that continuity of life between parents and
offspring is a matter which depends on things which
are a good deal hidden, and that thus birth gives us
an opportunity of pretending that there has been a
3udden leap into a separate life ; when also we have
regard to the utter ignorance of embryology, which
prevailed till quite recently, it is not surprising that
our ordinary language should be found to have regard
to what is important and obvious, rather than to what
is not quite obvious, and is quite unimportant.

Personality is the creature of time and space,
changing, as time changes, imperceptibly ; we are there-
fore driven to deal with it as with all continuous and
blending things; as with time, for example, itself,
which we divide into days, and seasons, and times, and
years, into divisions that are often arbitrary, but coin-

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 99

cide, on the whole, as nearly as we can make them do
so, with the more marked changes which we can
observe. We lay hold, in fact, of anything we can
catch ; the most important feature in any existence as
regards ourselves being that which we can best lay
hold of, rather than that which is most essential to the
existence itself. We can lay hold of the continued
personality of the egg and the moth into which the
egg develops, but it is less easy to catch sight of the
continued personality between the moth and the eggs
which she lays ; yet the one continuation of personality
is just as true and free from quibble as the other. A
moth becomes each egg that she lays, and that she
does so, she will in good time show by doing, now that
she has got a fresh start, as near as may be what she
did when first she was an egg, and then a moth, before ;
and this I take it, so far as I can gather from looking
at life and things generally, she would not be able to
do if she had not travelled the same road often enough
already, to be able to know it in her sleep and blind-
fold, that is to say, to remember it without any con-
scious act of memory.

So also a grain of wheat is linked with an ear, con-
taining, we will say, a dozen grains, by a series of
changes so subtle that we cannot say at what moment
the original grain became the blade, nor when each ear
of the head became possessed of an individual centre
of action. To say that each grain of the head is per
sonally identical with the original grain would per-
haps be an abuse of terms ; but it can be no abuse to
say that each grain is a continuation of the personality

;

ioo LIFE AND HABIT.

of the original grain, and if so, of every grain in the
chain of its own ancestry ; and that, as being snch a
continuation, it mnst be stored with the memories *
and experiences of its past existences, to be recollected \
under the circumstances most favourable to recollec- *
tion, i.e., when under similar conditions to those
when the impression was last made and last remem-
bered. Truly, then, in each case the new egg and the
new grain is the egg, and the grain from which its
parent sprang, as completely as the full-grown ox is
the calf from which it has grown.

Again, in the case of some weeping trees, whose
boughs spring up into fresh trees when they have
reached the ground, who shall say at what time
they cease to be members of the parent tree ? In the
case of cuttings from plants it is easy to elude the
difficulty by making a parade of the sharp and sudden
act of separation from the parent stock, but this is
only a piece of mental sleight of hand ; the cutting
remains as much part of its parent plant as though it
had never been severed from it ; it goes on profiting
by the experience which it had before it was cut off,
as much as though it had never been cut off at all.
This will be more readily seen in the case of worms
which have been cut in half. Let a worm be cut in
half, and the two halves will become fresh worms;
which of them is the original worm ? Surely both.
Perhaps no simpler case than this could readily be
found of the manner in which personality eludes us,
the moment we try to investigate its real nature.
There are few ideas which on first consideration appear

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 101

so simple, and none which becomes more utterly in-
capable of limitation or definition as soon as it is
examined closely.

Finally, Mr. Darwin ("Plants and Animals under
Domestication," vol. ii. p. 38, ed. 1 875), writes —

" Even with plants multiplied by bulbs, layers, &c,
which may in one sense be said to form part of the
same individual," &c, &c. ; and again, p. 5 8, " The
same rule holds good with plants when propagated by
bulbs, offsets, &c, which in one sense still form parts
of the same individual," &c. In each of these passages
it is plain that the difficulty of separating the person-
ality of the offspring from that of the parent plant is
present to his mind. Yet, p. 351 of the same volume
as above, he tells us that asexual generation "is
effected in many ways — by the formation of buds of
various kinds, and by fissiparous generation, that is, by
spontaneous or artificial division." The multiplication
of plants by bulbs and layers clearly comes under this
head, nor will any essential difference be felt between
one kind of asexual generation and another ; if, then,
the offspring formed by bulbs and layers is in one
sense part of the original plant, so also, it would
appear, is all offspring developed by asexual generation
in its manifold phrases.

If we now turn to p. 3 5 7, we find the conclusion
arrived at, as it would appear, on the most satisfactory
evidence, that "sexual and asexual reproduction are
not seen to differ essentially; and .... that
asexual reproduction, the power of regrowth, and
development are all parts of one and the same great

102 LIFE AND HABIT.

law." Does it not then follow, quite reasonably and
necessarily, that all offspring, however generated, is in
one sense part of the individuality of its parent or parents.
The question, therefore, turns upon " in what sense "
this may be said to be the case ? To which I would
venture to reply, "In the same sense as the parent
plant 'which is but the representative of the outside
matter which it has assimilated during growth, and of
its own powers of development) is the same individual
that it was when it was itself an offset, or a cow the
same individual that it was when it was a calf — but
no otherwise."

Not much difficulty will be felt about supposing the
offset of a plant, to be imbued with the memory of the
past history of the plant of which it is an offset. It
is part of the plant itself, and will know whatever
the plant knows. Why, then, should there be more
difficulty in supposing the offspring of the highest
mammals, to remember in a profound but unself-
conscious way, the anterior history of the creatures of
which they too have been part and parcel ?

Personal identity, then, is much like species itself.
It is now, thanks to Mr. Darwin, generally held that
species blend or have blended into one another ; so that
any possibility of arrangement and apparent sub-
division into definite groups, is due to the suppression
by death both of individuals and whole genera, which,
had they been now existing, would have linked all liv-
ing beings by a series of gradations so subtle that little
classification could have been attempted. How it is
that the one great personality of life as a whole, should

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 103

have split itself up into so many centres of thought
and action, each one of which is wholly, or at any rate
nearly, unconscious of its connection with the other
members, instead of having grown up into a huge
polyp, or as it were coral reef or compound animal
over the whole world, which should be conscious but
of its own one single existence ; how it is that the
daily waste of this creature should be carried on by
the conscious death of its individual members, instead
of by the unconscious waste of tissue which goes on
in the bodies of each individual (if indeed the tissue
which we waste daily in our own bodies is so uncon-
scious of its birth and death as we suppose) ; how, ,
again, that the daily repair of this huge creature life ■• })****
should have become decentralised, and be carried on
by conscious reproduction on the part of its component
items, instead of by the unconscious nutrition of the
whole from a single centre, as the nutrition of our own
bodies would appear (though perhaps falsely) to be
carried on ; these are matters upon which I dare not
speculate here, but on which some reflections may
follow in subsequent chapters.

( 104)

CHAPTEK VII.

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES.

We have seen that we can apprehend neither the be-
ginning nor the end of our personality, which comes up
out of infinity as an island out of the sea, so gently,
that none can say when it 'is first visible on our
mental horizon, and fades away in the case of those
who leave offspring, so imperceptibly that none can
say when it is out of sight. But, like the island,
whether we can see it or no, it is always there. Not
only are we infinite as regards time, but we are so
also as regards extension, being so linked on to the
external world that we cannot say where we either
begin or end. If those who so frequently declare that
man is a finite creature would point out his boun-
daries, it might lead to a better understanding.

Nevertheless, we are in the habit of considering
that our personality, or soul, no matter where it begins
or ends, and no matter what it comprises, is neverthe-
less a single thing, uncompounded of other souls. Yet
there is nothing more certain than that this is not at
all the case, but that every individual person is a com-
pound creature, being made up of an infinite number

0 UR SUBORDINA TE PERSONALITIES. 105

of distinct centres of sensation and will, each one of
which is personal, and has a soul and individual exist-
ence, a reproductive system, intelligence, and memory
of its own, with probably its hopes and fears, its times
of scarcity and repletion, and a strong conviction that
it is itself the centre of the universe.

True, no one is aware of more than one individu-
ality in his own person at one time. We are, indeed,
often greatly influenced by other people, so much so,
that we act on many occasions in accordance with their
will rather than our own, making our actions answer
to their sensations, and register the conclusions of their
cerebral action and not our own ; for the time being,
we become so completely part of them, that we are
ready to do things most distasteful and dangerous to
us, if they think it for their advantage that we should
do so. Thus we sometimes see people become mere
processes of their wives or nearest relations. Yet
there is a something which blinds us, so that we
cannot see how completely we are possessed by the
souls which influence us upon these occasions. We
still think we are ourselves, and ourselves only, and
are as certain as we can be of any fact, that we are
single sentient beings, uncompounded of other sentient
beings, and that our action is determined by the sole
operation of a single will.

But in reality, over and above this possession of
our souls by others of our own species, the will of
the lower animals often enters into our bodies and
possesses them, making us do as they will, and not
as we will ; as, for example, when people try to drive

106 LIFE AND HABIT.

pigs, or are run away with by a restive horse, or
are attacked by a savage animal which masters them.
It is absurd to say that a person is a single " ego "
when he is in the clutches of a lion. Even when we
are alone, and uninfluenced by other people except
in so far as we remember their wishes, we yet
generally conform to the usages which the current
feeling of our peers has taught us to respect; their
will having so mastered our original nature, that, do
what we may, we can never again separate ourselves
and dwell in the isolation of our own single person-
ality. And even though we succeeded in this, and
made a clean sweep of every mental influence which
had ever been brought to bear upon us, and though at
the same time we were alone in some desert where
there was neither beast nor bird to attract our attention
or in any way influence our action, yet we could not
escape the parasites which abound within us ; whose
action, as every medical man well knows, is often
such as to drive men to the commission of grave
crimes, or to throw them into convulsions, make
lunatics of them, kill them — when but for the existence
and course of conduct pursued by these parasites they
would have done no wrong to any man.

These parasites — are they part of us or no ? Some
are plainly not so in any strict sense of the word, yet
their action may, in cases which it is unnecessary to
detail, affect us so powerfully that we are irresistibly
impelled to act in such or such a manner ; and yet we
are as wholly unconscious of any impulse outside of our
own " ego " as though they were part of ourselves ;

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 107

others again are essential to our very existence, as the
corpuscles of the blood, which the best authorities
concur in supposing to be composed of an infinite
number of living souls, on whose welfare the healthy-
condition of our blood, and hence of our whole bodies,
depends. We breathe that they may breathe, not
that we may do so ; we only care about oxygen in so
far as the infinitely small beings which course up and
down in our veins care about it : the whole arrangement
and mechanism of our lungs may be our doing, but is
for their convenience, and they only serve us because
it suits their purpose to do so, as long as we serve
them. Who shall draw the line between the parasites
which are part of us, and the parasites which are not
part of us ? Or again, between the influence of those
parasites which are within us, but are yet not us, and
the external influence of other sentient beings and our
fellow-men ? There is no line possible. Everything
melts away into everything else; there are no hard
edges ; it is only from a little distance that we see the
effect as of individual features and existences. When
we go close up, there is nothing but a blur and con-
fused mass of apparently meaningless touches, as in a
picture by Turner.

The following passage from Mr. Darwin's provisional
theory of Pangenesis, will sufficiently show that the
above is no strange and paradoxical view put forward
wantonly, but that it follows as a matter of course
from the conclusions arrived at by those who are
acknowledged leaders in the scientific world. Mr.
Darwin writes thus : —

io8 LIFE AND HABIT.

" The functional independence of the elements or units
of the body. — Physiologists agree that the whole
organism consists of a multitude of elemental parts,
which are to a great extent independent of one another.
Each organ, says Claude Bernard, has its proper life,
its autonomy; it can develop and reproduce itself
independently of the adjoining tissues. A great
German authority, Virchow, asserts still more emphati-
cally that each system consists of ' an enormous mass

of minute centres of action Every element has

its own special action, and even though it derive its
stimulus to activity from other parts, yet alone effects

the actual performance of duties Every single

epithelial and muscular fibre-cell leads a sort of
parasitical existence in relation to the rest of the body.
. . . Every single bone corpuscle really possesses
conditions of nutrition peculiar to itself.' Each
element, as Sir J. Paget remarks, lives its appointed
time, and then dies, and is replaced after being cast
off and absorbed. I presume that no physiologist
doubts that, for instance, each bone corpuscle of the
finger differs from the corresponding corpuscle of the
corresponding joint of the toe," &c., &c. (" Plants and
Animals under Domestication," vol. ii. pp. 364, 365,
ed. 1875).

In a work on heredity by M. Kibot, I find him say-
ing, " Some recent authors attribute a memory " (and
if so, surely every attribute of complete individuality)
"to every organic element of the body;" among them
Dr. Maudsley, who is quoted by M. Kibot, as saying,
" The permanent effects of a particular virus, such as

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 109

that of the variola, in the constitution, shows that the
organic element remembers for the remainder of its life
certain modifications it has received. The manner in
which a cicatrix in a child's finger grows with the
growth of the body, proves, as has been shown by
Paget, that the organic element of the part does not
forget the impression it has received. What has been
said about the different nervous centres of the body
demonstrates the existence of a memory in the nerve
cells diffused through the heart and intestines ; in
those of the spinal cord, in the cells of the motor
ganglia, and in the cells of the cortical substance of
the cerebal hemispheres."

Now, if words have any meaning at all, it must
follow from the passages quoted above, that each cell
in the human body is a person with an intelligent soul,
of a low class, perhaps, but still differing from our
own more complex soul in degree, and not in kind ;
and, like ourselves, being born, living, and dying. So
that each single creature, whether man or beast, proves
to be as a ray of white light, which, though single, is
compounded of the red, blue, and yellow rays. It
would appear, then, as though " we," " our souls," or
"selves," or "personalities," or by whatever name we may
prefer to be called, are but the consensus and full flowing
stream of countless sensations and impulses on the
part of our tributary souls or " selves," who probably
know no more that we exist, and that they exist as
part of us, than a microscopic water-flea knows the
results of spectrum analysis, or than an agricultural
labourer knows the working of the British constitution ;

no LIFE AND HABIT.

and of whom we know no more, until some miscon-
duct on our part, or some confusion of ideas on theirs,
has driven them into insurrection, than we do of the
habits and feelings of some class widely separated
from our own.

These component souls are of many and very dif-
ferent natures, living in territories which are to them
vast continents, and rivers, and seas, but which are yet
only the bodies of our other component souls ; coral reefs
and sponge-beds within us ; the animal itself being a
kind of mean proportional between its house and its
soul, and none being able to say where house ends and
animal begins, more than they can say where animal
ends and soul begins. For our bones within us are
but inside walls and buttresses, that is to say, houses
constructed of lime and stone, as it were, by coral
insects ; and our houses without us are but outside
bones, a kind of exterior skeleton or shell, so that we
perish of cold if permanently and suddenly deprived
of the coverings which warm us and* cherish us, as the
wing of a hen cherishes her chickens. If we consider
the shells of many living creatures, we shall find it
hard to say whether they are rather houses, or part of
the animal itself, being, as they are, inseparable from
the animal, without the destruction of its personality.

Is it possible, then, to avoid imagining that if we
have within us so many tributary souls, so utterly dif-
ferent from the soul which they unite to form, that
they neither can perceive us, nor we them, though it
is in us that they live and move and have their being,
and though we are what we are, solely as the result of

0 UR SUBORDINA TE PERSONALITIES. 1 1 1

their co-operation — is it possible to avoid imagining
that we may be ourselves atoms, undesignedly combin-
ing to form some vaster being, though we are utterly
incapable of perceiving that any such being exists, or
of realising the scheme or scope of our own combination?
And this, too, not a spiritual being, which, without
matter, or what we think matter of some sort, is as
complete nonsense to us as though men bade us love and
lean upon an intelligent vacuum, but a being with what
is virtually flesh and blood and bones ; with organs,
senses, dimensions, in some way analogous to our own,
into some other part of which being, at the time of «
our great change we must infallibly re-enter, starting |
clean anew, with bygones bygones, and no more
ache for ever from either age or antecedents. Truly,
sufficient for the life is the evil thereof. Any specula-
tions of ours concerning the nature of such a being,
must be as futile and little valuable as those of a
blood corpuscle might be expected to be concerning
the nature of man ; but if I were myself a blood cor-
puscle, I should be amused at making the discovery
that I was not only enjoying life in my own sphere,
but was bond fide part of an animal which would not die
with myself, and in which I might thus think of my-
self as continuing to live to all eternity, or to what, as
far as my power of thought would carry me, must
seem practically eternal. But, after all, the amusement
would be of a rather dreary nature.

On the other hand, if I were the being of whom
such an introspective blood corpuscle was a component
item, I should conceive he served me better by

112 LIFE AND HABIT.

attending to my blood and making himself a successful
corpuscle, than by speculating about my nature. He
would serve me best by serving himself best, without
being over curious. I should expect that my blood
might suffer if his brain were to become too active.
If, therefore, I could discover the vein in which he was, I
should let him out to begin life anew in some other
and, qud me, more profitable capacity.

With the units of our bodies it is as with the stars
of heaven : there is neither speech nor language, but
their voices are heard among them. Our will is the
fiat of their collective wisdom, as sanctioned in their
parliament, the brain; it is they who make us do
whatever we do — it is they who should be rewarded
if they have done well, or hanged if they have com-
mitted murder. When the balance of power is well
preserved among them, when they respect each other's
rights and work harmoniously together, then we thrive
and are well; if we are ill, it is because they are
quarrelling with themselves, or are gone on strike for
this or that addition to their environment, and our
doctor must pacify or chastise them as best he may.
They are we and we are they ; and when we die it is
but a redistribution of the balance of power among
them or a change of dynasty, the result, it may be, of
heroic struggle, with more epics and love romances than
we could read from now to the Millennium, if they
were so written down that we could comprehend
them.

It is plain, then, that the more we examine the
question of personality the more it baffles us, the only

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 113

safeguard against utter confusion and idleness of
thought being to fall back upon the superficial and
common sense view, and refuse to tolerate discussions
which seem to hold out little prospect of commercial
value, and which would compel us, if logically followed,
to be at the inconvenience of altering our opinions
upon matters which we have come to consider as
settled.

And we observe that this is what is practically done
by some of our ablest philosophers, who seem un-
willing, if one may say so without presumption, to
accept the conclusions to which their own experiments
and observations would seem to point.

Dr. Carpenter, for example, quotes the well-known
experiments upon headless frogs. If we cut off a
frog's head and pinch any part of its skin, the animal
at once begins to move away with the same regularity
as though the brain had not been removed. Flourens
took guinea-pigs, deprived them of the cerebral lobes,
and then irritated their skin ; the animals immediately
walked, leaped, and trotted about, but when the
irritation was discontinued they ceased to move.
Headless birds, under excitation, can still perform
with their wings the rhythmic movements of flying.
But here are some facts more curious still, and more
difficult of explanation. If we take a frog or a strong
and healthy triton, and subject it to various experi-
ments ; if we touch, pinch, or burn it with acetic acid,
and if then, after decapitating the animal, we subject
it to the same experiments, it will be seen that the
reactions are exactly the same; it will strive to be

U4 LIFE AND I/ABIT.

free of the pain, and to shake off the acetic acid that is
burning it ; it will bring its foot up to the part of its
body that is irritated, and this movement of the
member will follow the irritation wherever it may be
produced.

The above is mainly taken from M. Kibot's work
on heredity rather than Dr. Carpenter's, because M.
Eibot tells us that the head ol the frog was actually
cut off, a fact which does not appear so plainly in
Dr. Carpenter's allusion to the same experiments.
But Dr. Carpenter tells us that after the brain of a
frog has been removed — which would seem to be much
the same thing as though its head were cut off — " if
acetic acid be applied over the upper and under part
of the thigh, the foot of the 'Same side will wipe it
away ; but if that foot be cut off, after some ineffectual
efforts and a short period of inaction" during which it
is hard not to surmise that the headless body is con-
sidering what it had better do under the circumstances,
" the same movement will be made by the foot of the
opposite side" which, to ordinary people, would convey
the impression that the headless body was capable of
feeling the impressions it had received, and of reason-
ing upon them by a psychological act; and this of
course involves the possession of a soul of some
sort.

Here is a frog whose right thigh you burn with
acetic acid. Very naturally it tries to get at the place
with its right foot to remove the acid. You then cut
off the frog's head, and put more acetic acid on the
same place : the headless frog, or rather the body of

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 115

the late frog, does just what the frog did before its
head was cut off — it tries to get at the place with its
right foot. You now cut off its right foot : the head-
less body deliberates, and after a while tries to do
with its left foot what it can no longer do with its
right. Plain matter-of-fact people will draw their own
inference. They will not be seduced from the super-
ficial view of the matter. They will say that the
headless body can still, to some extent, feel, think,
and act, and if so, that it must have a living soul.

Dr. Carpenter writes as follows : — u Now the per-
formance of these, as well as of many other movements,
that show a most remarkable adaptation to a purpose,
might be supposed to indicate that sensations are
called up by the impressions, and that the animal can
not <m\y feel, but can voluntarily direct its movements
so as to get rid of the irritation which annoys it.
But such an inference would be inconsistent with
other facts. In the first place, the motions performed
under such circumstances are never spontaneous, but
are always excited by a stimulus of some kind."

Here we pause to ask ourselves whether any action
of any creature under any circumstances is ever ex-
cited without " stimulus of some kind," and unless we
can answer this question in the affirmative, it is not
easy to see how Dr. Carpenter's objection is valid.

" Thus," he continues, " a decapitated frog " (here
then we have it that the frog's head was actually cut
off) " after the first violent convulsive moments occa-
sioned by the operation have passed away, remains at
rest until it is touched ; and then the leg, or its whole

n6 LIFE AND HABIT.

body may be thrown into sudden action, which sud-
denly subsides again." (How does this quiescence
when it no longer feels anything show that the " leg
or whole body " had not perceived something which
made it feel when it was not quiescent ?) — " Again we
find that such movements may be performed not only
when the brain has been removed, the spinal cord
remaining entire, but also when the spinal cord has
been itself cut across, so as to be divided into two or
more portions, each of them completely isolated from
each other, and from other parts of the nervous centres.
Thus, if the head of a frog be cut off, and its spinal
cord be divided in the middle of the back, so that its
fore legs remain connected with the upper part, and
its hind legs with the lower, each pair of members
may be excited to movements by stimulants applied
to itself ; but the two pairs will not exhibit any con-
sentaneous motions, as they will do when the spinal
cord is undivided."

This may be put perhaps more plainly thus. If
you take a frog and cut it into three pieces — say, the
head for <one piece, the fore legs and shoulder for
another, and the hind legs for a third — and then irritate
any one of these pieces, you will find it move much as
it would have moved under like irritation if the animal
had remained undivided, but you will no longer find
any concert between the movements of the three
pieces ; that is to say, if you irritate the head, the
other two pieces will remain quiet, and if you irritate
the hind legs, you will excite no action in the fore legs
or head.

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 117

Dr. Carpenter continues : " Or if the spinal cord be
cut across without the removal of the brain, the lower
limbs may be excited to movement by an appropriate
stimulant, though the animal has clearly no power
over them, whilst the upper part remains under its
control as completely as before."

Why are the head and shoulders " the animal " more
than the hind legs under these circumstances ? Neither
half can exist long without the other ; the two parts,
therefore, being equally important to each other, we
have surely as good a right to claim the title of " the
animal " for the hind legs, and to maintain that they
have no power over the head and shoulders, as any
one else has to claim the animalship for these last.
"What we say is, that the animal has ceased to exist as
a frog on being cut in half, and that the two halves
are no longer, either of them, the frog, but are simply
pieces of still living organism, each of which has a
soul of its own, being capable of sensation, and of
intelligent psychological action as the consequence of
its sensations, though the one part has probably a
much higher and more intelligent soul than the other,
and neither part has a soul for a moment comparable
in power and durability to that of the original frog.

"Now it is scarcely conceivable," continues Dr
Carpenter, " that in this last case sensations should be
felt and volition exercised through the instrumentality
of that portion of the spinal cord which remains con-
nected with the nerves of the posterior extremities,
but which is cut off from the brain. For if it were so,
there must be two distinct centres of sensation and

Ii8 LIFE AND HABIT.

will in the same animal, the attributes of the brain
not being affected ; and by dividing the spinal cord into
two or more segments we might thus create in the body
of one animal two or more such independent centres
in addition to that which holds its proper place in the
head."

In the face of the facts before us, it does not seem
far-fetched to suppose that there are two, or indeed an
infinite number of centres of sensation and will in an
animal, the attributes of whose brain are not affected,
but that these centres, while the brain is intact,
habitually act in connection with and in subordination
to that central authority ; as in the ordinary state of
the fish trade, fish is caught, we will say, at Yarmouth,
sent up to London, and then sent down to Yarmouth
again to be eaten, instead of being eaten at Yarmouth
when caught. But from the phenomena exhibited by
three pieces of an animal, it is impossible to argue
that the causes of the phenomena were present in the
quondam animal itself; the memory of an infinite
series of generations having so habituated the local
centres of sensation and will, to act in concert with
the central government, that as long as they can get
at that government, they are absolutely incapable of
acting independently. When thrown on their own
resources, they are so demoralised by ages of depend-
ence on the brain, that they die after a few efforts
at self-assertion, from sheer unfamiliarity with the
position, and inability to recognise themselves when
disjointed rudely from their habitual associations.

In conclusion, Dr. Carpenter says, " To say that two

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 119

or more distinct centres of sensation and will are
present in such a case, would really be the same as say-
ing that we have the power of constituting two or more
distinct egos in one body, luhich is manifestly absurd"
One sees the absurdity of maintaining that we can
make one frog into two frogs by cutting a frog into
two pieces, but there is no absurdity in believing that
the two pieces have minor centres of sensation and
intelligence within themselves, which, when the animal
is entire, act in such concert with the brain, and with
each other, that it is not easy to detect their originally
autonomous character, but which, when deprived of
their power of acting in concert, are thrown back upon
earlier habit, now too long forgotten to be capable of
permanent resumption.

Illustrations are apt to mislead, nevertheless they
may perhaps be sometimes tolerated. Suppose, for
example, that London to the extent, say, of a circle
with a six-mile radius from Charing Cross, were
utterly annihilated in the space of five minutes during
the Session of Parliament. Suppose, also, that two
entirely impassable barriers, say of five miles in
width, half a mile high, and red hot, were thrown
across England ; one from Gloucester to Harwich, and
another from Liverpool to Hull, and at the same time
the sea were to become a mass of molten lava, so that
no water communication should be possible ; the poli-
tical, mercantile, social, and intellectual life of the
country would be convulsed in a manner which it is
hardly possible to realise. Hundreds of thousands
would die through the dislocation of existing arrange-
l

120 LIFE AND HABIT.

ments. Nevertheless, each of the three parts into
which England was divided would show signs of
provincial life for which it would find certain imperfect
organisms ready to hand. Bristol, Birmingham, Liver-
pool, and Manchester, accustomed though they are to
act in subordination to London, would probably take up
the reins of government in their several sections ; they
would make their town councils into local govern-
ments, appoint judges from the ablest of their magis-
trates, organise relief committees, and endeavour as
well as they could to remove any acetic acid that
might be now poured on Wiltshire, Warwickshire, or
Northumberland, but no concert between the three
divisions of the country would be any longer possible.
Should we be justified, under these circumstances, in
calling any of the three parts of England, England ?
Or, again, when we observed the provincial action to
be as nearly like that of the original undivided nation
as circumstances would allow, should we be justified in
saying that the action, such as it was, was not politi-
cal ? And, lastly, should we for a moment think that
an admission that the provincial action was of a lond
fide political character would involve the supposition
that England, undivided, had more than one " ego " as
England, no matter how many subordinate " egos "
might go to the making of it, each one of which
proved, on emergency, to be capable of a feeble
autonomy ?

M. Ribot would seem to take a juster view of the
phenomenon when he says (p. 222 of the English
translation) —

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 121

" We can hardly say that here the movements are
co-ordinated like those of a machine ; the acts of the
animal are adapted to a special end ; we find in them
the characters of intelligence and will, a knowledge
and choice of means, since they are as variable as the
cause which provokes them.

" If these, then, and similar acts, were such that both
the impressions which produced them and the acts
themselves were perceived by the animal, would they
not be called psychological? Is there not in them all
that constitutes an intelligent act — adaptation of means
to ends ; not a general and vague adaptation, but a
determinate adaptation to a determinate end ? In the
reflex action we find all that constitutes in some sort
the very groundwork of an intelligent act — that is to
say, the same series of stages, in the same order, with
the same relations between them. We have thus, in
the reflex act, all that constitutes the psychological act
except consciousness. The reflex act, which is physio-
logical, differs in nothing from the psychological
act, save only in this — that it is without conscious-
ness."

The only remark which suggests itself upon this, is
that we have no right to say that the part of the
animal which moves does not also perceive its own
act of motion, as much as it has perceived the im-
pression which has caused it to move. It is plain
" the animal " cannot do so, for the animal cannot be
said to be any longer in existence. Half a frog is not
a frog ; nevertheless, if the hind legs are capable, as
M. Ribot appears to admit, of " perceiving the im-

T22 LIFE AND HABIT.

pression " which produces their action, and if in that
action there is (and there would certainly appear to be
so) " all that constitutes an intelligent act, ... a
determinate adaptation to a determinate end/' one fail3
to see on what ground they should be supposed to be
incapable of perceiving their own action, in which
case the action of the hind legs becomes distinctly
psychological.

Secondly, M. Ribot appears to forget that it is the
tendency of all psychological action to become uncon-
scious on being frequently repeated, and that no line
can be drawn between psychological acts and those
reflex acts which he calls physiological. All we can
say is, that there are acts which we do without know-
ing that we do them ; but the analogy of many habits
which we have been able to watch in their passage
from laborious consciousness to perfect unconscious-
ness, would suggest that all action is really psycho-
logical, only that the soul's action becomes invisible
to ourselves after it has been repeated sufficiently
often — that there is, in fact, a law as simple as in the
case of optics or gravitation, whereby conscious per-
ception of any action shall vary inversely as the
square, say, of its being repeated.

It is easy to understand the advantage to the in-
dividual of this power of doing things rightly without
thinking about them ; for were there no such power,
the attention would be incapable of following the
multitude of matters which would be continually arrest-
ing it; those animals which had developed a power
of working automatically, and without a recurrence to

OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 123

first principles when they had once mastered any par-
ticular process, would, in the common course of events,
stand a better chance of continuing their species, and
thus of transmitting their new power to their de-
scendants.

M. Eibot declines to pursue the subject further,
and has only cursorily alluded to it. He writes, how-
ever, that, on the "obscure problem" of the difference
between reflex and psychological actions, some say,
" when there can be no consciousness, because the
brain is wanting, there is, in spite of appearances, only
mechanism," whilst others maintain, that " when there
is selection, reflection, psychical action, there must
also be consciousness in spite of appearances." A
little later (p. 223), he says, " It is quite possible that
if a headless animal could live a sufficient length of
time " (that is to say, if the land legs of an animal
could live a sufficient length of time without the
brain), " there would be found in it" (them) "a conscious-
ness like that of the lower species, which would
consist merely in the faculty of apprehending the
external world." (Why merely ? It is more than
apprehending the outside world to be able to try to
do a thing with one's left foot, when one finds that one
cannot do it with one's right.) " It would not be
correct to say that the amphioxus, the only one among
fishes and vertebrata which has a spinal cord without
a brain, has no consciousness because it has no brain ;
and if it be admitted that the little ganglia of the
invertebrata can form a consciousness, the same may
hold good for the spinal cord."

/

124 LIFE AND HABIT.

We conclude, therefore, that it is within the common
scope and meaning of the words " personal identity,"
not only that one creature can become many as the
moth becomes manifold in her eggs, but that each
individual may be manifold in the sense of being com-
pounded of a vast number of subordinate individualities
which have their separate lives within him, with their
hopes, and fears, and intrigues, being born and dying
within us, many generations, of them during our single
lifetime.

" An organic being," writes Mr. Darwin, " is a micro-
cosm, a little universe, formed of a host of self-propa-
gating organisms, inconceivably minute, and numerous
as the stars in heaven."

As these myriads of smaller organisms are parts
and processes of us, so are we but parts and processes
of life at large.

(I25 )

CHAPTEE VIII.

APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS — THE
ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER.

Let us now return to the position which we left at
the end of the fourth chapter. We had then con-
cluded that the self-development of each new life in
succeeding generations — the various stages through
which it passes (as it would appear, at first sight, with-
out rhyme or reason) — the manner in which it prepares
structures of the most surpassing intricacy and delicacy,
for which it has no use at the time when it prepares
them — and the many elaborate instincts which it ex-
hibits immediately on, and indeed before, birth — all
point in the direction of habit and memory, as the only
causes which could produce them.

Why should the embryo of any animal go
through so many stages — embryological allusions to
forefathers of a widely different type ? And why,
again, should the germs of the same kind of creature
always go through the same stages ? If the germ of
any animal now living is, in its simplest state, but part
of the personal identity of one of the original germs of
all life whatsoever, and hence, if any now living organ-

i26 LIFE AND HABIT.

ism must be considered without quibble as being itself
millions of years old, and as imbued with an intense
though unconscious memory of all that it has done
sufficiently often to have made a permanent impres-
sion ; if this be so, we can answer the above questions
perfectly well. The creature goes through so many
intermediate stages between its earliest state as life at
all, and its latest development, for the simplest of all
reasons, namely, because this is the road by which it
has always hitherto travelled to its present differentia-
tion ; this is the road it knows, and into every turn
and up or down of which, it has been guided by the
force of circumstances and the balance of considera-
tions. These, acting in such a manner for such and
such a time, caused it to travel in such and such
fashion, which fashion having been once sufficiently
established, becomes a matter of trick or routine to
which the creature is still a slave, and in which it
confirms itself by repetition in each succeeding genera-
tion.

Thus I suppose, as almost every one else, so far as
I can gather, supposes, that we are descended from
ancestors of widely different characters to our own.
If we could see some of our forefathers a million years
back, we should find them unlike anything we could
call man ; if we were to go back fifty million years, we
should find them, it may be, fishes pure and simple,
breathing through gills, and unable to exist for many
minutes in air.

It is admitted on all hands that there is more or
less analogy between the embryological development

ASSIMILA TION OF OUTSIDE MA TTER. 1 27

of the individual, and the various phases or conditions
of life through which his forefathers have passed. I
suppose, then, that the fish of fifty million years back
and the man of to-day are one single living being, in
the same sense, or very nearly so, as the octogenarian
is one single living being with the infant from which
he has grown ; and that the fish has lived himself
into manhood, not as we live out our little life, living,
and living, and living till we die, but living by pulsa-
tions, so to speak ; living so far, and after a certain
time going into a new body, and throwing off the old ; |
making his body much as we make anything that we
want, and have often made already, that is to say, as
nearly as may be in the same way as he made it last
time ; also that he is as unable as we ourselves are,
to make what he wants without going through the
usual processes with which he is familiar, even though
there may be other better ways of doing the same
thing, which might not be far to seek, if the creature
thought them better, and had not got so accustomed to
such and such a method, that he would only be baffled
and put out by any attempt to teach him otherwise.

And this oneness of personality between ourselves
and our supposed fishlike ancestors of many millions
of years ago, must hold also between each individual
one of us and the single pair of fishes from which we
are each (on the present momentary hypothesis)
descended ; and it must also hold between such pair of
fishes and all their descendants besides man, it may
be some of them birds, and others fishes ; all these
descendants, whether human or otherwise, being but the

128 LIFE AND HABIT.

\ way in which the creature (which was a pair of fishes
■ar* When we first took it in hand though it was a hundred
(thousand other things as well, and had been all
manner of other things before any part of it became
fishlike) continues to exist — its manner, in fact, of
growing. As the manner in which the human body
grows is by the continued birth and death, in our
single lifetime, of many generations of cells which we
know nothing about, but say that we have had only
one hand or foot all our lives, when we have really
had many, one after another ; so this huge compound
creature, life, probably thinks itself but one single
animal whose component cells, as it may imagine,
grow, and it may be waste and repair, but do not
die.

It may be that the cells of which we are built up,
and which we have already seen must be considered
as separate persons, each one of them with a life and
memory of its own — it may be that these cells reckon
\ time in a manner inconceivable by us, so that no word
v#an convey any idea of it whatever. What may to
them appear a long and painful process may to us be
so instantaneous as to escape us altogether, we wanting
some microscope to show us the details of time. If, in
like manner, we were to allow our imagination to con-
ceive the existence of a being as much in need of a
microscope for our time and affairs as we for those of
our own component cells, the years would be to such
a being but as the winkings or the twinklings of an
eye. Would he think, then, that all the ants and flies
of one wink were different from those of the next ? or

ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER. 129

would he not rather believe that they were always the
same flies, and, again, always the same men and women,
if he could see them at all, and if the whole human race
did not appear to him as a sort of spreading and
lichen-like growth over the earth, not differentiated at
all into individuals ? With the help of a microscope
and the intelligent exercise of his reason, he would
in time conceive the truth. He would put Covent
Garden Market on the field of his microscope, and
would perhaps write a great deal of nonsense about I
the unerring " instinct " which taught each coster-
monger to recognise his own basket or his own \
donkey-cart ; and this, mutatis mutandis, is what we \
are getting to do as regards our own bodies. What I
I wish is, to make the same sort of step in an
upward direction which has already been taken in a
downward one, and to show reason for thinking that'
we are only component atoms of a single compound
creature, life, which has probably a distinct conception
of its own personality though none whatever of ours,
more than we of our own units. I wish also to show)
reason for thinking that this creature, life, has only*
come to be what it is, by the same sort of process as
that by which any human art or manufacture is
developed, i.e., through constantly doing the same thing
over and over again, beginning from something which
is barely recognisable as faith, or as the desire to know,
or do, or live at all, and as to the origin of which we
are in utter darkness, — and growing till it is first con-
scious of effort, then conscious of power, then powerful
with but little consciousness, and finally, so powerful

130 LIFE AND HABIT.

and so charged with memory as to be absolutely with-
out all self-consciousness whatever, except as regards
its latest phases in each of its many differentiations, or
when placed in such new circumstances as compel it
to choose between death and a reconsideration of its
position.

No conjecture can be hazarded as to how the
smallest particle of matter became so imbued with
faith that it must be considered as the beginning of
life, or as to what such faith is, except that it is the
very essence of all tilings, and that it has no foundation.

In this way, then, I conceive we can fairly transfer
the experience of the race to the individual, without
any other meaning to our words than what they would
naturally suggest ; that is to say, that there is in every
impregnate ovum a hond fide memory, which carries it
back not only to the time when it was last an impregnate
ovum, but to that earlier date when it was the very
beginning of life at all, which same creature it still is,
whether as man or ovum, and hence imbued, so far as
time and circumstance allow, with all its memories.
Snrp.1v thjfi i« tin gfcaiafld hypothesis ; for the mere
fact that the germ, from the earliest moment that we
are able to detect it, appears to be so perfectly familiar
with its business, acts with so little hesitation and so
little introspection or reference to principles, this alone
should incline us to suspect that it must be armed
with that which, so far as we observe in daily life, can
alone ensure such a result — to wit, long practice, and
the memory of many similar performances.

The difficulty is, that we are conscious of no such

ASSIMILA TION OF O UTS IDE MA TTER. 1 3 1

memory in our own persons, and beyond the one great
proof of memory given by the actual repetition of the
performance — and of some of the latest deviations
from the ordinary performance (and this proof ought
in itself, one would have thought, to outweigh any
save the directest evidence to the contrary) we can
detect no symptom of any such mental operation as
recollection on the part of the embryo. £ On the other
hand, we have seen that we know most intensely those
things that we are least conscious of knowing; we
will most intensely what we are least conscious of
willing ; we feel continually without knowing that we
feel, and our attention is hourly arrested without our
attention being arrested by the arresting of our
attention. Memory is no less capable of unconscious
exercise, and on becoming intense through frequent
repetition, vanishes no less completely as a conscious
action of the mind than knowledge and volition?)
We must all be aware of instances in which it is plam
we must have remembered, without being in the
smallest degree conscious of remembering. Is it then I
absurd to suppose that our past existences have been /
repeated on such a vast number of occasions that the
germ, linked on to all preceding germs, and, by once
having become part of their identity, imbued with all
their memories, remembers too intensely to be con-
scious of remembering, and works on with the same
kind of unconsciousness with which we play, 01
walk, or read, until something unfamiliar happens
to us ? and is it not singularly in accordance with this
view that consciousness should begin with that part

132 LIFE AND HABIT.

of the creature's performance with which it is least
familiar, as having repeated it least often — that is to
say, in our own case, with the commencement of our
human life — at birth, or thereabouts ?

It is certainly noteworthy that the embryo is never
at a loss, unless something happens to it which has not
usually happened to its forefathers, and which in the
nature of things it cannot remember.

When events are happening to it which have
ordinarily happened to its forefathers, and which it
would therefore remember, if it was possessed of the
kind of memory which we are here attributing to it,
it acts precisely as it ivould act if it were possessed of
such memory.

When, on the other hand, events are happening to it
which, if it has the kind of memory we are attributing
to it, would baffle that memory, or which have rarely
or never been included in the category of its recollec-
tions, it acts precisely as a creature acts when its recollec-
tion is disturbed, or when it is required to do something
which it has never done before.

We cannot remember having been in the embryonic
stage, but we do not on that account deny that we
ever were in such a stage at all. On a little reflection
it will appear no more reasonable to maintain that,
when we were in the embryonic stage, we did not re-
member our past existences, than to say that we never
were embryos at all. We cannot remember what we
did or did not recollect in that state ; we cannot now
remember having grown the eyes which we un-
doubtedly did grow, much less can we remember

ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER. 133

whether or not we then remembered having grown
them before ; but it is probable that our memory was
then, in respect of our previous existences as embryos,
as much more intense than it is now in respect of
our childhood, as our power of acquiring a new lan-
guage was greater when we were one or two years old,
than when we were twenty. And why should this
power of acquiring languages be greater at two years
than at twenty, but that for many generations we have
learnt to speak at about this age, and hence look to
learn to do so again on reaching it, just as we looked
to making eyes, when the time came at which we were
accustomed to make them.

If we once had the memory of having been infants
(which we had from day to day during infancy), and
have lost it, we may well have had other and more in-
tense memories which we have lost no less completely.
Indeed, there is nothing more extraordinary in the
suppositiou that the impregnate ovum has an intense
sense of its continuity with, and therefore of its
identity with, the two impregnate ova from which it
has sprung, than in the fact that we have no sense of
our continuity with ourselves as infants. If, then,
there is no a priori objection to this view, and if the
impregnate ovum acts in such a manner as to carry
the strongest conviction that it must have already on
many occasions done what it is doing now, and that it
has a vivid though unconscious recollection of what
all, and more especially its nearer, ancestral ova did
under similar circumstances, there would seem to be
little doubt what conclusion we ought to come to.

134 LIFE AND HABIT.

A hen's egg, for example, as soon as the hen begins
to sit, sets to work immediately to do as nearly as
may be what the two eggs from which its father and
mother were hatched did when hens began to sit upon
them. The inference would seem almost irresistible,
that the second egg remembers the course pursued by
the eggs from which it has sprung, and of whose pre-
sent identity it is unquestionably a part-phase ; it also
seems irresistibly forced upon us to believe that the
intensity of this memory is the secret of its easy
action.

It has, I believe, been often remarked, that a hen is
only an egg's way of making another egg. Every
creature must be allowed to "run" its own development
in its own way ; the egg's way may seem a very round-
about manner of doing things ; but it is its way, and
it is one of which man, upon the whole, has no
great reason to complain. Why the fowl should
be considered more alive than the egg, and why
it should be said that the hen lays the egg, and not
that the egg lays the hen, these are questions which
lie beyond the power of philosophic explanation, but
are perhaps most answerable by considering the con-
ceit of man, and his habit, persisted in during
many ages, of ignoring all that does not remind
him of himself, or hurt him, or profit him ; also by
considering the use of language, which, if it is to serve
at all, can only do so by ignoring a vast number of
facts which gradually drop out of mind from being
out of sight. But, perhaps, after all, the real reason
is, that the egg does not cackle when it has laid the

ASSIMILA TION OF OUTSIDE MA TTER. 135

hen, and that it works towards the hen with gradual
and noiseless steps, which we can watch if we be so
minded ; whereas, we can less easily watch the steps
which lead from the hen to the egg, but hear a noise,
and see an egg where there was no egg. Therefore,
we say, the development of the fowl from the egg
bears no sort of resemblance to that of the egg from
the fowl, whereas, in truth, a hen, or any other living
creature, is only the primordial cell's way of going back
upon itself.

But to return. We see an egg, A, which evidently
knows its own meaning perfectly well, and we know
that a twelvemonth ago there were two other such
eggs, B and C, which have now disappeared, but from
which we know A to have been so continuously de-
veloped as to be part of the present form of their
identity. A's meaning is seen to be precisely the same
as B and C's meaning ; A's personal appearance is, to
all intents and purposes, B and C's personal appear-
ance; it would seem, then, unreasonable to deny
that A is only B and C come back, with such modi-
fication as they may have incurred since their disap-
pearance ; and that, in spite of any such modification,
they remember in A perfectly well what they did as
B and C.

We have considered the question of personal
identity so as to see whether, without abuse of terms,
we can claim it as existing between any two genera-
tions of living agents (and if between two, then
between any number up to infinity), and we found
that we were not only at liberty to claim this, but

^>

136 LIFE AND HABIT.

that we are compelled irresistibly to do so, unless, that
is to say, we would think very differently concerning
personal identity than we do at present. We found
it impossible to hold the ordinary common sense
opinions concerning personal identity, without admit-
ting that we are personally identical with all our fore-
fathers, who have successfully assimilated outside
matter to themselves, and by assimilation imbued it
with all their own memories ; we being nothing else
than this outside matter so assimilated and imbued
with such memories. This, at least, will, I believe,
balance the account correctly.

A few remarks upon the assimilation of outside
matter by living organisms may perhaps be hazarded
here.

As long as any living organism can maintain itself
in a position to which it has been accustomed, more
or less nearly, both in its own life and in those of its
forefathers, nothing can harm it. As long as the
organism is familiar with the position, and remembers
its antecedents, nothing can assimilate it. It must be
first dislodged from the position with which it is
familiar, as being able to remember it, before mischief
can happen to it. Nothing can assimilate living
organism.

On the other hand, the moment living organism
loses sight of its own position and antecedents, it is
liable to immediate assimilation, and to be thus
familiarised with the position and antecedents of some
other creature. If any living organism be kept for but
a very short time in a position wholly different from

ASSIMILA TION OF OUTSIDE MA TTER. 137

what it has been accustomed to in its own life, and
in the lives of its forefathers, it commonly loses its
memories completely, once and for ever; but it must
immediately acquire new ones, for nothing can know
nothing; everything must remember either its own
antecedents, or some one else's. And . as nothing can
know nothing, so nothing can believe in nothing.

A grain of corn, for example, has never been
accustomed to find itself in a hen's stomach — neither
it nor its forefathers. For a grain so placed leaves
no offspring, and hence cannot transmit its experience.
The first minute or so after being eaten, it may think
it has just been sown, and begin to prepare for sprout-
ing, but in a few seconds, it discovers the environment
to be unfamiliar ; it therefore gets frightened, loses its
head, is carried into the gizzard, and comminuted
among the gizzard stones. The hen succeeded in put-
ting it into a position with which it was unfamiliar ;
from this it was an easy stage to assimilating it
entirely. Once assimilated, the grain ceases to re-
member any more as a grain, but becomes initiated into
all that happens to, and has happened to, fowls for ;
countless ages. Then it will attack all other grains
whenever it sees them ; there is no such persecutor of
grain, as another grain when it has once fairly identi- <\i
* fied itself with a hen.

We may remark in passing, that if anything be once
familiarised with anything, it is content. The only
things we really care for in life are familiar things ;
let us have the means of doing what we have been
accustomed to do, of dressing as we have been

138 LIFE AND HABIT.

accustomed to dress, of eating as we have been
accustomed to eat, and let us have no less liberty than
we are accustomed to have, and last, but not least, let
us not be disturbed in thinking as we have been ac-
customed to think, and the vast majority of mankind
will be very fairly contented — all plants and animals
will certainly be so. This would seem to suggest a
possible doctrine of a future state ; concerning which
we may reflect that though, after we die, we cease to
be familiar with ourselves, we shall nevertheless be-
come immediately familiar with many other histories
compared with which our present life must then seem
intolerably uninteresting.

This is the reason why a very heavy and sudden
shock to the nervous system does not pain, but kills
outright at once ; while one with which the system can,
at any rate, try to familiarise itself is exceedingly
painful. We cannot bear unfamiliarity. The part
that is treated in a manner with which it is not familiar
cries immediately to the brain — its central govern-
ment— for help, and makes itself generally as trouble-
some as it can, till it is in some way comforted. Indeed,
the law against cruelty to animals is but an example of
the hatred we feel on seeing even dumb creatures put
into positions with which they are not familiar. We
hate this so much for ourselves, that we will not
tolerate it for other creatures if we can possibly avoid
it. So again, it is said, that when Andromeda and
Perseus had travelled but a little way from the rock
where Andromeda had so long been chained, she began
upbraiding him with the loss of her dragon, who, on

ASSIMILA TION OF OUTSIDE MA TTER. 139

the whole, she said, had been very good to her. The
only things we really hate are unfamiliar things, and
though nature would not be nature if she did not cross
our love of the familiar with a love also of the un-
familiar, yet there can be no doubt which of the two
principles is master.

Let us return, however, to the grain of corn. If
the grain had had presence of mind to avoid being
carried into the gizzard stones, as many seeds do which
are carried for hundreds of miles in birds' stomachs,
and if it had persuaded itself that the novelty of the
position was not greater than it could very well manage
to put up with — if, in fact, it had not known when it
was beaten — it might have stuck in the hen's stomach
and begun to grow ; in this case it would have assimi-
lated a good part of the hen before many days were
over ; for hens are not familiar with grains that grow
in their stomachs, and unless the one in question
was as strongminded for a hen, as the grain that
could avoid being assimilated would be for a grain,
the hen would soon cease to take an interest in
her antecedents. It is to be doubted, however, whether
a grain has ever been grown which has had strength
of mind enough to avoid being set off its balance on
finding itself inside a hen's gizzard. For living
organism is the creature of habit and routine, and the
inside of a gizzard is not in the grain's programme.

Suppose, then, that the grain, instead of being carried
into the gizzard, had stuck in the hen's throat and
choked her. It would now find itself in a position
very like what it had often been in before. That is

Ho LIFE AND HABIT.

to say, it would be in a damp, dark, quiet place, not
too far from light, and with decaying matter around
it. It would therefore know perfectly well what to
do, and would begin to grow until disturbed, and again
put into a position with which it might, very possibly,
be unfamiliar.

The great question between vast masses of living
organism is simply this : " Am I to put you into a
position with which your forefathers have been un-
familiar, or are you to put me into one about which
my own have been in like manner ignorant ? " Man
is only the dominant animal on the earth, because
he can, as a general rule, settle this question in his
own favour.

The only manner in which an organism, which has
once forgotten its antecedents, can ever recover its
memory, is by being assimilated by a creature of its
own kind ; one, moreover, which knows its business, or
is not in such a false position as to be compelled to be
aware of being so. It was, doubtless, owing to the
recognition of this fact, that some Eastern nations, as
we are told by Herodotus, were in the habit of eating
their deceased parents — for matter which has once been
assimilated by any identity or personality, becomes
for all practical purposes part of the assimilating
personality.

The bearing of the above will become obvious when
we return, as we will now do, to the question of per-
sonal identity. The only difficulty would seem to lie
in our unfamiliarity with the real meanings which we
attach to words in daily use. Hence, while recognis-

ASSIMILA TION OF 0 UTS IDE MA TTER. \\\

ing continuity without sudden break as the underlying
principle of identity, we forget that this involves per-
sonal identity between all the beings who are in
one chain of descent, the numbers of such beings,
whether in succession, or contemporaneous, going for
nothing at all. Thus we take two eggs, one male and
one female, and hatch them ; after some months the
pair of fowls so hatched, having succeeded in putting
a vast quantity of grain and worms into false positions,
become full-grown, breed, and produce a dozen new eggs.

Two live fowls and a dozen eggs are the present
phase of the personality of the two original eggs. They
are also part of the present phase of the personality of all
the worms and grain which the fowls have assimilated
from their leaving the eggshell ; but the personalities
of these last do not count ; they have lost their grain
and worm memories, and are instinct with the memo-
ries of the whole ancestry of the creature which has
assimilated them.

We cannot, perhaps, strictly say that the two fowls
and the dozen new eggs actually are the two original
eggs ; these two eggs are no longer in existence, and we
see the two birds themselves which were hatched from
them. A bird cannot be called an egg without an
abuse of terms. Nevertheless, it is doubtful how far
we should not say this, for it is only with a mental
reserve — and with no greater mental reserve —
that we predicate absolute identity concerning any
living being for two consecutive moments ; and it
is certainly as free from quibble to say to two fowls
and a dozen eggs, " you are the two eggs I had on my

142 LIFE AND HABIT.

kitchen shelf twelve months ago," as to say to a man,
" you are the child whom I remember thirty years ago
in your mother's arms." In either case we mean, " you
have been continually putting other organisms into
a false position, and then assimilating them, ever since
I last saw you, while nothing has yet occurred to put
you into such a false position as to have made you lose
the memory of your antecedents."

It would seem perfectly fair, therefore, to say to any
egg of the twelve, or to the two fowls and the whole
twelve eggs together, "you were a couple of eggs
twelve months ago ; twelve months before that you
were four eggs ; " and so on, ad infinitum, the number
neither of the ancestors nor of the descendants counting
for anything, and continuity being the sole thing looked
to. From daily observation we are familiar with the
fact that identity does both unite with other identities,
so that a single new identity is the result, and does
also split itself up into several identities, so that the
one becomes many. This is plain from the manner
in which the male and female sexual elements unite to
form a single ovum, which we observe to be instinct
with the memories of both the individuals from which
it has been derived ; and there is the additional con-
sideration, that each of the elements whose fusion goes
to make up the impregnate ovum, is held by some to
be itself composed of a fused mass of germs, which
stand very much in the same relation to the sperma-
tozoon and ovum, as the living cellular units of which
we are composed do to ourselves — that is to say, are
living independent organisms, which probably have no

ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER. 143

conception of the existence of the spermatozoon nor
of the ovum, more than the spermatozoon or ovum
have of theirs.

This, at least, is what I gather from Mr. Darwin's
provisional theory of Pangenesis ; and, again, from one
of the concluding sentences in his " Effects of Cross
and Self Fertilisation," where, asking the question
why two sexes have been developed, he replies that
the answer seems to lie " in the great good which is
derived from the fusion of two somewhat differentiated
individuals. With the exception," he continues, " 01
the lowest organisms this is possible only by means ot
the sexual elements — these consisting of cells separated
from the body " (i.e., separated from the bodies of each
parent) " containing the germs of every part " (i.e., con-
sisting of the seeds or germs from which each individual
cell of the coming organism will be developed — these
seeds or germs having been shed by each individual
cell of the parent forms), " and capable of being fused
completely together " (i.e., so at least I gather, capable of
being fused completely, in the same way as the cells
of our own bodies are fused, and thus, of forming a
single living personality in the case of both the male
and female element; which elements are themselves
capable of a second fusion so as to form the impreg-
nate ovum). This single impregnate ovum, then, is
a single identity that has taken the place of, and
come up in the room of, two distinct personalities,
each of whose characteristics it, to a certain extent,
partakes, and which consist, each one of them, of the
fused germs of a vast mass of other personalities.

144 LIFE AND HABIT.

As regards the dispersion of one identity into many,
this also is a matter of daily observation in the case
of all female creatures that are with egg or young;
the identity of the young with the female parent
is in many respects so complete, as to need no enforc-
ing, in spite of the entrance into the offspring of all the
elements derived from the male parent, and of the
gradual separation of the two identities, which becomes
more and more complete, till in time it is hard to
conceive that they can ever have been united.

Numbers, therefore, go for nothing ; and, as far as
identity or continued personality goes, it is as fair to
say to the two fowls, above referred to, " you were
four fowls twelve months ago," as it is to say to a
dozen eggs, " you were two eggs twelve months ago."
But here a difficulty meets us ; for if we say, " you
were two eggs twelve months ago," it follows that we
mean, " you are now those two eggs ; " just as when we
say to a person, " you were such and such a boy
twenty years ago," we mean, " you are now that boy,
or all that represents him ; " it would seem, then, that
in like manner we should say to the two fowls, " you
are the four fowls who between them laid the two eggs
from which you sprung." But it may be that all these
four fowls are still to be seen running about ; we
should be therefore saying, " you two fowls are really
not yourselves only, but you are also the other four
fowls into the bargain ; " and this might be philoso-
phically true, and might, perhaps, be considered so,
but for the convenience of the law courts.

The difficulty would seem to arise from the fact

ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER. 145

that the eggs must disappear before fowls can he
hatched from them, whereas, the hens so hatched may
outlive the development of other hens, from the eggs
which they in due course have laid. The original
eggs being out of sight are out of mind, and it is
without an effort that we acquiesce in the assertion,
that the dozen new eggs actually are the two original
ones. But the original four fowls being still in sight,
cannot be ignored, we only, therefore, see the new
ones as growths from the original ones.

The strict rendering of the facts should be, " you
are part of the present phase of the identity of such
and such a past identity," i.e., either of the two eggs or
the four fowls, as the case may be ; this will put the
eggs and the fowls, as it were, into the same box, and
will meet both the philosophical and legal require-
ments of the case, only it is a little long.

So far then, as regards actual identity of person-
ality ; which, we find, will allow us to say, that eggs j
are part of the present phase of a certain past identity, /
whether of other eggs, or of fowls, or chickens, and in
like manner that chickens are part of the present
phase of certain other chickens, or eggs, or fowls ; in
fact, that anything is part of the present phase of any
past identity in the line of its ancestry. But as
regards the actual memory of such identity (unconsci-
ous memory, but still clearly memory), we observe that
the egg, as long as it is an egg, appears to have a very
distinct recollection of having been an egg before, and
the fowl of having been a fowl before, but that neither
egg nor fowl appear to have any recollection of any

146 LIFE AND HABIT.

other stage of their past existences, than the one
corresponding to that in which they are themselves at
the moment existing.

So we, at six or seven years old, have no recollection of
ever having been infants, much less of having been
embryos ; but the manner in which we shed our teeth
and make new ones, and the way in which we grow
generally, making ourselves for the most part exceed-
ingly like what we made ourselves, in the person of
some one of our nearer ancestors, and not unfrequently
repeating the very blunders which we made upon that
occasion when we come to a corresponding age, proves
most incontestably that we remember our past exist-
ences, though too utterly to be capable of introspection
in the matter. So, when we grow wisdom teeth, at
the age it may be of one or two and twenty, it is plain
we remember our past existences at that age, however
completely we may have forgotten the earlier stages of
our present existence. It may be said that it is the
jaw which remembers, and not we, but it seems hard to
deny the jaw a right of citizenship in our personality ;
and in the case of a growing boy, every part of him
seems to remember equally well, and if every part of
him combined does not make him, there would seem
but little use in continuing the argument further.

In like manner, a caterpillar appears not to remem-
ber having been an egg, either in its present or any
past existence. It has no concern with eggs as soon
as it is hatched, but it clearly remembers not only
having been a caterpillar before, but also having turned
itself into a chrysalis before ; for when the time comes

ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER. 147

for it to do this, it is at no loss, as it would certainly be
if the position was unfamiliar, but it immediately
begins doing what it did when last it was in a like
case, repeating the process as nearly as the environ-
ment will allow, taking every step in the same order
as last time, and doing its work with that ease and
perfection which we observe to belong to the force of
habit, and to be utterly incompatible with any other
supposition than that of long long practice.

Once having become a chrysalis, its memory of its
caterpillarhood appears to leave it for good and all,
not to return until it again assumes the shape of a
caterpillar by process of descent. Its memory now
overleaps all past modifications, and reverts to the
time when it was last what it is now, and though it
is probable that both caterpillar and chrysalis, on any
given day of their existence in either of these forms,
have some sort of dim power of recollecting what
happened to them yesterday, or the day before; yet it
is plain their main memory goes back to the corres-
ponding day of their last existence in their present
form, the chrysalis remembering what happened to it
on such a day far more practically, though less con-
sciously, than what happened to it yesterday; and
naturally, for yesterday is but once, and its past exist-
ences have been legion. Hence, it prepares its wings
in due time, doing each day what it did on the corres-
ponding day of its last chrysalishood, and at length
becoming a moth; whereon its circumstances are so
changed that it loses all sense of its identity as a
chrysalis (as completely as we, for precisely the same

H8 life and habit.

reason, lose all sense of our identity with ourselves as
infants), and remembers nothing but its past exist-
ences as a moth.

We observe this to hold throughout the animal and
vegetable kingdoms. In any one phase of the existence
of the lower animals, we observe that they remember
the corresponding stage, and a little on either side of
it, of all their past existences for a very great length
of time. In their present existence they remember a
little behind the present moment (remembering more
and more the higher they advance in the scale of life),
and being able to foresee about as much as they could
foresee in their past existences, sometimes more and
sometimes less. As with memory, so with prescience.
The higher they advance in the scale of life the more
prescient they are. It must, of course, be remembered,
and will later on be more fully dwelt upon, that no
offspring can remember anything which happens to its
parents after it and its parents have parted company ;
and this is why there is, perhaps, more irregularity as
regards our wisdom-teeth than about anything else
that we grow ; inasmuch as it must not uncommonly
have happened in a long series of generations, that the
offspring has been born before the parents have grown
their wisdom-teeth, and thus there will be faults in the
memory.

Is there, then, anything in memory, as we observe
it in ourselves and others, under circumstances in
which we shall agree in calling it memory pure and
simple without ambiguity of terms-f is there any-
thing in memory which bars us from supposing it

ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER. 149

capable of overleaping a long time of abeyance, and
thus of enabling each impregnate ovum, or each grain,
to remember what it did when last in a like condition,
and to go on remembering the corresponding period of
its prior developments throughout the whole period of
its present growth, though such memory has entirely
failed as regards the interim between any two corres-
ponding periods, and is not consciously recognised
by the individual as being exercised at all ? J

(ISO)

*!*

CHAPTER IX.

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY.

Let us assume, for the moment, that the action of each
impregnate germ is due to memory, which, as it were,
pulsates anew in each succeeding generation, so that
immediately on impregnation, the germ's memory
reverts to the last occasion on which it was in a like
condition, and recognising the position, is at no loss
what to do. It is plain that in all cases where there
are two parents, that is to say, in the greater number
of cases, whether in the vegetable or animal kingdoms,
there must be two such last occasions, each of which
will have an equal claim upon the attention of the
new germ. Its memory would therefore revert to
both, and though it would probably adhere more closely
to the course which it took either as its father or its
mother, and thus come out eventually male or female,
yet it would be not a little influenced by the less
potent memory.

And not only this, but each of the germs to which
the memory of the new germ reverts, is itself imbued
with the memories of its own parent germs, and these
again with the memories of preceding generations, and

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. • 151

so on ad infinitum; so that, ex hypothcsL the germ must
become instinct with all these memories, epitomised as
after long time, and unperceived though they may well
be, not to say obliterated in part or entirely so far as
many features are concerned, by more recent impres-
sions. In this case, we must conceive of the impreg- j
nate germ as of a creature which has to repeat a per-/
formance already repeated before on countless different^/
occasions, but with no more variation on the more
recent ones than is inevitable in the repetition of any
performance by an intelligent being.

Now if we take the most parallel case to this which
we can find, and consider what we should ourselves do
under such circumstances, that is to say, if we consider
what course is actually taken by beings who are in-
fluenced by what we all call memory, when they repeat
an already often-repeated performance, and if we find
a very strong analogy between the course so taken by
ourselves, and that which from whatever cause we
observe to be taken by a living germ, we shall surely
be much inclined to think that there must be a simi-
larity in the causes of action in each case ; and hence,
to conclude, that the action of the germ is due to
memory.

It will, therefore, be necessary to consider the general
tendency of our minds in regard to impressions made
upon us, and the memory of such impressions.

Deep impressions upon the memory are made in
two ways, differing rather in degree than kind, but
with two somewhat widely different results. They
are made : —

L

152 LIFE AND HABIT.

I. By unfamiliar objects, or combinations, which
come at comparatively long intervals, and produce their
effect, as it were, by one hard blow. The effect of these
will vary with the unfamiliarity of the impressions
themselves, and the manner in which they seem likely
to lead to a further development of the unfamiliar,
i.e., with the question, whether they seem likely to
compel us to change our habits, either for better or
worse.

Thus, if an object or incident be very unfamiliar, as,
we will say, a whale or an iceberg to one travelling to
America for the first time, it will make a deep impres-
sion, though but little affecting our interests ; but if
we struck against the iceberg and were shipwrecked, or
nearly so, it would produce a much deeper impression,
we should think much more about icebergs, and re-
member much more about them, than if we had merely
seen one. So, also, if we were able to catch the whale
and sell its oil, we should have a deep impression made
upon us. In either case we see that the amount of
unfamiliarity, either present or prospective, is the main
determinant of the depth of the impression.

As with consciousness and volition, so with sudden
unfamiliarity. It impresses us more and more deeply
the more unfamiliar it is, until it reaches such a point
of impressiveness as to make no further impression at
all ; on which we then and there die. For death only
kills through unfamiliarity — that is to say, because the
new position, whatever it is, is so wide a cross as
compared with the old one, that we cannot fuse the
two so as to understand the combination ; hence we

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 153

lose all recognition of, and faith in, ourselves and our
surroundings.

But however much we imagine we remember con-
cerning the details of any remarkable impression which
has been made us by a single blow, we do not remem-
ber as much or nearly as much as we think we do.
The subordinate details soon drop out of mind. Those
who think they remember even such a momentous
matter as the battle of Waterloo recall now probably
but half-a-dozen episodes, a gleam here, and a gleam
there, so that what they call remembering the battle
of Waterloo, is, in fact, little more than a kind of dream-
ing—-so soon vanishes the memory of any unrepeated
occurrence.

As for smaller impressions, there is very little of
what happens to us in each week that will be in our
memories a week hence ; a man of eighty remembers
few of the unrepeated incidents of his life beyond those
of the last fortnight, a little here, and a little there,
forming a matter of perhaps six weeks or two months
in all, if everything that he can call to mind were
acted over again with no greater fulness than he can
remember it. As for incidents that have been often
repeated, his mind strikes a balance of its past remini-
scences, remembering the two or three last perform-
ances, and a general method of procedure, but nothing
more.

If, then, the recollection of all that is not very
novel, or very often repeated, so soon fades from our
own minds, during what we consider as our single
lifetime, what wonder that the details of our daily ex-/

154 LIFE AND HABIT.

J perience should find no place in that brief epitome of
them which is all we can give in so small a volume
■ as offspring ?

If we cannot ourselves remember the hundred-

, thousandth part of what happened to us during our own
childhood, how can we expect our offspring to remember
more than what, through frequent repetition, they can
now remember as a residuum, or general impression.

i On the other hand, whatever we remember in consequence
of but a single impression, we remember consciously.
We can at will recall details, and are perfectly well
aware, when we do so, that we are recollecting. A man
who has never seen death looks for the first time upon
the dead face of some near relative or friend. He gazes
for a few short minutes, but the impression thus made
does not soon pass out of his mind. He remembers
the room, the hour of the day or night, and if by day,
what sort of a day. He remembers in what part of
the room, and how disposed the body of the deceased
was lying. Twenty years afterwards he can, at will,
recall all these matters to his mind, and picture to
himself the scene as he originally witnessed it.

The reason is plain ; the impression was very un-
familiar, and affected the beholder, both as regards the
loss of one who was dear to him, and as reminding
him with more than common force that he will one
day die himself. Moreover the impression was a simple
one, not involving much subordinate detail ; we have
in this case, therefore, an example of the most lasting
kind of impression that can be made by a single un-
repeated event. But if we examine ourselves closely,

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 155

we shall find that after a lapse of years we do not
remember as much as we think we do, even in such
a case as this ; and that beyond the incidents above
mentioned, and the expression upon the face of the
dead person, we remember little of what we can so
consciously and vividly recall.

II. Deep impressions are also made by the repetition,
more or less often, of a feeble impression which, if un
repeated, would have soon passed out of our minds
We observe, therefore, that we remember best what we
have done least often — any unfamiliar deviation, that is
to say, from our ordinary method of procedure — and
what we have done most often, with which, therefore,
we are most familiar; our memory being mainly
affected by the force of novelty and the force of routine
— the most unfamiliar, and the most familiar, incidents
or objects.

But we remember impressions which have been
made upon us by force of routine, in a very different
way to that in which we remember a single deep im-
pression. As regards this second class, which com-
prises far the most numerous and important of the
impressions with which our memory is stored, it is often
only by the fact of our performance itself that we are
able to recognise or show to others that we remember
at all. We often do not remember how, or when, or
where we acquired our knowledge. All we remember
is, that we did learn, and that at one time and another
we have done this or that very often.

As regards this second class of impressions we may
observe : —

■\

156 LIFE AND HABIT.

I. That as a general rule we remember only the
individual features of the last few repetitions of
the act — if, indeed, we remember this much. The
influence of preceding ones is to be found only in the
general average of the procedure, which is modified
by them, but unconsciously to ourselves. Take, for
example, some celebrated singer, or pianoforte player,
who has sung the same air, or performed the same
sonata several hundreds or, it may be, thousands of
times : of the details of individual performances, he
can probably call to mind none but those of the last
few days, yet there can be no question that his
present performance is affected by, and modified by,
all his previous ones ; the care he has bestowed on
these being the secret of his present proficiency.

In each performance (the performer being supposed
in the same state of mental and bodily health), the
tendency will be to repeat the immediately preceding
performances more nearly than remoter ones. It is
the common tendency of living beings to go on doing
what they have been doing most recently. The last
habit is the strongest. Hence, if he took great pains
last time, he will play better now, and will take a like
degree of pains, and play better still next time, and so
go on improving while life and vigour last. If, on the
other hand, he took less pains last time, he will play
worse now, and be inclined to take little pains next
time, and so gradually deteriorate. This, at least, is
the common everyday experience of mankind.

So with painters, actors, and professional men of
every description ; after a little while the memory of

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 157

many past performances strikes a sort of fused balance
in the mind, which results in a general method of
procedure with but little conscious memory of even
the latest performances, and with none whatever of
by far the greater number of the remoter ones.

Still, it is noteworthy, that the memory of some
even of these will occasionally assert itself, so far as
we can see, arbitrarily, the reason why this or that
occasion should still haunt us, when others like them
are forgotten, depending on some cause too subtle for
our powers of observation.

Even with such a simple matter as our daily dress-
ing and undressing, we may remember some few
details of our yesterday's toilet, but we retain
nothing but a general and fused recollection of the
many thousand earlier occasions on which we have
dressed, or gone to bed. Men invariably put the
same leg first into their trousers — this is the survival
of memory in a residuum ; but they cannot, till they
actually put on a pair of trousers, remember which
leg they do put in first ; this is the rapid fading away
of any small individual impression.

The seasons may serve as another illustration ; we
have a general recollection of the kind of weather
which is seasonable for any month in a year ; what
flowers are due about what time, and whether the
spring is on the whole backward or early; but we
cannot remember the weather on any particular day a
year ago, unless some unusual incident has impressed
it upon our memory. We can remember, as a general
rule, what kind of season it was, upon the whole, a

158 LIFE AND HABIT.

year ago, or perhaps, even two years ; but more than
this, we rarely remember, except in such cases as the
winter of 1854-185 5, or the summer of 1868; the
rest is all merged.

We observe, then, that as regards small and often
repeated impressions, our tendency is to remember
; best, and in most detail, what we have been doing
liiost recently, and what in general has occurred most
recently, but that the earlier impressions though for-
gotten individually, are nevertheless, not wholly
lost.

2. When we have done anything very often, and
have got into the habit of doing it, we generally take
the various steps in the same order; in many cases
this seems to be a sine qud non for our repetition of
the action at all. Thus, there is probably no living
man who could repeat the words of " God save the
Queen" backwards, without much hesitation and
many mistakes ; so the musician and the singer must
perform their pieces in the order of the notes as written,
or at any rate as they ordinarily perform them ; they
cannot transpose bars or read them backwards, without
being put out, nor would the audience recognise the
impressions they have been accustomed to, unless
these impressions are made in the accustomed order.

3. If, when we have once got well into the habit
of doing anything in a certain way, some one shows us
some other way of doing it, or some way which would
in part modify our procedure, or if in our endeavours
to improve, we have hit upon some new idea which
seems likely to help us, and thus we vary our course,

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 159

on the next occasion we remember this idea by reason
of its novelty, but if we try to repeat it, we often find
the residuum of our old memories pulling us so
strongly into our old groove, that we have the greatest
difficulty in repeating our performance in the new
manner; there is a clashing of memories, a conflict,
which if the idea is very new, and involves, so to
speak, too sudden a cross — too wide a departure from
our ordinary course — will sometimes render the perfor-
mance monstrous, or baffle us altogether, the new
memory failing to fuse harmoniously with the old. If
the idea is not too widely different from our older ones,
we can cross them with it, but with more or less diffi-
culty, as a general rule in proportion to the amount of
variation. The whole process of understanding a thing
consists in this, and, so far as I can see at present, in
this only.

Sometimes we repeat the new performance for a few
times, in a way which shows that the fusion of
memories is still in force j and then insensibly revert
to the old, in which case the memory of the new soon
fades away, leaving a residuum too feeble to contend
against that of our many earlier memories of the same
kind. If, however, the new way is obviously to our
advantage, we make an effort to retain it, and gradu-
ally getting into the habit of using it, come to remem-
ber it by force of routine, as we originally remembered
it by force of novelty. Even as regards our own dis-
coveries, we do not always succeed in remembering our
most improved and most striking performances, so as to
be able to repeat them at will immediately : in any such

160 LIFE AND HABIT.

performance we may have gone some way beyond our
ordinary powers, owing to some unconscious action of
the mind. The supreme effort has exhausted us, and
we must rest on our oars a little, before we make
further progress ; or we may even fall back a little,
before we make another leap in advance.

In this respect, almost every conceivable degree of
variation is observable, according to differences of
character and circumstances. Sometimes the new
impression has to be made upon us many times from
without, before the earlier strain of action is elimi-
nated ; in this case, there will long remain a tendency
to revert to the earlier habit. Sometimes, after the
impression has been once made, we repeat our old way
two or three times, and then revert to the new, which
gradually ousts the old; sometimes, on the other
hand, a single impression, though involving consider-
able departure from our routine, makes its mark so
deeply that we adopt the new at once, though not
without difficulty, and repeat it in our next perform-
ance, and henceforward in all others ; but those who
vary their performance thus readily will show a
tendency to vary subsequent performances according
as they receive fresh ideas from others, or reason them
out independently. They are men of genius.

This holds good concerning all actions which we
do habitually, whether they involve laborious acquire-
ment or not. Thus, if we have varied our usual
dinner in some way that leaves a favourable im-
pression upon our minds, so that our dinner may, in
the language of the horticulturist, be said to have

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 161

"sported," our tendency will be to revert to this
particular dinner either next day, or as soon as
circumstances will allow, but it is possible that several
hundred dinners may elapse before we can do so
successfully, or before our memory reverts to this
particular dinner.

4. As regards our habitual actions, however un-
consciously we remember them, we, nevertheless,
remember them with far greater intensity than many
individual impressions or actions, it may be of much
greater moment, that have happened to us more
recently. Thus, many a man who has familiarised
himself, for example, with the odes of Horace, so as
to have had them at his fingers' ends as the result of
many repetitions, will be able years hence to repeat
a given ode, though unable to remember any circum-
stance in connection with his having learnt it, and no
less unable to remember when he repeated it last. A
host of individual circumstances, many of them not
unimportant, will have dropped out of his mind, along
with a mass of literature read but once or twice, and
not impressed upon the memory by several repetitions ;
but he returns to the well-known ode with so little
effort, that he would not know that he was remember-
ing unless his reason told him so. The ode seems
more like something born with him.

We observe, also, that people who have become
imbecile, or whose memory is much impaired, yet
frequently retain their power of recalling impressions
which have been long ago repeatedly made upon
them.

1 62 LIFE AND HABIT.

In such cases, people are sometimes seen to forget
what happened last week, yesterday, or an hour ago,
without even the smallest power of recovering their
recollection ; but the oft repeated earlier impression
remains, though there may be no memory whatever
of how it came to be impressed so deeply. The phe-
nomena of memory, therefore, are exactly like those of
consciousness and volition, in so far as that the conscious-
ness of recollection vanishes, when the power of recol-
lection has become intense. When we are aware that
we are recollecting, and are trying, perhaps hard, to recol-
lect, it is a sign that we do not recollect utterly. When
we remember utterly and intensely, there is no conscious
effort of recollection ; our recollection can only be
recognised by ourselves and others, through our per-
formance itself, which testifies to the existence of a
memory, that we could not otherwise follow or detect.

5. When circumstances have led us to change our
habits of life — as when the university has succeeded
school, or professional life the university — we get into
many fresh ways, and leave many old ones. But on
revisiting the old scene, unless the lapse of time has
been inordinately great, we experience a desire to
revert to old habits. We say that old associations
crowd upon us. Let a Trinity man, after thirty years
absence from Cambridge, pace for five minutes in the
cloister of Neville's Court, and listen to the echo of
his footfall, as it licks up against the end of the cloister,
or let an old Johnian stand wherever he likes in the
third Court of St. John's, in either case he will find
the thirty years drop out of his life, as if they were

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 163

half-an-hour ; his life will have rolled back upon itself,
to the date when he was an undergraduate, and his
instinct will be to do almost mechanically, whatever it
would have come most natural to him to do, when he
was last there at the same season of the year, and the
same hour of the day ; and it is plain this is due to
similarity of environment, for if the place he revisits
be much changed, there will be little or no association.
So those who are accustomed at intervals to cross
the Atlantic, get into certain habits on board ship,
different to their usual ones. It may be that at home
they never play whist ; on board ship they do nothing
else all the evening. At home they never touch
spirits ; on the voyage they regularly take a glass of
something before they go to bed. They do not smoke
at home ; here they are smoking all day. Once the
voyage is at an end, they return without an effort to \«.
their usual habits, and do not feel any wish for cards,
spirits, or tobacco. They do not remember yesterday,
when they did want all these things ; at least, not
with such force as to be influenced by it in their
desires and actions ; their true memory — the memory
which makes them want, and do, reverts to the last
occasion on which they were in circumstances like
their present; they therefore want now what they
wanted then, and nothing more ; but when the time
comes for them to go on shipboard again, no sooner
do they smell the smell of the ship, than their real
memory reverts to the times when they were last at
sea, and striking a balance of their recollections, they
smoke, play cards, and drink whisky and water.

1 64 LIFE AND HABIT.

We observe it then as a matter of the commonest
daily occurrence within our own experience, that
memory does fade completely away, and recur with the
recurrence of surroundings like those which made any
particular impression in the first instance. We ob-
serve that there is hardly any limit to the completeness
and the length of time during which our memory may
remain in abeyance. A smell may remind an old
man of eighty of some incident of his childhood, for-
gotten for nearly as many years as he has lived. In
other words, we observe that when an impression has
been repeatedly made in a certain sequence on any
living organism — that impression not having been pre-
judicial to the creature itself — the organism will have
a tendency, on reassuming the shape and conditions in
which it was when the impression was last made, to
remember the impression, and therefore to do again
now what it did then ; all intermediate memories drop-
ping clean out of mind, so far as they have any effect
upon action.

6. Finally, we should note the suddenness and
apparent caprice with which memory will assert itself
at odd times ; we have been saying or doing this or
that, when suddenly a memory of something which
happened to us, perhaps in infancy, comes into our head;
nor can we in the least connect this recollection with
the subject of which we have just been thinking, though
doubtless there has been a connection, too rapid and
subtle for our apprehension.

The foregoing phenomena of memory, so far as we can
judge, would appear to be present themselves through-

ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 165

out the animal and vegetable kingdoms. This will be
readily admitted as regards animals ; as regards plants
it may be inferred from the fact that they generally
go on doing what they have been doing most lately,
though accustomed to make certain changes at certain
points in their existence. When the time comes for
these changes, they appear to know it, and either bud
forth into leaf, or shed their leaves, as the case may
be. If we keep a bulb in a paper bag it seems to re-
member having been a bulb before, until the time
comes for it to put forth roots and grow. Then, if we
supply it with earth and moisture, it seems to know
where it is, and to go on doing now whatever it did
when it was last planted ; but if wTe keep it in the
bag too long, it knows that it ought, according to its
last experience, to be treated differently, and shows
plain symptoms of uneasiness ; it is distracted by the
bag, which makes it remember its bulbhood, and also
by the want of earth and water, without which associa-
tions its memory of its previous growth cannot be duly
kindled. Its roots, therefore, which are most accus-
tomed to earth and water, do not grow ; but its leaves,
which do not require contact with these things to jog
their memory, make a more decided effort at develop-
ment— a fact which would seem to go strongly in
favour of the functional independence of the parts of
all but the very simplest living organisms, if, indeed,
more evidence were wanted in support of this.

( 166)

CHAPTEE X.

WHAT WE SHOULD EXPECT TO FIND IF DIFFERENTIATIONS
OF STRUCTURE AND INSTINCT ARE MAINLY DUE TO
MEMORY.

To repeat briefly ; — we remember best our last few per-
formances of any given kind, and our present perform-
ance is most likely to resemble one or other of these ;
we only remember our earlier performances by way of
residuum j nevertheless, at times, some older feature is
liable to reappear.

We take our steps in the same order on each suc-
cessive occasion, and are for the most part incapable of
changing that order.

The introduction of slightly new elements into our
manner is attended with benefit ; the new can be fused
with the old, and the monotony of our action is relieved.
But if the new element is too foreign, we cannot fuse
the old and new — nature seeming equally to hate too
wide a deviation from our ordinary practice, and no
deviation at all. Or, in plain English — if any one gives
us a new idea which is not too far ahead of us, such an
idea is often of great service to us, and may give new
life to our work — in fact, we soon go back, unless we
more or less frequently come into contact with new

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 167

ideas, and are capable of understanding and making
use of them ; if, on the other hand, they are too new,
and too little led up to, so that we find them too
strange and hard to be a"ble to understand them and
adopt them, then they put us out, with every degree of
completeness — from simply causing us to fail in this or
that particular part, to rendering us incapable of even
trying to do our work at all, from pure despair of suc-
ceeding.

It requires many repetitions to fix an impression
firmly ; but when it is fixed, we cease to have much
recollection of the manner in which it came to be so,
or of any single and particular recurrence.

Our memory is mainly called into action by force of
association and similarity in the surroundings. We want
to go on doing what we did when we were last as we are
now, and we forget what we did in the meantime.

These rules, however, are liable to many exceptions ;
as for example, that a single and apparently not very
extraordinary occurrence may sometimes produce a
lasting impression, and be liable to return with sudden
force at some distant time, and then to go on returning
to us at intervals. Some incidents, in fact, we know
not how nor why, dwell with us much longer than
others which were apparently quite as noteworthy or
perhaps more so.

Now I submit that if the above observations are just,
and if, also, the offspring, after having become a new
and separate personality, yet retains so much of the old
identity of which it was once indisputably part, that it
remembers what it did when it was part of that identity

M

Hr

>K

1 68 LIFE AND HABIT.

{Vas soon as it finds itself in circumstances which are cal-
culated to refresh its memory owing to their similarity to
certain antecedent ones, then we should expect to find: —

I. That offspring should, as a general rule, resemble
its own most immediate progenitors ; that is to say, that
it should remember best what it has been doing most
recently. The memory being a fusion of its recollec-
tions of what it did, both when it was its father and
also when it was its mother, the offspring should have
a very common tendency to resemble both parents, the
one in some respects, and the other in others ; but it
might also hardly less commonly show a more marked
recollection of the one history than of the other, thus
more distinctly resembling one parent than the other.
And this is what we observe to be the case. Not only
so far as that the offspring is almost invariably either
male or female, and generally resembles rather the one
parent than the other, but also that in spite of such pre-
ponderance of one set of recollections, the sexual char-
acters and instincts of the opposite sex appear, whether
in male or female, though undeveloped and incapable
of development except by abnormal treatment, such as
has occasionally caused milk to be developed in the
mammary glands of males ; or by mutilation, or failure
of sexual instinct through age, upon which, male charac-
teristics frequently appear in the females of any species.

Brothers and sisters, each giving their own version
of the same story, though in different words, should
resemble each other more closely than more distant
relations. This too we see.

But it should frequently happen that offspring should

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 169

resemble its penultimate rather than its latest phase, •
and should thus be more like a grand-parent than a
parent ; for we observe that we very often repeat a per-
formance in a manner resembling that of some earlier,
but still recent, repetition ; rather than on the precise
lines of our very last performance. First-cousins may
in this case resemble each other more closely than
brothers and sisters.

More especially, we should not expect very success-
ful men to be fathers of particularly gifted children ;
for the best men are, as it were, the happy thoughts
and successes of the race — nature's "flukes," so to
speak, in her onward progress. No creature can repeat
at will, and immediately, its highest flight. It needs
repose. The generations are the essays of any given
race towards the highest ideal which it is as yet able to
see ahead of itself, and this, in the nature of things,
cannot be very far; so that we should expect to see
success followed by more or less failure, and failure
by success — a very successful creature being a great
" fluke." And this is what we find.

In its earlier stages the embryo should be simply
conscious of a general method of procedure on the part
of its forefathers, and should, by reason of long prac-
tice, compress tedious and complicated histories into a
very narrow compass, remembering no single perform-
ance in particular. For we observe this in nature, both
as regards the sleight-of-hand which practice gives to
those who are thoroughly familiar with their business,
and also as regards the fusion of remoter memories into
a general residuum.

lyo LIFE AND HABIT.

II. We should expect to find that the offspring,
whether in its embryonic condition, or in any stage of
development till it has reached maturity, should adopt
nearly the same order in going through all its various
stages. There should be such slight variations as are
inseparable from the repetition of any performance by
a living being (as contrasted with a machine), but no
more. And this is what actually happens. A man may
cut his wisdom-teeth a little later than he gets his
beard and whiskers, or a little earlier ; but on the whole,
he adheres to his usual order, and is completely set off
his balance, and upset in his performance, if that order
be interfered with suddenly. It is, however, likely that
gradual modifications of order have been made and then
adhered to.

After any animal has reached the period at which it
ordinarily begins to continue its race, we should expect
that it should show little further power of development,
or, at any rate, that few great changes of structure or
fresh features should appear; for we cannot suppose
offspring to remember anything that happens to the
parent subsequently to the parent's ceasing to contain
the offspring within itself ; from the average age, there-
fore, of reproduction, offspring would cease to have any
further experience on which to fall back, and would
thus continue to make the best use of what it already
knew, till memory failing either in one part or another,
the organism would begin to decay.

To this cause must be referred the phenomena of old
age, which interesting subject I am unable to pursue
within the limits of this volume.

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 171

Those creatures who are longest in reaching maturity
might be expected also to be the longest lived ; I am
not certain, however, how far what is called alternate
generation militates against this view, but I do not
think it does so seriously.

Lateness of marriage, provided the constitution of the j
individuals marrying is in no respect impaired, should '
also tend to longevity.

I believe that all the above will be found suffi-
ciently well supported by facts. If so, when we feel
that we are getting old we should try and give our cells
such treatment as they will find it most easy to under-
stand, through their experience of their own individual
life, which, however, can only guide them inferentially,
and to a very small extent; and throughout life we
should remember the important bearing which memory
has upon health, and both occasionally cross the memo-
ries of our component cells with slightly new experi-
ences, and be careful not to put them either suddenly
or for long together into conditions which they will not
be able to understand. Nothing is so likely to make
our cells forget themselves, as neglect of one or other of
these considerations. They will either fail to recognise
themselves completely, in which case we shall die ; or
they will go on strike, more or less seriously as the case
may be, or perhaps, rather, they will try and remember
their usual course, and fail ; they will therefore try some
other, and will probably make a mess of it, as people
generally do when they try to do things which they do
not understand, unless indeed they have very excep-
tional capacity.

172 LIFE AND HABIT.

It also follows that when we are ill, our cells being
in such or such a state of mind, and inclined to hold a
corresponding opinion with more or less unreasoning
violence, should not be puzzled more than they are
puzzled already, by being contradicted too suddenly;
for they will not be in a frame of mind which can
understand the position of an open opponent: they
should therefore either be let alone, if possible, without
notice other than dignified silence, till their spleen is
over, and till they have remembered themselves; or
they should be reasoned with as by one who agrees
with them, and who is anxious to see things as far as
possible from their own point of view. And this is
how experience teaches that we must deal with
monomaniacs, whom we simply infuriate by contradic-
tion, but whose delusion we can sometimes persuade
to hang itself if we but give it sufficient rope. All
which has its bearing upon politics, too, at much sacri-
fice, it may be, of political principles, but a politician
who cannot see principles where principle-mongers fail
to see them, is a dangerous person.

I may say, in passing, that the reason why a small
wound heals, and leaves no scar, while a larger one
leaves a mark which is more or less permanent, may be
looked for in the fact that when the wound is only
small, the damaged cells are snubbed, so to speak, by
the vast majority of the unhurt cells in their own
neighbourhood. When the wound is more serious they
can stick to it, and bear each other out that they were
hurt.

III. We should expect to find a predominance of

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 173

sexual over asexual generation, in the arrangements of
nature for continuing her various species, inasmuch as
two heads are better than one, and a locus pcenitentice is
thus given to the embryo — an opportunity of correct- /
ing the experience of one parent by that of the otherv>
And this is what the more intelligent embryos may be
supposed to do ; for there would seem little reason to
doubt that there are clever embryos and stupid embryos,
with better or worse memories, as the case may be, of
how they dealt with their protoplasm before, and better
or worse able to see how they can do better now;
and that embryos differ as widely in intellectual and
moral capacity, and in a general sense of the fitness
of things, and of what will look well into the bargain,
as those larger embryos — to wit, children — do. Indeed
it would seem probable that all our mental powers
must go through a quasi-embryological condition, much
as the power of keeping, and wisely spending, money
must do so, and that all the qualities of human
thought and character are to be found in the embryo.

Those who have observed at what an early age differ-
ences of intellect and temper show themselves in the
young, for example, of cats and dogs, will find it
difficult to doubt that from the very moment of im-
pregnation, and onward, there has been a corresponding
difference in the embryo — and that of six unborn
puppies, one, we will say, has been throughout the
whole process of development more sensible and better
looking — a nicer embryo, in fact — than the others.

IV. We should expect to find that all species, whether
of plants or animals, are occasionally benefited by a cross;

174 LIFE AND HABIT.

but we should also expect that a cross should have a
tendency to introduce a disturbing element, if it be too
wide, inasmuch as the offspring would be pulled hither
and thither by two conflicting memories or advices, much
as though a number of people speaking at once were
without previous warning to advise an unhappy per-
former to vary his ordinary performance — one set of
people telling him he has always hitherto done thus,
and the other saying no less loudly that he did it thus ; —
and he were suddenly to become convinced that they
each spoke the truth. In such a case he will either
completely break down, if the advice be too conflict-
ing, or if it be less conflicting, he may yet be so
exhausted by the one supreme effort of fusing these
experiences that* he will never be able to perform
again; or if the conflict of experience be not great
enough to produce such a permanent effect as this,
it will yet, if it be at all serious, probably damage
his performances on their next several occasions,
through his inability to fuse the experiences into
a harmonious whole, or, in other words, to understand
the ideas which are prescribed to him; for to fuse is
only to understand.

And this is absolutely what we find in fact. Mr.
Darwin writes concerning hybrids and first crosses:
— " The male element may reach the female element,
but be incapable of causing an embryo to be developed,
as seems to have been the case with some of Thuret's
experiments on Fuci. No explanation can be given
of these facts any more than why certain trees cannot
be grafted on others."

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 175

I submit that what I have written above supplies a
very fair 'prima facie explanation.

Mr. Darwin continues : —

" Lastly, an embryo may be developed, and then perish
at an early period. This latter alternative has not been
sufficiently attended to ; but I believe, from observa-
tions communicated to me by Mr. Hewitt, who has had
great experience in hybridising pheasants and fowls,
that the early death of the embryo is a very frequent
cause of sterility in first crosses. Mr. Salter has
recently given the results of an examination of about
five hundred eggs produced from various crosses be-
tween three species of Gallus and their hybrids ; the
majority of these eggs had been fertilised ; and in the
majority of the fertilised eggs, the embryos had either
been partially developed, and had then perished, or
had become nearly mature, but the young chickens
had been unable to break through the shell. Of the
chickens which were born more than four-fifths died
within the first few days, or at latest weeks, ' without
any obvious cause, apparently from mere inability to
live,' so that from the five hundred eggs only twelve
chickens were reared " (" Origin of Species," 249, ed.

1876).

No wonder the poor creatures died, distracted as they
were by the internal tumult of conflicting memories.
But they must have suffered greatly ; and the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals may perhaps
think it worth while to keep an eye even on the em- |
bryos of hybrids and first crosses. Five hundred crea- n
tures puzzled to death is not a pleasant subject for.

176 LIFE AND HABIT.

contemplation. Ten or a dozen should, I think, be
sufficient for the future.

As regards plants, we read : —

" Hybridised embryos probably often perish in like
manner. ... of which fact Max Wichura has given
some striking cases with hybrid willows. ... It may
be here worth noticing, that in some cases of partheno-
genesis, the embryos within the eggs of silk moths,
which have not been fertilised, pass through their early
stages of development, and then perish like the embryos
produced by a cross between distinct species " (Ibid).

This last fact would at first sight seem to make against
me, but we must consider that the presence of a double
memory, provided it be not too conflicting, would be a
part of the experience of the silk moth's egg, which
might be then as fatally puzzled by the monotony of
a single memory as it would be by two memories which
were not sufficiently like each other. So that failure
here must be referred to the utter absence of that
little internal stimulant of slightly conflicting memory
which the creature has always hitherto experienced,
and without which it fails to recognise itself. In either
case, then, whether with hybrids or in cases of partheno-
genesis, the early death of the embryo is due to ina-
bility to recollect, owing to a fault in the chain of
associated ideas. All the facts here given are an excel-
lent illustration of the principle, elsewhere insisted upon
by Mr. Darwin, that any great and sudden change of
surroundings has a tendency to induce sterility; on
which head he writes (" Plants and Animals under
Domestication," vol. ii. p. 143, ed. 1875) : —

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 177

" It would appear that any change in the habits of
life, whatever their habits may be, if great enough,
tends to affect in an inexplicable manner the powers
of reproduction."

And again on the next page : —

11 Finally, we must conclude, limited though the
conclusion is, that changed conditions of life have an
especial power of acting injuriously on the reproduc-
tive system. The whole case is quite peculiar, for
these organs, though not diseased, are thus rendered
incapable of performing their proper functions, or per-
form them imperfectly."

One is inclined to doubt whether the blame may not
rest with the inability on the part of the creature re-
produced to recognise the new surroundings, and hence
with its failing to know itself. And this seems to be
in some measure supported — but not in such a manner
as I can hold to be quite satisfactory — by the con-
tinuation of the passage in the "Origin of Species," from
which I have just been quoting — for Mr. Darwin goes
on to say : —

"Hybrids, however, are differently circumstanced
before and after birth. When born, and living in a
country where their parents live, they are generally
placed under suitable conditions of life. But a hybrid
partakes of only half of the nature and condition of
its mother ; it may therefore before birth, as long as it
is nourished within its mother's womb, or within the
egg or seed produced by its mother, be exposed to con-
ditions in some degree unsuitable, and consequently
be liable to perish at an early period. . . ." After which,

178 LIFE AND HABIT.

however, the conclusion arrived at is, that, " after all, the
cause more probably lies in some imperfection in the
original act of impregnation, causing the embryo to be
imperfectly developed rather than in the conditions to
which it is subsequently exposed." A conclusion which
I am not prepared to accept.

Returning to my second alternative, that is to say, to
the case of hybrids which are born well developed and
healthy, but nevertheless perfectly sterile, it is less
obvious why, having succeeded in understanding the
conflicting memories of their parents, they should fail
to produce offspring ; but I do not think the reader will
feel surprised that this should be the case. The follow-
ing anecdote, true or false, may not be out of place
here : —

" Plutarch tells us of a magpie, belonging to a barber
at Rome, which could imitate to a nicety almost every
word it heard. Some trumpets happened one day to be
sounded before the shop, and for a day or two after-
wards the magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive
and melancholy. All who knew it were greatly sur-
prised at its silence; and it was supposed that the
sound of the trumpets had so stunned it as to deprive
it at once of both voice and hearing. It soon appeared,
however, that this was far from being the case; for,
says Plutarch, the bird had been all the time occupied
in profound meditation, studying how to imitate the
sound of the trumpets ; and when at last master of it,
the magpie, to the astonishment of all its friends, sud-
denly broke its long silence by a perfect imitation of
the flourish of trumpets it had heard, observing with

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 179

the greatest exactness all the repetitions, stops, and
changes. The acquisition of this lesson had, however,
exhausted the whole of the magpie's stock of intellect, for it
made it forget everything it had learned before " (" Percy
Anecdotes," Instinct, p. 166).

Or, perhaps, more seriously, the memory of every im-
pregnate ovum from which every ancestor of a mule, for
example, has sprung, has reverted to a very long period
of time during which its forefathers have been creatures
like that which it is itself now going to become : thus,
the impregnate ovum from which the mule's father was
developed remembered nothing but horse memories;
but it felt its faith in these supported by the recollec-
tion of a vast number of previous generations, in which
it was, to all intents and purposes, what it now is. In
like manner, the impregnate ovum from which the
mule's mother was developed would be backed by the
assurance that it had done what it is going to do now
a hundred thousand times already. All would thus/
be plain sailing. A horse and a donkey would result. )
These two are brought together; an impregnate ovum
is produced which finds an unusual conflict of memory
between the two lines of its ancestors, nevertheless, being
accustomed to some conflict, it manages to get over the
difficulty, as on either side it finds itself bached by a very
long series of sufficiently steady memory. A mule results
— a creature so distinctly different from either horse or
donkey, that reproduction is baffled, owing to the crea-
ture's having nothing but its own knowledge of itself
to fall back upon, behind which there comes an imme-
diate dislocation, or fault of memory, which is sufficient

180 LIFE AND HABIT.

to bar identity, and hence reproduction, by rendering
too severe an appeal to reason necessary — for no crea-
ture can reproduce itself on the shallow foundation
which reason can alone give. Ordinarily, therefore,
the hybrid, or the spermatozoon or ovum, which it
may throw off (as the case may be), finds one single ex-
perience too small to give it the necessary faith, on the
strength of which even to try to reproduce itself. In
other cases the hybrid itself has failed to be developed ;
in others the hybrid, or first cross, is almost fertile ; in
others it is fertile, but produces depraved issue. The
result will vary with the capacities of the creatures
crossed, and the amount of conflict between their
several experiences.

The above view would remove all difficulties out of
the way of evolution, in so far as the sterility of hybrids
l^ is concerned. For it would thus appear that this steri-
lity has nothing to do with any supposed immutable

s or fixed limits of species, but results simply from the
same principle which prevents old friends, no matter

/ how intimate in youth, from returning to their old in-
timacy after a lapse of years, during which they have

] been subjected to widely different influences, inas-
much as they will each have contracted new habits,
and have got into new ways, which they do not like

\jao\v to alter.

We should expect that our domesticated plants and
animals should vary most, inasmuch as these have been
subjected to changed conditions which would disturb
the memory, and, breaking the chain of recollection,
through failure of some one or other of the associated

)

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 181

ideas, would thus directly and most markedly affect the
reproductive system. Every reader of Mr. Darwin will
know that this is what actually happens, and also that
when once a plant or animal begins to vary, it will pro-
bably vary a good deal further ; which, again, is what we
should expect — the disturbance of the memory intro-
ducing a fresh factor of disturbance, which has to be
dealt with by the offspring as it best may. Mr. Darwin
writes: "All our domesticated productions, with the
rarest exceptions, vary far more than natural species "
("Plants and Animals," &c, vol. ii. p. 241, ed. 1875).

On my third supposition, i.e., when the difference
between parents has not been great enough to baffle
reproduction on the part of the first cross, but when
the histories of the father and mother have been, never-
theless, widely different — as in the case of Europeans
and Indians — we should expect to have a race of off-
spring who should seem to be quite clear only about
those points, on which their progenitors on both sides
were in accord before the manifold divergencies in their
experiences commenced; that is to say, the offspring
should show a tendency to revert to an early savage
condition.

That this indeed occurs may be seen from Mr. Dar-
win's " Plants and Animals under Domestication " (vol
ii. p. 21, ed. 1875), where we find that travellers in all
parts of the world have frequently remarked "on the
degraded state and savage condition of crossed races of
man!' A few lines lower down Mr. Darwin tells us
that he was himself "struck with the fact that, in
South America, men of complicated descent between

1 82 LIFE AND HABIT.

Negroes, Indians, and Spaniards seldom had, whatever
the cause might be, a good expression. " Livingstone "
(continues Mr. Darwin) " remarks, ' It is unaccountable
why half-castes are so much more cruel than the Portu-
guese, but such is undoubtedly the case/ An inhabitant
remarked to Livingstone, 'God made white men, and
God made black men, but the devil made half-castes.' "
A little further on Mr. Darwin says that we may " per-
haps infer that the degraded state of so many half-castes
is in part due to reversion to a primitive and savage con-
dition, induced by the act of crossing, even if mainly due
to the unfavourable moral conditions under which they
are generally reared." Why the crossing should pro-
duce this particular tendency would seem to be intelli-
gible enough, if the fashion and instincts of offspring are,
in any case, nothing but the memories of its past exist-
ences ; but it would hardly seem to be so upon any of
the theories now generally accepted ; as, indeed, is very
readily admitted by Mr. Darwin himself, who even, as
regards purely-bred animals and plants, remarks that
" we are quite unable to assign any proximate cause "
for their tendency to at times reassume long lost char-
acters.

If the reader will follow for himself the remaining
phenomena of reversion, he will, I believe, find them all
explicable on the theory that they are due to memory
of past experiences fused, and modified — at times speci-
fically and definitely — by changed conditions. There is,
however, one apparently very important phenomenon
which I do not at this moment see how to connect with
memory, namely, the tendency on the part of offspring

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 183

to revert to an earlier impregnation. Mr. Darwin's
" Provisional Theory of Pangenesis " seemed to afford a
satisfactory explanation of this; but the connection
with memory was not immediately apparent. I think
it likely, however, that this difficulty will vanish on
further consideration, so I will not do more than call
attention to it here.

The instincts of certain neuter insects hardly bear
upon reversion, but will be dealt with at some length
in Chapter XII.

V. We should expect to find, as was insisted on in the
preceding section in reference to the sterility of hybrids,
that it required many, or at any rate several, genera-
tions of changed habits before a sufficiently deep im-
pression could be made upon the living being (who must
be regarded always as one person in his whole line of
ascent or descent) for it to be unconsciously remem-
bered by him, when making himself anew in any suc-
ceeding generation, and thus to make him modify his
method of procedure during his next embryological
development. Nevertheless, we should expect to find
that sometimes a very deep single impression made
upon a living organism, should be remembered by it,
even when it is next in an embryonic condition.

That this is so, we find from Mr. Darwin, who writes
("Plants and Animals under Domestication," vol. ii.
p. 57, ed. 1875) — " There is ample evidence that the effect
of mutilations and of accidents, especially, or perhaps
exclusively, when followed by disease" (which would
certainly intensify the impression made), " are occasion-
ally inherited. There can be no doubt that the evil

1 84 LIFE AND HABIT.

effects of the long continued exposure of the parent to
injurious conditions a.re sometimes transmitted to the
offspring." As regards impressions of a less striking
character, it is so universally admitted that they are not
observed to be repeated in what is called the offspring,
until they have been confirmed in what is called the
parent, for several generations, but that after several
generations, more or fewer as the case may be, they
often are transmitted — that it seems unnecessary to
say more upon the matter. Perhaps, however, the
following passage from Mr. Darwin may be admitted
as conclusive : —

" That they " (acquired actions) " are inherited, we see
with horses in certain transmitted paces, such as can-
tering and ambling, which are not natural to them — in
the pointing of young pointers, and the setting of young
setters — in the peculiar manner of flight of certain
breeds of the pigeon, &c. We have analogous cases
with mankind in the inheritance of tricks or unusual
gestures." ....(" Expression of the Emotions," p. 29).
In another place Mr. Darwin writes : —
" How again can we explain the inherited effects of the
use or disuse of particular organs ? The domesticated
duck flies less and walks more than the wild duck, and
its limb bones have become diminished and increased
in a corresponding manner in comparison with those of
the wild duck. A horse is trained to certain paces, and
the colt inherits similar consensual movements. The
domesticated rabbit becomes tame from close confine-
ment; the dog intelligent from associating with man;
the retriever is taught to fetch and carry; and these

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 185

mental endowments and bodily powers are all inherited "
("Plants and Animals," &c, vol. ii. p. 367, ed. 1875).

"Nothing," he continues, "in the whole circuit of
physiology is more wonderful. How can the use or
disuse of a particular limb, or of the brain, affect a
small aggregate of reproductive cells, seated in a distant
part of the body in such a manner that the being deve-
loped from these cells inherits the character of one or
both parents ? Even an imperfect answer to this ques-
tion would be satisfactory " (" Plants and Animals," &c.
vol. ii. p. 367, ed. 1875).

With such an imperfect answer will I attempt to
satisfy the reader, as to say that there appears to be
that kind of continuity of existence and sameness of
personality, between parents and offspring, which would
lead us to expect that the impressions made upon the
parent should be epitomised in the offspring, when they
have been or have become important enough, through
repetition in the history of several so-called existences
to have earned a place in that smaller edition, which
is issued from generation to generation; or, in other
words, when they have been made so deeply, either
at one blow or through many, that the offspring can
remember them. In practice we observe this to be
the case — so that the answer lies in the assertion that
offspring and parent, being in one sense but the same
individual, there is no great wonder that, in one sense,
the first should remember what had happened to the
latter ; and that too, much in the same way as the in-
dividual remembers the events in the earlier history
of what he calls his own lifetime, but condensed, and

1 86 LIFE AND HABIT.

pruned of detail, and remembered as by one who
has had a host of other matters to attend to in tlie
interim.

It is thus easy to understand why such a rite as cir-
cumcision, though practised during many ages, should
have produced little, if any, modification tending to
make circumcision unnecessary. On the view here sup-
ported such modification would be more surprising than
not, for unless the impression made upon the parent was
of a grave character — and probably unless also aggra-
vated by subsequent confusion of memories in the cells
surrounding the part originally impressed — the parent
himself would not be sufficiently impressed to prevent
him from reproducing himself, as he had already done
upon an infinite number of past occasions. The child,
therefore, in the womb would do what the father in the
womb had done before him, nor should any trace of
memory concerning circumcision be expected till the
eighth day after birth, when, but for the fact that the
impression in this case is forgotten almost as soon as
made, some slight presentiment of coming discomfort
might, after a large number of generations, perhaps be
looked for as a general rule. It would not, however,
be surprising, that the effect of circumcision should be
occasionally inherited, and it would appear as though
this was sometimes actually the case.

The question should turn upon whether the disuse
of an organ has arisen : —

I. From an internal desire on the part of the crea-
ture disusing it, to be quit of an organ which it finds
troublesome.

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 187

2. From changed conditions and habits which render
the organ no longer necessary, or which lead the crea-
ture to lay greater stress on certain other organs or
modifications.

3. From the wish of others outside itself; the effect
produced in this case being perhaps neither very good
nor very bad for the individual, and resulting in no
grave impression upon the organism as a whole.

4. From a single deep impression on a parent, affect-
ing both himself as a whole, and gravely confusing
the memories of the cells to be reproduced, or his
memories in respect of those cells — according as one
adopts Pangenesis and supposes a memory to " run "
each gemmule, or as one supposes one memory to " run "
the whole impregnate ovum — a compromise between
these two views being nevertheless perhaps possible,
inasmuch as the combined memories of all the cells
may possibly be the memory which " runs " the impreg-
nate ovum, just as we are ourselves the combination of
all our cells, each one of which is both antonomous,
and also takes its share in the central government.
But within the limits of this volume it is absolutely
impossible for me to go into this question.

In the first case — under which some instances which
belong more strictly to the fourth would sometimes,
but rarely, come — the organ should soon go, and sooner
or later leave no rudiment, though still perhaps to be
found crossing the life of the embryo, and then dis-
appearing.

In the second it should go more slowly, and leave, it
may be, a rudimentary structure.

1 88 LIFE AND HABIT.

In the third it should show little or no sign of natural
decrease for a very long time.

In the fourth there may be absolute and total steri-
lity, or sterility in regard to the particular organ, or a
scar which shall show that the memory of the wound
and of each step in the process of healing has been
remembered ; or there may be simply such disturbance
in the reproduced organ as shall show a confused
recollection of injury. There may be infinite gradations
between the first and last of these possibilities.

I think that the facts, as given by Mr. Darwin
(" Flants and Animals," &c, vol. i. pp. 466-472, ed.
1875), will bear out the above to the satisfaction of the
reader. I can, however, only quote the following
passage : —

"... Brown Sequard has bred during thirty years
many thousand guinea-pigs, . . . nor has he ever seen a
guinea-pig born without toes which was not the offspring
of parents which had gnawed off their own toes, owing
to the sciatic nerve having been divided. Of this fact
thirteen instances were carefully recorded, and a greater
number were seen ; yet Brown Sdquard speaks of such
cases as among the rarer forms of inheritance. It is a
still more interesting fact — * that the sciatic nerve in
the congenitally toeless animal has inherited the power
of passing through all the different moroid states which
have occurred in one of its parents from the time of
division till after its reunion with the peripheric end.
It is not therefore the power of simply performing an
action which is inherited, but the power of performing
a whole series of actions in a certain order.' "

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 1S9

I feel inclined to say it is not merely the original
wound that is remembered, but the whole process of
cure which is now accordingly repeated. Brown Sequard
concludes, as Mr. Darwin tells us, " that what is trans-
mitted is the morbid state of the nervous system," due
to the operation performed on the parents.

A little lower down Mr. Darwin writes that Pro-
fessor Eolleston has given him two cases — " namely, of
two men, one of whom had his knee, and the other his
cheek, severely cut, and both had children born with
exactly the same spot marked or scarred."

VI. When, however, an impression has once reached
transmission point — whether it be of the nature of a
sudden striking thought, which makes its mark deeply
then and there, or whether it be the result of smaller
impressions repeated until the nail, so to speak, has been
driven home — we should expect that it should be remem-
bered by the offspring as something which he has done
all his life, and which he has therefore no longer any
occasion to learn ; he will act, therefore, as people say,
instinctively. No matter how complex and difficult the
process, if the parents have done it sufficiently often
(that is to say, for a sufficient number of generations),
the offspring will remember the fact when association
wakens the memory ; it will need no instruction, and
— unless when it has been taught to look for it during
many generations — will expect none. This may be
seen in the case of the humming-bird sphinx moth,
which, as Mr. Darwin writes, " shortly after its emer-
gence from the cocoon, as shown by the bloom on its
unruffled scales, may be seen poised stationary in the

190 LIFE AND HABIT.

air with its long hair-like proboscis uncurled, and in-
serted into the minute orifices of flowers ; and no one
I believe has ever seen this moth learning to perforin
its difficult task, which requires such unerring aim •
(" Expression of tbo Emotions," p. 30).

And, indeed, when we consider that after a time the
most complex and difficult actions come to be per-
formed by man without the least effort or consciousness
— that offspring cannot be considered as anything but
a continuation of the parent life, whose past habits and
experiences it epitomises when they have been suffi-
ciently often repeated to produce a lasting impression
— that consciousness of memory vanishes on the mem-
ory's becoming intense, as completely as the conscious-
ness of complex and difficult movements vanishes as
soon as they have been sufficiently practised — and
finally, that the real presence of memory is testified
rather by performance of the repeated action on recur-
rence of like surroundings, than by consciousness of
recollecting on the part of the individual — so that
not only should there be no reasonable bar to our attri-
buting the whole range of the more complex instinctive
actions, from first to last, to memory pure and simple,
no matter how marvellous they may be, but rather
that there is so much to compel us to do so, that we
. find it difficult to conceive how any other view can
have been ever taken — when, I say, we consider all
these facts, we should rather feel surprise that the hawk
and sparrow still teach their offspring to fly, than that
the humming - bird sphinx moth should need no
teacher.

WHA T WE MIGHT EXPECT. 1 9 1

The phenomena, then, which we observe are exactly
those which we should expect to find.

VII. We should also expect that the memory of
animals, as regards their earlier existences, was solely
stimulated by association. For we find, from Prof.
Bain, that "actions, sensations, and states of feeling
occurring together, or in close succession, tend to grow
together or cohere in such a way that when any one of
them is afterwards presented to the mind, the others
are apt to be brought up in idea " (" The Senses and
the Intellect," 2d ed. 1864, p. 332). And Prof. Huxley
says ("Elementary Lessons in Physiology," 5th ed. 1872,
P- 306), " It may be laid down as a rule that if any
two mental states be called up together, or in succes-
sion, with due frequency and vividness, the subsequent
production of the one of them will suffice to call up the
other, and that whether we desire it or not" I would go
one step further, and would say not only whether we
desire it or not, but whether we are aware that the idea
has ever before been called up in our minds or not I
should say that I have quoted both the above passages
from Mr. Darwin's " Expression of the Emotions " (p. 30,
ed. 1872).

We should, therefore, expect that when the offspring /
found itself in the presence of objects which had called
up such and such ideas for a sufficient number of
generations, that is to say, "with due frequency and
vividness " — it being of the same age as its parents
were, and generally in like case as when the ideas were
called up in the minds of the parents — the same ideas
should also be called up in the minds of the offspring

192 LIFE AND HABIT.

. "whether they desire it or not;" and, I would say also,
" whether they recognise the ideas as having ever before
been present to them or not."

I think we might also expect that no other force,
save that of association, should have power to kindle,
so to speak, into the flame of action the atomic spark of
memory, which we can alone suppose to be transmitted
from one generation to another.

That both plants and animals do as we should expect
of them in this respect is plain, not only from the per-
formance of the most intricate and difficult actions —
difficult both physically and intellectually — at an age,
and under circumstances which preclude all possibility
of what we call instruction, but from the fact that
deviations from the parental instinct, or rather the
recurrence of a memory, unless in connection with the
accustomed train of associations, is of. comparatively rare
occurrence ; the result, commonly, of some one of the
many memories about which we know no more than
we do of the memory which enables a cat to find her
way home after a hundred-mile journey by train, and
shut up in a hamper, or, perhaps even more commonly,
of abnormal treatment.

VIII. If, then, memory depends on association, we
should expect two corresponding phenomena in the case
of plants and animals — namely, that they should show
a tendency to resume feral habits on being turned
wild after several generations of domestication, and also
that peculiarities should tend to show themselves at a
corresponding age in the offspring and in the parents.
As regards the tendency to resume feral habits, Mr.

WHA T WE MIGHT EXP EC T. 193

Darwin, though apparently of opinion that the tendency
to do this has been much exaggerated, yet does not
doubt that such a tendency exists, as shown by well
authenticated instances. He writes: "It has been
repeatedly asserted in the most positive manner by
various authors that feral animals and plants invariably
return to their primitive specific type."

This shows, at any rate, that there is a considerable
opinion to this effect among observers generally.

He continues : " It is curious on what little evidence
this belief rests. Many of our domesticated animals
could not subsist in a wild state," — so that there is no
knowing whether they would or would not revert.
" In several cases we do not know the aboriginal parent
species, and cannot tell whether or not there has been
any close degree of reversion." So that here, too, there
is at any rate no evidence against the tendency ; the
conclusion, however, is that, notwithstanding the defi-
ciency of positive evidence to warrant the general
belief as to the force of the tendency, yet " the simple
fact of animals and plants becoming feral does cause
some tendency to revert to the primitive state," and he
tells us that " when variously- coloured tame rabbits are
turned out in Europe, they generally re-acquire the col-
ouring of the wild animal ; " there can be no doubt," he
says, " that this really does occur," though he seems in-
clined to account for it by the fact that oddly-coloured
and conspicuous animals would suffer much from beasts
of prey and from being easily shot. " The best known
case of reversion," he continues, "and that on which
the widely-spread belief in its universality apparently

194 LIFE AND HABIT.

rests, is that of pigs. These animals have run wild in
the West Indies, South America, and the Falkland
Islands, and have everywhere re-acquired the dark
colour, the thick bristles, and great tusks of the wild
boar; and the young have re-acquired longitudinal
stripes." And on page 22 of "Plants and Animals
under Domestication" (vol. ii. ed. 1875) we find that
" the re-appearance of coloured, longitudinal stripes on
young feral pigs cannot be attributed to the direct
action of external conditions. In this case, and in
many others, we can only say that any change in the
habits of life apparently favours a tendency, inherent or
latent, in the species to return to the primitive state."
On which one cannot but remark that though any
change may favour such tendency, yet the return to
original habits and surroundings appears to do so in
a way so marked as not to be readily referable to any
other cause than that of association and memory — the
creature, in fact, having got into its old groove, remem-
bers it, and takes to all its old ways.

As regards the tendency to inherit changes (whether
embryonic, or during post-natal development as ordi-
narily observed in any species), or peculiarities of habit
or form which do not partake of the nature of disease,
it must be sufficient to refer the reader to Mr. Dar-
win's remarks upon this subject (" Plants and Animals
Under Domestication," vol. ii. pp. 51-57, ed. 1875).
The existence of the tendency is not likely to be de-
nied. The instances given by Mr. Darwin are strictly
to the point as regards all ordinary developmental and
metamorphic changes, and even as regards transmitted

WHA T WE MIGHT EXPECT. 195

acquired actions, and tricks acquired before the time
when the offspring has issued from the body of the
parent, or on an average of many generations does so ;
but it cannot for a moment be supposed that the off-
spring knows by inheritance anything about what
happens to the parent subsequently to the offspring's
being born. Hence the appearance of diseases in the
offspring, at comparatively late periods in life, but at
the same age as, or earlier, than in the parents, must
be regarded as due to the fact that in each case the
machine having been made after the same pattern
(which is due to memory), is liable to have the same
weak points, and to break down after a similar amount
of wear and tear ; but after less wear and tear in the
case of the offspring than in that of the parent, because
a diseased organism is commonly a deteriorating organ-
ism, and if repeated at all closely, and without repent-
ance and amendment of life, will be repeated for the
worse. If we do not improve, we grow worse. This,
at least, is what we observe daily.

Nor again can we believe, as some have fancifully
imagined, that the remembrance of any occurrence of
which the effect has been entirely, or almost entirely
mental, should be remembered by offspring with any
definiteness. The intellect of the offspring might be
affected, for better or worse, by the general nature of
the intellectual employment of the parent ; or a great
shock to a parent might destroy or weaken the intellect
of the offspring; but unless a deep impression were
made upon the cells of the body, and deepened by sub-
sequent disease, we could not expect it to be remem-

196 LIFE AND HABIT.

bered with any definiteness, or precision. We may
talk as we will about mental pain, and mental scars,
but after all, the impressions they leave are incompar-
ably less durable than those made by an organic lesion.
It is probable, therefore, that the feeling which so many
have described, as though they remembered this or that
in some past existence, is purely imaginary, and due
rather to unconscious recognition of the fact that we
certainly have lived before, than to any actual occur-
rence corresponding to the supposed recollection.

And lastly, we should look to find in the action of
memory, as between one generation and another, a re-
flection of the many anomalies and exceptions to ordi-
nary rules which we observe in memory, so far as we
can watch its action in what we call our own single
lives, and the single lives of others. We should expect
that reversion should be frequently capricious — that is
to say, give us more trouble to account for than we are
either able or willing to take. And assuredly we find
it so in fact. Mr. Darwin — from whom it is impossible
to quote too much or too fully, inasmuch as no one
else can furnish such a store of facts, so well arranged,
and so above all suspicion of either carelessness or want
of candour — so that, however we may differ from him,
it is he himself who shows us how to do so, and whose
pupils we all are — Mr. Darwin writes : " In every
living being we may rest assured that a host of long-
lost characters lie ready to be evolved under proper
conditions" (does not one almost long to substitute the
word " memories" for the word " characters ?") " How
can we make intelligible, and connect with other facts,

WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT. 197

this wonderful and common capacity of reversion — this
power of calling back to life long-lost characters?"
("Plants and Animals/' &c, vol. ii. p. 369, ed. 1875).
Surely the answer may be hazarded, that we shall be
able to do so when we can make intelligible the power
of calling back to life long-lost memories. But I grant
that this answer holds out no immediate prospect of
a clear understanding.

One word more. Abundant facts are to be found
which point inevitably, as will appear more plainly in
the following chapter, in the direction of thinking that
offspring inherits the memories of its parents; but I
know of no single fact which suggests that parents are
in the smallest degree affected (other than sympatheti-
cally) by the memories of their offspring after that
offspring has been lorn. Whether the unborn offspring
affects the memory of the mother in some particulars,
and whether we have here the explanation of occasional
reversion to a previous impregnation, is a matter on
which I should hardly like to express an opinion now.
Nor, again, can I find a single fact which seems to indi-
cate any memory of the parental life on the part of
offspring later than the average date of the offspring's
quitting the body of the parent.

( 198)

CHAPTEE XI.

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY.

I HAVE already alluded to M. Ribot's work on " Here-
dity," from which I will now take the following pas-
sages.

M. Ribot writes : —

" Instinct is innate, i.e., anterior to all individual
experience" This I deny on grounds already abund-
antly apparent ; but let it pass. " Whereas intelligence
is developed slowly by accumulated experience, instinct
is perfect from the first " (" Heredity," p. 14).

Obviously the memory of a habit or experience will
not commonly be transmitted to offspring in that per-
fection which is called " instinct," till the habit or ex-
perience has been repeated in several generations with
more or less uniformity ; for otherwise the impression
made will not be strong enough to endure through the
busy and difficult task of reproduction. This of course
involves that the habit shall have attained, as it were,
equilibrium with the creature's sense of its own needs,
so that it shall have long seemed the best course pos-
sible, leaving upon the whole and under ordinary cir-
cumstances little further to be desired, and hence that
it should have been little varied during many genera-

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 199

tions. We should expect that it would be transmitted
in a more or less partial, varying, imperfect, and intelli-
gent condition before equilibrium had been attained ; it
would, however, continually tend towards equilibrium,
for reasons which will appear more fully later on.
When this stage has been reached, as regards any habit,
the creature will cease trying to improve ; on which the
repetition of the habit will become stable, and hence
become capable of more unerring transmission — but at
the same time improvement will cease ; the habit will
become fixed, and be perhaps transmitted at an earlier
and earlier age, till it has reached that date of mani-
festation which shall be found most agreeable to the
other habits of the creature. It will also be manifested,
as a matter of course, without further consciousness or
reflection, for people cannot be always opening up settled
questions ; if they thought a matter over yesterday they
cannot think it all over again to-day, but will adopt for
better or worse the conclusion then reached; and this, too,
even in spite sometimes of considerable misgiving, that
if they were to think still further they could find a still
better course. It is not, therefore, to be expected that-!
"instinct" should show signs of that hesitating and
tentative action which results from knowledge that is
still so imperfect as to be actively self-conscious ; nor
yet that it should grow or vary, unless under such
changed conditions as shall baffle memory, and present
the alternative of either invention — that is to say,
variation — or death. But every instinct must have
passed through the laboriously intelligent stages through
which human civilisations and mechanical inventions are

20O

LIFE AND HABIT.

now passing ; and he who would study the origin of
an instinct with its development, partial transmission,
further growth, further transmission, approach to more
unreflecting stability, and finally, its perfection as an un-
erring and unerringly transmitted instinct, must look to
laws, customs, and machinery as his best instructors.
Customs and machines are instincts and organs now in
process of development; they will assuredly one day
reach the unconscious state of equilibrium which we
observe in the structures and instincts of bees and ants,
and an approach to which may be found among some
savage nations. We may reflect, however, not without
pleasure, that this condition — the true millennium — is
I still distant. Nevertheless the ants and bees seem
happy ; perhaps more happy than when so many social
questions were in as hot discussion among them, as
other, and not dissimilar ones, will one day be amongst
ourselves.

And this, as will be apparent, opens up the whole
question of the stability of species, which we cannot
follow further here, than to say, that according to the
balance of testimony, many plants and animals do
appear to have reached a phase of being from which
they are hard to move — that is to say, they will die
sooner than be at the pains of altering their habits —
true martyrs to their convictions. Such races refuse to
see changes in their surroundings as long as they can,
but when compelled to recognise them, they throw up
the game because they cannot and will not, or will
not and cannot, invent. And this is perfectly intelli-
gible, for a race is nothing but a long-lived individual,

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 201

and like any individual, or tribe of men whom we have
yet observed, will have its special capacities and its
special limitations, though, as in the case of the indi-
vidual, so also with the race, it is exceedingly hard to
say what those limitations are, and why, having been
able to go so far, it should go no further. Every man
and every race is capable of education up to a certain
point, but not to the extent of being made from a sow's
ear into a silk purse. The proximate cause of the
limitation seems to lie in the absence of the wish to
go further ; the presence or absence of the wish will
depend upon the nature and surroundings of the indi-
vidual, which is simply a way of saying that one can
get no further, but that as the song (with a slight
alteration) says : —

u Some breeds do, and some breeds don't,
Some breeds will, but this breed won't,
I tried very often to see if it would,
But it said it really could'nt, and I don't think it could."

It may perhaps be maintained, that with time and
patience, one might train a rather stupid plough-boy
to understand the differential calculus. This might
be done with the help of an inward desire on the part
of the boy to learn, but never otherwise. If the boy
wants to learn or to improve generally, he will do so in
spite of every hindrance, till in time he becomes a very
different being from what he was originally. If he
does not want to learn, he will not do so for any wish
of another person. If he feels that he has the power
he will wish ; or if he wishes, he will begin to think

V

202 LIFE AND HABIT.

he has the power, and try to fulfil his wishes; one
cannot say which comes first, for the power and the
desire go always hand in hand, or nearly so, and the
whole business is nothing but a most vicious circle from
first to last. But it is plain that there is more to be
said on behalf of such circles than we have been in the
habit of thinking. Do what we will, we must each one
of us argue in a circle of our own, from which, so long
as we live at all, we can by no possibility escape. I
am not sure whether the frank acceptation and recog-
nition of this fact is not the best corrective for dogma-
tism that we are likely to find.

We can understand that a pigeon might in the course
of ages grow to be a peacock if there was a persistent
desire on the part of the pigeon through all these ages
to do so. We know very well that this has not probably
occurred in nature, inasmuch as no pigeon is at all likely
to wish to be very different from what it is now. The
idea of being anything very different from what it now
is, would be too wide a cross with the pigeon's other
ideas for it to entertain it seriously. If the pigeon had
never seen a peacock, it would not be able to conceive the
idea, so as to be able to make towards it ; if, on the
other hand, it had seen one, it would not probably either
want to become one, or think that it would be any use
wanting seriously, even though it were to feel a passing
fancy to be so gorgeously arrayed ; it would therefore
lack that faith without which no action, and with which,
every action, is possible.

That creatures have conceived the idea of making
themselves like other creatures or objects which it was

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 203

to their advantage or pleasure to resemble, will be be-
lieved by any one who turns to Mr. Mivart's " Genesis
of Species," where he will find (chapter ii.) an account of
some very showy South American butterflies, which give
out such a strong odour that nothing will eat them,
and which are hence mimicked both in appearance and
flight by a very different kind of butterfly ; and, again,
we see that certain birds, without any particular desire
of gain, no sooner hear any sound than they begin to
mimick it, merely for the pleasure of mimicking ; so we
all enjoy to mimick, or to hear good mimicry, so also
monkeys imitate the actions which they observe, from
pure force of sympathy. To mimick, or to wish to
mimick, is doubtless often one of the first steps towards
varying in any given direction. Not less, in all pro-
bability, than a full twenty per cent, of all the courage
and good nature now existing in the world, derives
its origin, at no very distant date, from a desire to
appear courageous and good-natured. And this suggests
a work whose title should be "On the Fine Arts as
bearing on the Reproductive System," of which the
title must suffice here.

Against faith, then, and desire, all the " natural
selection" in the world will not stop an amoeba from
becoming an elephant, if a reasonable time be granted ;
without the faith and the desire, neither "natural
selection" nor artificial breeding will be able to do
much in the way of modifying any structure. When
we have once thoroughly grasped the conception that
we are all one creature, and that each one of us is many
millions of years old, so that all the pigeons in the one

204 LIFE AND HABIT.

line of an infinite number of generations are still one
pigeon only — then we can understand that a bird, as
different from a peacock as a pigeon is now, could yet
have wandered on and on, first this way and then that,
doing what it liked, and thought that it could do, till it
found itself at length a peacock ; but we cannot believe
either that a bird like a pigeon should be able to appre-
hend any ideal so different from itself as a peacock,
and make towards it, or that man, having wished to
breed a bird anything like a peacock from a bird any-
thing like a pigeon, would be able to succeed in ac-
cumulating accidental peacock-like variations till he
had made the bird he was in search of, no matter in
what number of generations ; much less can we believe
that the accumulation of small fortuitous variations by
" natural selection" could succeed better. We can no
more believe the above, than we can believe that a
wish outside a plough-boy could turn him into a senior
wrangler. The boy would prove to be too many for his
teacher, and so would the pigeon for its breeder.

I do not forget that artificial breeding has modified
l the original type of the horse and the dog, till it has at
| length produced the dray-horse and the greyhound ; but
// j in each case man has had to get use and disuse — that
is to say, the desires of the animal itself — to help him.
We are led, then, to the conclusion that all races
have what for practical purposes may be considered as
their limits, though there is no saying what those
limits are, nor indeed why, in theory, there should be
any limits at all, but only that there are limits in
practice. Eaces which vary considerably must be con-

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 205

sidered as clever, but it may be speculative, people who
commonly have a genius in some special direction, as
perhaps for mimicry, perhaps for beauty, perhaps for
music, perhaps for the higher mathematics, but seldom
in more than one or two directions ; while " inflexible
organisations," like that of the goose, may be considered
as belonging to people with one idea, and the greater
tendency of plants and animals to vary under domes-
tication may be reasonably compared with the effects
of culture and education : that is to say, may be
referred to increased range and variety of experience
or perceptions, which will either cause sterility, if they
be too unfamiliar, so as to be incapable of fusion with
preceding ideas, and hence to bring memory to a sudden
fault, or will open the door for all manner of further
variation — the new ideas having suggested new trains
of thought, which a clever example of a clever race
will be only too eager to pursue.

Let us now return to M. Eibot. He writes (p. 14) : —
" The duckling hatched by the hen makes straight for
water." In what conceivable way can we account for
this, except on the supposition that the duckling knows
perfectly well what it can, and what it cannot do with
water, owing to its recollection of what it did when it
was still one individuality with its parents, and hence,
when it was a duckling before ?

"The squirrel, before it knows anything of winter,
lays up a store of nuts. A bird when hatched in a cage
will, when given its freedom, build for itself a nest like
that of its parents, out of the same materials, and of
the same shape."

//

206 LIFE AND HABIT.

If tliis is not due to memory, even an imperfect
explanation of what else it can be due to, "would be
satisfactory."

" Intelligence gropes about, tries this way and that,
misses its object, commits mistakes, and corrects them."

Yes. Because intelligence is of consciousness, and
consciousness is of attention, and attention is of uncer-
tainty, and uncertainty is of ignorance or want of con-
sciousness. Intelligence is not yet thoroughly up to its
business.

" Instinct advances with a mechanical certainty."

Why mechanical ? Should not " with apparent cer-
tainty " suffice ?

* Hence comes its unconscious character."

But for the word " mechanical " this is true, and is
what we have been all along insisting on.

" It knows nothing either of ends, or of the means of
attaining them ; it implies no comparison, judgment, or
choice."

This is assumption. What is certain is that instinct
does not betray signs of self-consciousness as to its own
knowledge. It has dismissed reference to first prin-
ciples, and is no longer under the law, but under the
grace of a settled conviction.

" All seems directed by thought."

Yes ; because all has been in earlier existences directed
by thought.

" Without ever arriving at thought."

Because it has got past thought, and though "directed
by thought " originally, is now travelling in exactly the
opposite direction. It is not likely to reach thought

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 207

again, till people get to know worse and worse how to
do things, the oftener they practise them.

" And if this phenomenon appear strange, it must be
observed that analogous states occur in ourselves. All
that we do from habit — walking, writing, or practising a
mechanical act, for instance — all these and many other
very complex acts are performed without consciousness.

" Instinct appears stationary. It does not, like intel-
ligence, seem to grow and decay, to gain and to lose.
It does not improve."

Naturally. For improvement can only as a general
rule be looked for along the line of latest development,
that is to say, in matters concerning which the creature
is being still consciously exercised. Older questions
are settled, and the solution must be accepted as final,
for the question of living at all would be reduced to an
absurdity, if everything decided upon one day was to
be undecided again the next ; as with painting or music,
so with life and politics, let every man be fully per-
suaded in his own mind, for decision with wrong will
be commonly a better policy than indecision — I had
almost added with right ; and a firm purpose with risk
will be better than an infirm one with temporary
exemption from disaster. Every race has made its
great blunders, to which it has nevertheless adhered,
inasmuch as the corresponding modification of other
structures and instincts was found preferable to the
revolution which would be caused by a radical change
of structure, with consequent havoc among a legion of
vested interests. Rudimentary organs are, as has been
often said, the survivals of these interests — the sums of

208 LIFE AND HABIT.

their peaceful and gradual extinction as living faiths ;
they are also instances of the difficulty of breaking
through any cant or trick which we have long practised,
and which is not sufficiently troublesome to make it a
serious object with us to cure ourselves of the habit.

" If it does not remain perfectly invariable, at least it
only varies within very narrow limits ; and though this
question has been warmly debated in our day, and is
yet unsettled, we may yet say that in instinct immuta-
bility is the law, variation the exception."

This is quite as it should be. Genius will occasion-
ally rise a little above convention, but with an old con-
vention immutability will be the rule.

" Such," continues M. Eibot, " are the admitted char-
acters of instinct."

Yes ; but are they not also the admitted characters
of actions that are due to memory ?

At the bottom of p. 15, M. Ribot quotes the following
from Mr. Darwin : —

" We have reason to believe that aboriginal habits are
long retained under domestication. Thus with the com-
mon ass, we see signs of its original desert-life in its
strong dislike to cross the smallest stream of water,
and in its pleasure in rolling in the dust. The same
strong dislike to cross a stream is common to the camel
which has been domesticated from a very early period.
Young pigs, though so tame, sometimes squat when
frightened, and then try to conceal themselves, even in
an open and bare place. Young turkeys, and occasion-
ally even young fowls, when the hen gives the danger-
cry, run away and try to hide themselves, like young

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 209

partridges or pheasants, in order that their mother may
take flight, of which she has lost the power. The musk
duck in its native country often perches and roosts on
trees, and our domesticated musk ducks, though slug-
gish birds, are fond of perching on the tops of barns,
walls, &c. . . . We know that the dog, however well and
regularly fed, often buries like the fox any superfluous
food ; we see him turning round and round on a carpet
as if to trample down grass to form a bed. ... In the
delight with which lambs and kids crowd together and
frisk upon the smallest hillock we see a vestige of their
former alpine habits."

What does this delightful passage go to show, if not
that the young in all these cases must still have a latent
memory of their past existences, which is called into an
active condition as soon as the associated ideas present
themselves ?

Keturning to M. Ribot's own observations, we find he
tells us that it usually requires three or four generations
to fix the results of training, and to prevent a return to
the instincts of the wild state. I think, however, it
would not be presumptuous to suppose that if an animal
after only three or four generations of training be re-
stored to its original conditions of life, it will forget its
intermediate training and return to its old ways, almost
as readily as a London street Arab would forget the
beneficial effects of a week's training in a reformatory
school, if he were then turned loose again on the streets.
So if we hatch wild ducks' eggs under a tame duck, the
ducklings " will have scarce left the egg-shell when
they obey the instincts of their race and take their

210 LIFE AND HABIT.

flight." So the colts from wild horses, and mongrel
young between wild and domesticated horses, betray
traces of their earlier memories.

On this M. Eibot says : " Originally man had con-
siderable trouble in taming the animals which are now
domesticated ; and his work would have been in vain
had not heredity " (memory) " come to his aid. It may
be said that after man has modified a wild animal to his
will, there goes on in its progeny a silent conflict be-
tween two heredities " (memories), " the one tending to
fix the acquired modifications and the other to preserve
the primitive instincts. The latter often get the mas-
tery, and only after several generations is training sure
of victory. But we may see that in either case here-
dity " (memory) " always asserts its rights."

How marvellously is the above passage elucidated
and made to fit in with the results of our recognised
experience, by the simple substitution of the word
" memory " for " heredity."

"Among the higher animals" — to continue quoting
— " which are possessed not only of instinct, but also of
intelligence, nothing is more common than to see mental
dispositions, which have evidently been acquired, so
fixed by heredity, that they are confounded with instinct,
so spontaneous and automatic do they become. Young
pointers have been known to point the first time they
were taken out, sometimes even better than dogs that
had been for a long time in training. The habit of
saving life is hereditary in breeds that have been
brought up to it, as is also the shepherd dog's habit of
moving around the flock and guarding it."

INS TINCT A S INHERITED MEM OR Y. 211

As soon as we have grasped the notion, that instinct
is only the epitome of past experience, revised, cor-
rected, made perfect, and learnt by rote, we no longer
find any desire to separate "instinct" from "mental
dispositions, which have evidently been acquired and
fixed by heredity," for the simple reason that they are
one and the same thing.

A few more examples are all that my limits will
allow — they abound on every side, and the difficulty
lies only in selecting — M. Eibot being to hand, I will
venture to lay him under still further contributions.

On page 19 we find : —

" Knight has shown experimentally the truth of
the proverb, ' a good hound is bred so,' he took every
care that when the pups were first taken into the field,
they should receive no guidance from older dogs ; yet
the very first day, one of the pups stood trembling with
anxiety, having his eyes fixed and all his muscles
strained at the partridges which their parents had been
trained to point. A spaniel belonging to a breed which
had been trained to woodcock-shooting, knew perfectly
well from the first how to act like an old dog, avoiding
places where the ground was frozen, and where it was,
therefore, useless to seek the game, as there was no
scent. Finally, a young polecat terrier was thrown into
a state of great excitement the first time he ever saw
one of these animals, while a spaniel remained perfectly
calm.

" In South America, according to Koulin, dogs belong-
ing to a breed that has long been trained to the danger-
ous chase of the peccary, when taken for the first time

212 LIFE AND HABIT.

into the woods, know the tactics to adopt quite as well
as the old dogs, and that without any instruction. Dogs
of other races, and unacquainted with the tactics, are
killed at once, no matter how strong they may he.
The American greyhound, instead of leaping at the
stag, attacks him by the belly, and throws him over, as
his ancestors had been trained to do in hunting the
Indians.

" Thus, then, heredity transmits modification no less
than natural instincts."

Should not this rather be — " thus, then, we see that
not only older and remoter habits, but habits which
have been practised for a comparatively small number
of generations, may be so deeply impressed on the indi-
vidual that they may dwell in his memory, surviving
the so-called change of personality which he undergoes
in each successive generation " ?

i "There is, however, an important difference to be
/ noted : the heredity of instincts admits of no exceptions,
; while in that of modifications there are many."
' It may be well doubted how far the heredity of in-
stincts admits of no exceptions; on the contrary, it
would seem probable that in many races geniuses have
from time to time arisen who remembered not only their
past experiences, as far as action and habit went, but
v, have been able to rise in some degree above habit where
they felt that improvement was possible, and who car-
ried such improvement into further practice, by slightly
modifying their structure in the desired direction on the
next occasion that they had a chance of dealing with
protoplasm at all. It is by these rare instances of in-

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 213

tellectual genius (and I would add of moral genius, if
many of the instincts and structures of plants and ani-
mals did not show that they had got into a region as far
above morals— other than enlightened self-interest — as
they are above articulate consciousness of their own
aims in many other respects) — it is by these instances
of either rare good luck or rare genius that many species
have been, in all probability, originated or modified.
Nevertheless inappreciable modification of instinct is,
and ought to be, the rule.

As to M. Ribot's assertion, that to the heredity of modi-
fications there are many exceptions, I readily agree with
it, and can only say that it is exactly what I should
expect; the lesson long since learnt by rote, and re-
peated in an infinite number of generations, would be
repeated unintelligently, and with little or no difference,
save from a rare accidental slip, the effect of which
would be the culling out of the bungler who was guilty
of it, or from the still rarer appearance of an individual
of real genius ; while the newer lesson would be repeated
both with more hesitation and uncertainty, and with
more intelligence; and this is well conveyed in M.
Ribot's next sentence, for he says — "It is only when
variations have been firmly rooted; when having be-
come organic, they constitute a second nature, which
supplants the first; when, like instinct, they have as-
sumed a mechanical character, that they can be trans-
mitted."

How nearly M. Ribot comes to the opinion which I
myself venture to propound will appear from the
following further quotation. After dealing with som-

214 LIFE AND HABIT.

nambulism, and saying, that if somnambulism were per-
manent and innate, it would be impossible to distin-
guish it from instinct, he continues : —

" Hence it is less difficult than is generally supposed,
to conceive how intelligence may become instinct ; we
might even say that, leaving out of consideration the
character of innateness, to which we will return, we
have seen the metamorphosis take place. There can
then he no ground for making instinct a faculty apart,
sui generis, a phenomenon so mysterious, so strange,
that usually no other explanation of it is offered but
that of attributing it to the direct act of the Deity.
This whole mistake is the result of a defective psycho-
logy which makes no account of the unconscious activity
of the soul."

We are tempted to add — " and which also makes
no account of the bond fide character of the continued
personality of successive generations."

" But we are so accustomed," he continues, " to con-
trast the characters of instinct with those of intelli-
gence— to say that instinct is innate, invariable, auto-
matic, while intelligence is something acquired, variable,
spontaneous — that it looks at first paradoxical to assert
that instinct and intelligence are identical.

" It is said that instinct is innate. But if, on the
one hand, we bear in mind that many instincts are
acquired, and that, according to a theory hereafter to
be explained " (which theory, I frankly confess, I never
was able to get hold of), " all instincts arc only here-
ditary habits " (italics mine) ; " if, on the other hand,
we observe that intelligence is in some sense held to be

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 215

innate by all modern schools of philosophy, which agree
to reject the theory of the tabula rasa " (if there is no
tabula rasa, there is continued psychological personality,
or words have lost their meaning), " and to accept either
latent ideas, or & priori forms of thought " (surely only a
periphrasis for continued personality and memory) " or
pre-ordination of the nervous system and of the organ-
ism j it will be seen that this character of innateness does
not constitute an absolute distinction between instinct and
intelligence.

" It is true that intelligence is variable, but so also is
instinct, as we have seen. In winter, the Ehine beaver
plasters his wall to windward ; once he was a builder,
now a burrower ; once he lived in society, now he is
solitary. Intelligence itself can scarcely be more vari-
able. . . . Instinct may be modified, lost, reawakened.

" Although intelligence is, as a rule, conscious, it may
also become unconscious and automatic, without losing
its identity. Neither is instinct always so blind, so
mechanical, as is supposed, for at times it is at fault.
The wasp that has faultily trimmed a leaf of its paper
begins again. The bee only gives the hexagonal form
to its cell after many attempts and alterations. It is
difficult to believe that the loftier instincts" (and
surely, then, the more recent instincts) " of the higher
animals are not accompanied by at least a confused con-
sciousness. There is, therefore, no absolute distinction
between instinct and intelligence ; there is not a single
characteristic which, seriously considered, remains the
exclusive property of either. The contrast established
between instinctive acts and intellectual acts is, never-
p

\

216 LIFE AND HABIT.

tlieless, perfectly true, but only when we compare the
extremes. As instinct rises it approacJws intelligence —
as intelligence descends it approaches instinct!1

M. Eibot and myself (if I may venture to say so)
are continually on the verge of coming to an under-
standing, when, at the very moment that we seem most
likely to do so, we fly, as it were, to opposite poles.
Surely the passage last quoted should be, " As instinct
falls," i.e., becomes less and less certain of its ground,
"it approaches intelligence; as intelligence rises," i.e.,
becomes more and more convinced of the truth and
expediency of its convictions — " it approaches instinct."

Enough has been said to show that the opinions
which I am advancing are not new, but I have looked
in vain for the conclusions which, it appears to me, M.
Eibot should draw from his facts ; throughout his in-
teresting book I find the facts which it would seem
should have guided him to the conclusions, and some-
times almost the conclusions themselves, but he never
seems quite to have reached them, nor has he arranged
his facts so that others are likely to deduce them,
unless they had already arrived at them by another
road. I cannot, however, sufficiently express my obli-
gations to M. Ribot.

I cannot refrain from bringing forward a few more
instances of what I think must be considered by every
reader as hereditary memory. Sydney Smith writes : —

* Sir James Hall hatched some chickens in an oven.
Within a few minutes after the shell was broken, a
spider was turned loose before this very youthful
brood; the destroyer of flies had hardly proceeded

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 217

more than a few inches, before he was descried by one
of these oven-born chickens, and, at one peck of his
bill, immediately devoured. This certainly was not
imitation. A female goat very near delivery died;
Galen cut out the young kid, and placed before it a
bundle of hay, a bunch of fruit, and a pan of milk ; the
young kid smelt to them all very attentively, and then
began to lap the milk. This was not imitation. And
what is commonly and rightly called instinct, cannot
be explained away, under the notion of its being imita-
tion " (Lecture xvii. on Moral Philosophy).

It cannot, indeed, be explained away under the notion
of its being imitation, but I think it may well be so
under that of its being memory.

Again, a little further on in the same lecture, as that
above quoted from, we find : —

"Ants and beavers lay up magazines. Where do
they get their knowledge that it will not be so easy to
collect food in rainy weather, as it is in summer ? Men
and women know these things, because their grand-
papas and grandmammas have told them so. Ants
hatched from the egg artificially, or birds hatched in
this manner, have all this knowledge by intuition,
without the smallest communication with any of their
relations. Now observe what the solitary wasp does;
she digs several holes in the sand, in each of which
she deposits an egg, though she certainly knows not (?)
that an animal is deposited in that egg, and still less
that this animal must be nourished with other animals.
She collects a few green flies, rolls them up neatly in
several parcels (like Bologna sausages), and stuffs one

218 LIFE AND HABIT.

parcel into each hole where an egg is deposited. When
the wasp worm is hatched, it finds a store of provision
ready made; and what is most curious, the quantity-
allotted to each is exactly sufficient to support it, till
it attains the period of wasphood, and can provide for
itself. This instinct of the parent wasp is the more
remarkable as it does not feed upon flesh itself. Here
the little creature has never seen its parent ; for by the
time it is born, the parent is always eaten by sparrows ;
and yet, without the slightest education, or previous
experience, it does everything that the parent did before
it. Now the objectors to the doctrine of instinct may
say what they please, but young tailors have no intui-
tive method of making pantaloons ; a new-born mercer
cannot measure diaper ; nature teaches a cook's
daughter nothing about sippets. All these things
require with us seven years' apprenticeship ; but in-
sects are like Moliere's persons of quality — they know
everything (as Moliere says), without having learnt
anything. ■ Les gens de qualite* savent tout, sans avoir
rien appris.' "

How completely all difficulty vanishes from the
\ facts so pleasantly told in this passage when we bear in
-mind the true nature of personal identity, the ordinary
forking of memory, and the vanishing tendency of con-
sciousness concerning what we know exceedingly well.

My last instance I take from M. Eibot, who writes : —
" Gratiolet, in his Anatomie Comparde du Systtme Nerveux,
states that an old piece of wolf's skin, with the hair
all worn away, when1 set before a little dog, threw the
animal into convulsions of fear by the slight scent

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEM OR Y. 219

attaching to it. The dog had never seen a wolf, and
we can only explain this alarm by the hereditary trans-
mission of certain sentiments, coupled with a certain
perception of the sense of smell " (" Heredity," p. 43).

I should prefer to say " we can only explain the alarm
by supposing that the smell of the wolfs skin" — the
sense of smell being, as we all know, more powerful to
recall the ideas that have been associated with it than
any other sense — " brought up the ideas with which it
had been associated in the dog's mind during many
previous existences" — he on smelling the wolfs skin
remembering all about wolves perfectly well.

( 220 )

CHAPTER XII.

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS.

In this chapter I will consider, as briefly as possible,
the strongest argument that I have been able to dis-
cover against the supposition that instinct is chiefly
due to habit. I have said " the strongest argument ; " I
should have said, the only argument that struck me as
offering on the face of it serious difficulties.

Turning, then, to Mr. Darwin's chapter on instinct
("Natural Selection," ed. 1876, p. 205), we find sub-
stantially much the same views as those taken at a later
date by M. Ribot, and referred to in the preceding
chapter. Mr. Darwin writes : —

" An action, which we ourselves require experience
to enable us to perform, when performed by an animal,
more especially a very young one, without experience,
and when performed by many animals in the same
way without their knowing for what purpose it is per-
formed, is usually said to be instinctive."

The above should strictly be, " without their being
conscious of their own knowledge concerning the pur-
pose for which they act as they do ; " and though some
may say that the two phrases come to the same thing,
I think there is an important difference, as what I pro-

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 221

pose distinguishes ignorance from over-familiarity, both
which states are alike unself-conscious, though with
widely different results.

* But I could show," continues Mr. Darwin, " that
none of these characters are universal. A little dose
of judgement or reason, as Pierre Huber expresses it,
often comes into play even with animals low in the
scale of nature.

" Frederick Cuvier and several of the older meta-
physicians have compared instinct with habit."

I would go further and would say, that instinct, in
the great majority of cases, is habit pure and simple,
contracted originally by some one or more individuals ;
practised, probably, in a consciously intelligent manner
during many successive lives, until the habit has ac-
quired the highest perfection which the circumstances
admitted; and, finally, so deeply impressed upon the
memory as to survive that effacement of minor impres-
sions which generally takes place in every fresh life-
wave or generation.

I would say, that unless the identity of offspring
with their parents be so far admitted that the children
be allowed to remember the deeper impressions engraved
on the minds of those who begot them, it is little less
than trifling to talk, as so many writers do, about in-
herited habit, or the experience of the race, or, indeed,
accumulated variations of instincts.

When an instinct is not habit, as resulting from
memory pure and simple, it is habit modified by some
treatment, generally in the youth or embryonic stages of
the individual, which disturbs his memory, and drives

222 LIFE AND HABIT.

him on to some unusual course, inasmuch as he cannot
recognise and remember his usual one by reason of the
change now made in it. Habits and instincts, again,
may be modified by any important change in the con-
dition of the parents, which will then both affect the
parent's sense of his own identity, and also create more
or less fault, or dislocation of memory, in the offspring
immediately behind the memory of his last life.
Change of food may at times be sufficient to create a
specific modification — that is to say, to affect all the
individuals whose food is so changed, in one and the
same way — whether as regards structure or habit. Thus
we see that certain changes in food (and domicile), from
those with which its ancestors have been familiar, will
disturb the memory of a queen bee's egg, and set it at
such disadvantage as to make it make itself into a
neuter bee ; but yet we find that the larva thus partly
aborted may have its memories restored to it, if not
already too much disturbed, and may thus return to its
condition as a queen bee, if it only again be restored to
the food and domicile, which its past memories can
alone remember.

So we see that opium, tobacco, alcohol, hasheesh, and
tea produce certain effects upon our own structure and
instincts. But though capable of modification, and of
specific modification, which may in time become in-
herited, and hence resolve itself into a true instinct or
settled question, yet I maintain that the main bulk of
the instinct (whether as affecting structure or habits of
life) will be derived from memory pure and simple;
the individual growing up in the shape he does, and

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 223

liking to do this or that when he is grown up, simply
from recollection of what he did last time, and of what
on the whole suited him.

For it must be remembered that a drug which should
destroy some one part at an early embryonic stage, and
thus prevent it from development, would prevent the
creature from recognising the surroundings which
affected that part when he was last alive and unmuti-
lated, as being the same as his present surroundings.
He would be puzzled, for he would be viewing the posi-
tion from a different standpoint. If any important
item in a number of associated ideas disappears, the
plot fails; and a great internal change is an exceedingly
important item. Life and things to a creature so treated .
at an early embryonic stage would not be life and things
as he last remembered them ; hence he would not be
able to do the same now as he did then ; that is to say,
he would vary both in structure and instinct; but if
the creature were tolerably uniform to start with, and
were treated in a tolerably uniform way, we might
expect the effect produced to be much the same in all
ordinary cases.

We see, also, that any important change in treatment /
and surroundings, if not sufficient to kill, would and
does tend to produce not only variability but sterility,
as part of the same story and for the same reason —
namely, default of memory; this default will be of
every degree of intensity, from total failure, to a slight
disturbance of memory as affecting some one particular
organ only; that is to say, from total sterility, to a
slight variation in an unimportant part. So that even

224 LIFE AND HABIT.

the slightest conceivable variations should be referred to
changed conditions, external or internal, and to their dis-
turbing effects upon the memory ; and sterility, without
any apparent disease of the reproductive system, may
be referred not so much to special delicacy or suscep-
tibility of the organs of reproduction as to inability on
the part of the creature to know where it is, and to
recognise itself as the same creature which it has been
accustomed to reproduce.

Mr. Darwin thinks that the comparison of habit with
instinct gives " an accurate notion of the frame of mind
under which an instinctive action is performed, but
not," he thinks, " of its origin."

" How unconsciously," Mr. Darwin continues, u many
habitual actions are performed, indeed not rarely in
direct opposition to our conscious will ! Yet they may
be modified by the will or by reason. Habits easily
become associated with other habits, with certain periods
of time and states of body. When once acquired, they
often remain constant throughout life. Several other
points of resemblance between instincts and habits
could be pointed out. As in repeating a well-known
song, so in instincts, one action follows another by a
sort of rhythm. If a person be interrupted in a song
or in repeating anything by rote, he is generally forced
to go back to recover the habitual train of thought;
so P. Huber found it was with a caterpillar, which
makes a very complicated hammock. For if he took
a caterpillar which had completed its hammock up
to, say, the sixth stage of construction, and put it into
a hammock completed up only to the third stage, the

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 225

caterpillar simply re-performed the fourth, fifth, and
sixth stages of construction. If, however, a caterpillar
were taken out of a hammock made up, for instance, to
the third stage, and were put into one finished up to the
sixth stage, so that much of its work was already done
for it, far from deriving any benefit from this, it was
much embarrassed, and in order to complete its ham-
mock, seemed forced to start from the third stage, where
it had left off, and thus tried to complete the already
finished work."

I see I must have unconsciously taken my first
chapter from this passage, but it is immaterial. I owe
Mr. Darwin much more than this. I owe it to him that
I believe in evolution at all. I owe him for almost all
the facts which have led me to differ from him, and
which I feel absolutely safe in taking for granted, if
he has advanced them. Nevertheless, I believe that
the conclusion arrived at in the passage which I will
next quote is a mistaken one, and that not a little
only, but fundamentally. I shall therefore venture to
dispute it.

The passage runs : —

"If we suppose any habitual action to become in-
herited— and it can be shown that this does sometimes
happen — then the resemblance between what originally
was a habit and an instinct becomes so close as not to
be distinguished. . . . But it would be a serious error to
suppose that the greater number of instincts have been
acquired by habit in one generation, and then transmitted
by inheritance to succeeding generations. It can be clearly
shown that the most wonderful instincts with which we

226 LIFE AND HABIT.

are acquainted — namely, those of the hive-bee and of
many ants, could not possibly have been acquired by habit!*
("Origin of Species," p. 206, ed. 1876.) The italics in
this passage are mine.

No difficulty is opposed to my view (as I call it, for
the sake of brevity) by such an instinct as that of ants
to milk aphids. Such instincts may be supposed to
have been acquired in much the same way as the in-
stinct of a farmer to keep a cow. Accidental discovery
of the fact that the excretion was good, with " a little
dose of judgement or reason " from time to time appear-
ing in an exceptionally clever ant, and by him com-
municated to his fellows, till the habit was so confirmed
as to be capable of transmission in full unself-con-
sciousness (if indeed the instinct be unself-conscious in
this case), would, I think, explain this as readily as the
slow and gradual accumulations of instincts which had
never passed through the intelligent and self-conscious
stage, but had always prompted action without any idea
of a why or a wherefore on the part of the creature itself.

For it must be remembered, as I am afraid I have
already perhaps too often said, that even when we have
got a slight variation of instinct, due to some cause
which we know nothing about, but which I will not
even for a moment call "spontaneous" — a word that
should be cut out of every dictionary, or in some way
branded as perhaps the most misleading in the lan-
guage— we cannot see how it comes to be repeated in
successive generations, so as to be capable of being
acted upon by "natural selection" and accumulated, un-
less it be also capable of being remembered by the off-

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 227

spring of the varying creature. It may be answered
that we cannot know anything about this, but that
"like father like son" is an ultimate fact in nature.
I can only answer that I never observe any "like
father like son" without the son's both having had
every opportunity of remembering, and showing every
symptom of having remembered, in which case I decline
to go further than memory (whatever memory may be)
as the cause of the phenomenon.

But besides inheritance, teaching must be admitted
as a means of at any rate modifying an instinct. We
observe this in our own case ; and we know that animals
have great powers of communicating their ideas to one
another, though their manner of doing this is as incom-
prehensible by us as a plant's knowledge of chemistry,
or the manner in which an amceba makes its test, or
a spider its web, without having gone through a long
course of mathematics. I think most readers will allow
that our early training and the theological systems of
the last eighteen hundred years are likely to have made
us involuntarily under-estimate the powers of animals
low in the scale of life, both as regards intelligence
and the power of communicating their ideas to one
another ; but even now we admit that ants have great
powers in this respect.

A habit, however, which is taught to the young 01
each successive generation, by older members of the
community who have themselves received it by instruc-
tion, should surely rank as an inherited habit, and be
considered as due to memory, though personal teaching
be necessary to complete the inheritance.

228 LIFE AND HABIT.

An objection suggests itself that if such a habit as the
flight of birds, which seems to require a little personal
supervision and instruction before it is acquired per-
fectly, were really due to memory, the need of instruc-
tion would after a time cease, inasmuch as the creature
would remember its past method of procedure, and
would thus come to need no more teaching. The
answer lies in the fact, that if a creature gets to depend
upon teaching and personal help for any matter, its
memory will make it look for such help on each repeti-
tion of the action; so we see that no man's memory
will exert itself much until he is thrown upon memory
as his only resource. We may read a page of a book a
hundred times, but we do not remember it by heart
unless we have either cultivated our powers of learning
to repeat, or have taken pains to learn this particular
page.

And whether we read from a book, or whether we
repeat by heart, the repetition is still due to memory ;
only in the one case the memory is exerted to recall
something which one saw only half a second ago, and
in the other, to recall something not seen for a much
longer period. So I imagine an instinct or habit may
be called an inherited habit, and assigned to memory,
even though the memory dates, not from the perform-
ance of the action by the learner when he was actually
part of the personality of the teacher, but rather from
a performance witnessed by, or explained by the
teacher to, the pupil at a period subsequent to birth.
In either case the habit is inherited in the sense of being
acquired in one generation, and transmitted with such

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 229

modifications as genius and experience may have sug-
gested.

Mr. Darwin would probably admit this without hesi-
tation; when, therefore, he says that certain instincts
could not possibly have been acquired by habit, he
must mean that they could not, under the circumstances,
have been remembered by the pupil in the person of
the teacher, and that it would be a serious error to sup-
pose that the greater number of instincts can be thus
remembered. To which I assent readily so far as that
it is difficult (though not impossible) to see how some
of the most wonderful instincts of neuter ants and bees
can be due to the fact that the neuter ant or bee was
ever in part, or in some respects, another neuter ant or
bee in a previous generation. At the same time I main-
tain that this does not militate against the supposition
that both instinct and structure are in the main due to
memory. For the power of receiving any communi-
cation, and acting on it, is due to memory; and the
neuter ant or bee may have received its lesson from
another neuter ant or bee, who had it from another and
modified it ; and so back and back, till the foundation
of the habit is reached, and is found to present little
more than the faintest family likeness to its more com-
plex descendant. Surely Mr. Darwin cannot mean that
it can be shewn that the wonderful instincts of neuter
ants and bees cannot have been acquired either, as above,
by instruction, or by some not immediately obvious form
of inherited transmission, but that they must be due to
the fact that the ant or bee is, as it were, such and such a
machine, of- which if you touch such and such a spring,

230 LIFE AND HABIT.

you will get a corresponding action. If he does, he will
find, so far as I can see, no escape from a position very
similar to the one which I put into the mouth of the
first of the two professors, who dealt with the question
of machinery in my earlier work, " Erewhon," and which
I have since found that my great namesake made fun
of in the following lines : —

" They now begun
To spur their living engines on.
For as whipped tops and bandy'd balls,
The learned hold are animals :
So horses they affirm to be
Mere engines made by geometry,
And were invented first from engines
As Indian Britons were from Penguins."

— Hudibras, Canto ii. line 53, &c.

I can see, then, no difficulty in the development of
the ordinary so-called instincts, whether of ants or bees,
or the cuckoo, or any other animal, on the supposition
that they were, for the most part, intelligently acquired
with more or less labour, as the case may be, in much
the same way as we see any art or science now in pro-
cess of acquisition among ourselves, but were ultimately
remembered by offspring, or communicated to it. When
the limits of the race's capacity had been attained (and
most races seem to have their limits, unsatisfactory
though the expression may very fairly be considered), or
when the creature had got into a condition, so to speak,
of equilibrium with its surroundings, there would be no
new development of instincts, and the old ones would
cease to be improved, inasmuch as there would be no

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 231

more reasoning or difference of opinion concerning
them. The race, therefore, or species would remain
in statu quo till either domesticated, and so brought
into contact with new ideas and placed in changed
conditions, or put under such pressure, in a wild state,
as should force it to further invention, or extinguish it
if incapable of rising to the occasion. That instinct
and structure may be acquired by practice in one or
more generations, and remembered in succeeding ones,
is admitted by Mr. Darwin, for he allows (" Origin of
Species," p. 206) that habitual action does sometimes
become inherited, and, though he does not seem to
conceive of such action as due to memory, yet it is
inconceivable how it is inherited, if not as the result of
memory.

It must be admitted, however, that when we come
to consider the structures as well as the instincts
of some of the neuter insects, our difficulties seem
greatly increased. The neuter hive-bees have a cavity
in their thighs in which to keep the wax, which it is
their business to collect; but the drones and queen,
which alone bear offspring, collect no wax, and there-
fore neither want, nor have, any such cavity. The
neuter bees are also, if I understand rightly, furnished
with a proboscis or trunk for extracting honey from
flowers, whereas the fertile bees, who gather no honey,
have no such proboscis. Imagine, if the reader will,
that the neuter bees differ still more widely from the
fertile ones ; how, then, can they in any sense be said
to derive organs from their parents, which not one of
their parents for millions of generations has ever had ?
Q

232 LIFE AND HABIT.

How, again, can it be supposed that they transmit
these organs to the future neuter members of the com-
munity when they are perfectly sterile ?

One can understand that the young neuter bee might
be taught to make a hexagonal cell (though I have
not found that any one has seen the lesson being given)
inasmuch as it does not make the cell till after birth,
and till after it has seen other neuter bees who might
tell it much in, qua us, a very little time ; but we can
hardly understand its growing a proboscis before it could
possibly want it, or preparing a cavity in its thigh, to
have it ready to put wax into, when none of its pre-
decessors had ever done so, by supposing oral com-
munication, during the larvahood. Nevertheless, it
must not be forgotten that bees seem to know secrets
about reproduction, which utterly baffle ourselves; for
example, the queen bee appears to know how to
deposit male or female eggs at will ; and this is a
matter of almost inconceivable sociological import-
ance, denoting a corresponding amount of sociological
and physiological knowledge generally. It should
not, then, surprise us if the race should possess other
secrets, whose working we are unable to follow, or even
detect at all.

Sydney Smith, indeed, writes : —

" The warmest admirers of honey, and the greatest
friends to bees, will never, I presume, contend that the
young swarm, who begin making honey three or four
months after they are born, and immediately construct
these mathematical cells, should have gained their
geometrical knowledge as we gain ours, and in three

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 233

months' time outstrip Mr. Maclaurin in mathematics
as much as they did in making honey. It would take
a senior wrangler at Cambridge ten hours a day for
three years together to know enough mathematics for the
calculation of these problems, with which not only every
queen bee, but every undergraduate grub, is acquainted
the moment it is born." This last statement may be a
little too strong, but it will at once occur to the reader,
that as we know the bees do surpass Mr. Maclaurin in
the power of making honey, they may also surpass him
in capacity for those branches of mathematics with
which it has been their business to be conversant during
many millions of years, and also in knowledge of phy-
siology and psychology in so far as the knowledge bears
upon the interests of their own community.

We know that the larva which develops into a
neuter bee, and that again which in time becomes a
queen bee, are the same kind of larva to start with ;
and that if you give one of these larvse the food and
treatment which all its foremothers have been accus-
tomed to, it will turn out with all the structure and
instincts of its foremothers — and that it only fails to
do this because it has been fed, and otherwise treated,
in such a manner as not one of its foremothers was
ever yet fed or treated. So far, this is exactly what we
should expect, on the view that structure and instinct j
are alike mainly due to memory, or to medicined I
memory. Give the larva a fair chance of knowing
where it is, and it shows that it remembers by doing
exactly what it did before. Give it a different kind of
food and house, and it cannot be expected to be any-

234 LIFE AND HABIT.

thing else than puzzled. It remembers a great deal.
It comes out a bee, and nothing but a bee ; but it is an
aborted bee ; it is, in fact, mutilated before birth instead
of after — with instinct, as well as growth, correlated to
its abortion, as we see happens frequently in the case
of animals a good deal higher than bees that have been
mutilated at a stage much later than that at winch the
abortion of neuter bees commences.

The larvae being similar to start with, and being simi-
larly mutilated — i.e., by change of food and dwelling,
will naturally exhibit much similarity of instinct and
structure on arriving at maturity. When driven from
their usual course, they must take serine new course or
die. There is nothing strange in the fact that similar
beings puzzled similarly should take a similar line of
action. I grant, however, that it is hard to see how
change of food and treatment can puzzle an insect into
such " complex growth " as that it should make a cavity
in its thigh, grow an invaluable proboscis, and betray
a practical knowledge of difficult mathematical pro-
blems.

But it must be remembered that the memory of
having been queen bees and drones — which is all that
according to my supposition the larvae can remember,
(on a first view of the case), in their own proper per-
sons— would nevertheless carry with it a potential
recollection of all the social arrangements of the hive.
They would thus potentially remember that the mass
of the bees were always neuter bees ; they would re*
member potentially the habits of these bees, so far as
drones and queens know anything about them ; and this

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 235

may be supposed to be a very thorough acquaintance ;
in like manner, and with the same limitation, they
would know from the very moment that they left the
queen's body that neuter bees had a proboscis to gather
honey with, and cavities in their thighs to put wax into,
and that cells were to be made with certain angles —
for surely it is not crediting the queen with more
knowledge than she is likely to possess, if we suppose
her to have a fair acquaintance with the phenomena of
wax and cells generally, even though she does not make
any ; they would know (while still larvae — and earlier)
the kind of cells into which neuter bees were commonly
put, and the kind of treatment they commonly received
—they might therefore, as eggs — immediately on find-
ing their recollection driven from its usual course, so
that they must either find some other course, or die —
know that they were being treated as neuter bees are
treated, and that they were expected to develop into
neuter bees accordingly ; they might know all this, and
a great deal more into the bargain, inasmuch as even
before being actually deposited as eggs they would
know and remember potentially, but unconsciously, all
that their parents knew and remembered intensely. Is
it, then, astonishing that they should adapt themselves
so readily to the position which they know it is for the
social welfare of the community, and hence of them-
selves, that they should occupy, and that they should
know that they will want a cavity in their thighs and
a proboscis, and hence make such implements out of
their protoplasm as readily as they make their
wings ?

236 LIFE AND HABIT.

I admit that, under normal treatment, none of the
above-mentioned potential memories would be kindled
into such a state of activity that action would follow
upon them, until the creature had attained a more or
less similar condition to that in which its parent was
when these memories were active within its mind : but
the essence of the matter is, that these larvae have been
treated abnormally, so that if they do not die, there is
nothing for it but that they must vary. One cannot
argue from the normal to the abnormal. It would not,
then, be strange if the potential memories should (owing
to the margin for premature or tardy development which
association admits) serve to give the puzzled larvae a
hint as to the course which they had better take, or that,
at any rate, it should greatly supplement the instruction
of the " nurse " bees themselves by rendering the larvae
so, as it were, inflammable on this point, that a spark
should set them in a blaze. Abortion is generally pre-
mature. Thus the scars referred to in the last chapter
as having appeared on the children of men who had
been correspondingly wounded, should not, under normal
circumstances, have appeared in the offspring till the
children had got fairly near the same condition gener-
ally as that in which their fathers were when they were
wounded, and even then, normally, there should have
been an instrument to wound them, much as their
fathers had been wounded. Association, however, does
not always stick to the letter of its bond.

The line, again, might certainly be taken that the
difference in structure and instincts between neuter and
fertile bees is due to the specific effects of certain food

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 237

and treatment ; yet, though one would be sorry to set
limits to the convertibility of food and genius, it seems
hard to believe that there can be any untutored food
which should teach a bee to make a hexagonal cell as
soon as it was born, or which, before it was born, should
teach it to prepare such structures as it would require
in after life. If, then, food be considered as a direct
agent in causing the structures and instinct, and not an
indirect agent, merely indicating to the larva itself
that it is to make itself after the fashion of neuter
bees, then we should bear in mind that, at any rate, it
has been leavened and prepared in the stomachs of
those neuter bees into which the larva is now expected
to develop itself, and may thus have in it more true
germinative matter — gemmules, in fact — than is com-
monly supposed. Food, when sufficiently assimilated
(the whole question turning upon what is " sufficiently"),
becomes stored with all the experience and memories
of the assimilating creature; corn becomes hen, and
knows nothing but hen, when hen has eaten it. We
know also that the neuter working-bees inject matter
into the cell after the larva has been produced; nor
would it seem harsh to suppose that though devoid of
a reproductive system like that of their parents, they
may yet be practically not so neuter as is commonly
believed. One cannot say what gemmules of thigh and
proboscis may not have got into the neutral bees'
stomachs, if they assimilate their food sufficiently, and
thus into the larva.

Mr. Darwin will be the first to admit that though a
creature have no reproductive system, in any ordinary

238 LIFE AND HABIT.

sense of the word, yet every unit or cell of its body
may throw off gemmules which may be free to move
over every part of the whole organism, and which
" natural selection " might in time cause to stray into
food which had been sufficiently prepared in the
stomachs of the neuter bees.

I cannot say, then, precisely in what way, but I can
see no reason for doubting that in some of the ways
suggested above, or in some combination of them, the
phenomena of the instincts of neuter ants and bees
can be brought into the same category as the instincts
and structure of fertile animals. At any rate, I see the
great fact that when treated as they have been accus-
tomed to be treated, these neuters act as though they
remembered, and accordingly become queen bees ; and
that they only depart from their ancestral course on
being treated in such fashion as their ancestors can
never have remembered; also, that when they have
been thrown off their accustomed line of thought and
action, they only take that of their nurses, who have
been about them from the moment of their being
deposited as eggs by the queen bee, who have fed them
from their own bodies, and between whom and them
there may have been all manner of physical and mental
communication, of which we know no more than we do
of the power which enables a bee to find its way home
after infinite shifting and turning among flowers, which
no human powers could systematise so as to avoid con-
fusion.

Or take it thus : We know that mutilation at an early
age produces an effect upon the structure and instincts

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 239

of cattle, sheep, and horses ; and it might be presumed
that if feasible at an earlier age, it would produce a
still more marked effect. We observe that the effect
produced is uniform, or nearly so. Suppose mutilation
to produce a little more effect than it does, as we might
easily do, if cattle, sheep, and horses had been for ages
accustomed to a mutilated class living among them,
which class had been always a caste apart, and had fed
the young neuters from their own bodies, from an early
embryonic stage onwards ; would any one in this case
dream of advancing the structure and instincts of this
mutilated class against the doctrine that instinct is
inherited habit ? Or, if inclined to do this, would he
not at once refrain, on remembering that the process
of mutilation might be arrested, and the embryo be
developed into an entire animal by simply treating it
in the way to which all its ancestors had been accus-
tomed? Surely he would not allow the difficulty
(which I must admit in some measure to remain) to
outweigh the evidence derivable from these very neuter
Insects themselves, as well as from such a vast number
of other sources — all pointing in the direction of instinct
as inherited habit.1

Lastly, it must be remembered that the instinct to
make cells and honey is one which has no very great
hold upon its possessors. Bees can make cells and
honey, nor do they seem to have any very violent
objection to doing so ; but it is quite clear that there is
nothing in their structure and instincts which urges
them on to do these things for the mere love of doing
them, as a hen is urged to sit upon a chalk stone, con-

1 See Appendix.

240 LIFE AND HABIT.

cerning which she probably is at heart utterly sceptical,
rather than not sit at all. There is no honey and cell-
making instinct so strong as the instinct to eat, if they
are hungry, or to grow wings, and make themselves
into bees at all. Like ourselves, so long as they can
get plenty to eat and drink, they will do no work.
Under these circumstances, not one drop of honey nor
one particle of wax will they collect, except, I presume,
to make cells for the rearing of their young.

Sydney Smith writes : —

" The most curious instance of a change of instinct is
recorded by Darwin. The bees carried over to Barba-
does and the Western Isles ceased to lay up any honey
after the first year, as they found it not useful to them.
They found the weather so fine, and materials for
making honey so plentiful, that they quitted their-
grave, prudent, and mercantile, character, became
exceedingly profligate and debauched, ate up their
capital, resolved to work no more, and amused them-
selves by flying about the sugar-houses and stinging
the blacks" (Lecture XVII. on Moral Philosophy).
The ease, then, with which the honey-gathering and
cell-making habits are relinquished, would seem to point
strongly in the direction of their acquisition at a com-
paratively late period of development.

I have dealt with bees only, and not with ants, which
would perhaps seem to present greater difficulty, inas-
much as in some families of these there are two, or even
three, castes of neuters with well-marked and wide dif-
ferences of structure and instinct ; but I think the reader
will agree with me that the ants are sufficiently covered

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 241

by the bees, and that enough, therefore, has been said
already. Mr. Darwin supposes that these modifications
of structure and instinct have been effected by the accu-
mulation of numerous slight, profitable, spontaneous
variations on the part of the fertile parents, which has
caused them (so, at least, I understand him) to lay this
or that particular kind of egg, which should develop into
a kind of bee or ant, with this or that particular instinct,
which instinct is merely a co-ordination with structure,
and in no way attributable to use or habit in preceding
generations.

Even so, one cannot see that the habit of laying this
particular kind of egg might not be due to use and
memory in previous generations on the part of the
fertile parents, " for the numerous slight spontaneous
variations," on which "natural selection" is to work,
must have had some cause than which none more
reasonable than sense of need and experience presents
itself; and there seems hardly any limit to what long-
continued faith and desire, aided by intelligence, may
be able to effect. But if sense of need and experience
are denied, I see no escape from the view that machines
are new species of life.

Mr. Darwin concludes : " I am surprised that no one
has hitherto advanced this demonstrative case of neuter
insects against the well-knowTn doctrine of inherited
habit as advanced by Lamarck " (" Natural Selection,"
p. 233, ed. 1876).

After reading this, one feels as though there was no
more to be said. The well-known doctrine of inherited
habit, as advanced by Lamarck, has indeed been long

242 LIFE AND HABIT.

since so thoroughly exploded, that it is not worth while
to go into an explanation of what it was, or to refute it in
detail. Here, however, is an argument against it, which
is so much better than anything advanced yet, that one
is surprised it has never been made use of; so we will
just advance it, as it were, to slay the slain, and pass on.
Such, at least, is the effect which the paragraph above
quoted produced upon myself, and would, I think, pro-
duce on the great majority of readers. When driven
by the exigencies of my own position to examine the
value of the demonstration more closely, I conclude,
either that I have utterly failed to grasp Mr. Darwin's
meaning, or that I have no less completely mistaken
the value and bearing of the facts I have myself
advanced in these few last pages. Failing this, my
surprise is, not that "no one has hitherto advanced"
the instincts of neuter insects as a demonstrative case
against the doctrine of inherited habit, but rather that
Mr. Darwin should have thought the case demonstra-
tive ; or again, when I remember that the neuter work-
ing bee is only an aborted queen, and may be turned
back again into a queen, by giving it such treatment
as it can alone be expected to remember — then I am
surprised that the structure and instincts of neuter
bees has never (if never) been brought forward in sup-
port of the doctrine of inherited habit as advanced by
Lamarck, and against any theory which would rob such
instincts of their foundation in intelligence, and of their
connection with experience and memory.

As for the instinct to mutilate, that is as easily ac-
counted for as any other inherited habit, whether of

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 243

man to mutilate cattle, or of ants to make slaves, or of
birds to make their nests. I can see no way of accounting
for the existence of any one of these instincts, except on
the supposition that they have arisen gradually, through
perceptions of power and need on the part of the animal
which exhibits them — these two perceptions advancing
hand in hand from generation to generation, and being
accumulated in time and in the common course of
nature.

I have already sufficiently guarded against being sup-
posed to maintain that very long before an instinct or
structure was developed, the creature descried it in the
far future, and made towards it. We do not observe
this to be the manner of human progress. Our mechani-
cal inventions, which, as I ventured to say in "Erewhon,"
through the mouth of the second professor, are really
nothing but extra-corporaneous limbs — a wooden leg
being nothing but a bad kind of flesh leg, and a flesh
leg being only a much better kind of wooden leg
than any creature could be expected to manufacture
introspectively and consciously — our mechanical in-
ventions have almost invariably grown up from small
beginnings, and without any very distant foresight on
the part of the inventors. When Watt perfected the
steam engine, he did not, it seems, foresee the locomo-
tive, much less would any one expect a savage to invent
a steam engine. A child breathes automatically, be-
cause it has learnt to breathe little by little, and has now
breathed for an incalculable length of time ; but it can-
not open oysters at all, nor even conceive the idea of
opening oysters for two or three years after it is born,

244 LIFE AND HABIT.

for the simple reason that this lesson is one which it is
only beginning to learn. All I maintain is, that, give a
child as many generations of practice in opening oysters
as it has had in breathing or sucking, and it would on
being born, turn to the oyster-knife no less naturally
than to the breast. We observe that among certain
families of men there has been a tendency to vary in
the direction of the use and development of machinery ;
and that in a certain still smaller number of families,
there seems to be an almost infinitely great capacity for
varying and inventing still further, whether socially or
mechanically; while other families, and perhaps the
greater number, reach a certain point and stop ; but we
also observe that not even the most inventive races ever
see very far ahead. I suppose the progress of plants
and animals to be exactly analogous to this.

Mr. Darwin has always maintained that the effects of
use and disuse are highly important in the develop-
ment of structure, and if, as he has said, habits are
sometimes inherited — then they should sometimes be
important also in the development of instinct, or habit.
But what does the development of an instinct or struc-
ture, or, indeed, any effect upon the organism produced
by " use and disuse," imply ? It implies an effect pro-
duced by a desire to do something for which the
; organism was not originally well adapted or sufficient,
but for which it has come to be sufficient in conse-
quence of the desire. The wish has been father to the
power; but this again opens up the whole theory of
Lamarck, that the development of organs has been due
to the wants or desires of the animal in which the

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 245

organ appears. So far as I can see, I am insisting on
little more than this.

Once grant that a blacksmith's arm grows thicker
through hammering iron, and you have an organ modified
in accordance with a need or wish. Let the desire and
the practice be remembered, and go on for long enough,
and the slight alterations of the organ will be accumu-
lated, until they are checked either by the creature's
having got all that he cares about making serious further
effort to obtain, or until his wants prove inconvenient
to other creatures that are stronger than he, and he is
hence brought to a standstill. Use and disuse, then, with
me, and, as I gather also, with Lamarck, are the keys to
the position, coupled, of course, with continued person-
ality and memory. No sudden and striking changes
would be effected, except that occasionally a blunder
might prove a happy accident, as happens not unfre-
quently with painters, musicians, chemists, and in-
ventors at the present day; or sometimes a creature,
with exceptional powers of memory or reflection, would
make his appearance in this race or in that. We all
profit by our accidents as well as by our more cunning
contrivances, so that analogy would point in the direc-
tion of thinking that many of the most happy thoughts
in the animal and vegetable kingdom were originated
much as certain discoveries that have been made by
accident among ourselves. These would be originally
blind variations, though even so, probably less blind
than we think, if we could know the whole truth.
When originated, they would be eagerly taken advan-
tage of and improved upon by the animal in whom they

246 LIFE AND HABIT.

appeared; but it cannot be supposed that they would be
very far in advance of the last step gained, more than are
those " flukes " which sometimes enable us to go so far
beyond our own ordinary powers. For if they were, the
animal would despair of repeating them. No creature
hopes, or even wishes, for very much more than he has
been accustomed to all his life, he and his family, and
the others whom he can understand, around him. It has
been well said that " enough " is always " a little more
than one has." We do not try for things which we believe
to be beyond our reach, hence one would expect that the
fortunes, as it were, of animals should have been built
up gradually. Our own riches grow with our desires
and the pains we take in pursuit of them, and our
desires vary and increase with our means of gratifying
them; but unless with men of exceptional business
aptitude, wealth grows gradually by the adding field to
field and farm to farm ; so with the limbs and instincts
of animals ; these are but the things they have made
or bought with their money, or with money that has
been left them by their forefathers, which, though it is
neither silver nor gold, but faith and protoplasm only,
is good money and capital notwithstanding.

I have already admitted that instinct may be modi-
fied by food or drugs, which may affect a structure or
habit as powerfully as we see certain poisons affect the
structure of plants by producing, as Mr. Darwin tells
us, very complex galls upon their leaves. I do not,
therefore, for a moment insist on habit as the sole cause
of instinct. Every habit must have had its originating
cause, and the causes which have started one habit will

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 247

from time to time start or modify others; nor can I
explain why some individuals of a race should be
cleverer than others, any more than I can explain why
they should exist at all ; nevertheless, I observe it to be
a fact that differences in intelligence and power of
growth are universal in the individuals of all those
races which we can best watch. I also most readily
admit that the common course of nature would both i\
cause many variations to arise independently of any \ ;
desire on the part of the animal (much as we have ' x
lately seen that the moons of Mars were on the point
of being discovered three hundred years ago, merely
through Galileo sending to Kepler a Latin anagram
which Kepler could not understand, and arranged into
the line — " Salve umhistinewm geminatum Martia pro-
lem" and interpreted to mean that Mars had two moons,
whereas Galileo had meant to say "Altissimum planetam
tevgcminum observavi" meaning that he had seen Saturn's
ring), and would also preserve and accumulate such
variations when they had arisen ; but I can no more
believe that the wonderful adaptation of structures to
needs, which we see around us in such an infinite
number of plants and animals, can have arisen without \\
a perception of those needs on the part of the creature
in whom the structure appears, than I can believe that
the form of the dray-horse or greyhound — so well
adapted both to the needs of the animal in his daily
service to man, and to the desires of man, that the
creature should do him this daily service — can have
arisen without any desire on man's part to produce this
particular structure, or without the inherited habit of

248 LIFE AND HABIT.

performing the corresponding actions for man, on the
part of the greyhound and dray-horse.

And I believe that this will be felt as reasonable by
the great majority of my readers. I believe that nine
fairly intelligent and observant men out of ten, if they
were asked which they thought most likely to have
been the main cause of the development of the various
phases either of structure or instinct ^rhich we see
around us, namely — sense of need, or even whim, and
hence occasional discovery, helped by an occasional
piece of good luck, communicated, it may be, and gene-
rally adopted, long practised, remembered by offspring,
modified by changed surroundings, and accumulated in
the course of time — or, the accumulation of small
divergent, indefinite, and perfectly unintelligent varia-
tions, preserved through the survival of their possessor in
the struggle for existence, and hence in time leading to
wide differences from the original type — would answer
in favour of the former alternative ; and if for no other
cause yet for this — that in the human race, which we
are best able to watch, and between which and the
lower animals no difference in kind will, I think, be sup-
posed, but only in degree, we observe that progress must
I have an internal current setting in a definite direction,
but whither we know not for very long beforehand;
and that without such internal current there is stagna-
tion. Our own progress — or variation — is due not to
small, fortuitous inventions or modifications which have
enabled their fortunate possessors to survive in times
of difficulty, not, in fact, to strokes of luck (though
these, of course, have had some effect — but not more,

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 249

probably, than strokes of ill luck have counteracted)
but to strokes of cunning — to a sense of need, and to
study of the past and present which have given shrewd
people a key with which to unlock the chambers of
the future.

Further, Mr. Darwin himself says ("Plants and
Animals under Domestication," ii. p. 237, ed. 1875) : —

"But I think we must take a broader view and
conclude that organic beings when subjected during
several generations to any change whatever in their
conditions tend to vary : the kind of variation which
ensues depending in most cases in afar higher degree on
the nature or constitution of the being, than on the nature
of the changed conditions!* And this we observe in man.
The history of a man prior to his birth is more im-
portant as far as his success or failure goes than his
surroundings after birth, important though these may
indeed be. The able man rises in spite of a thousand j
hindrances, the fool fails in spite of every advantage. I
1 Natural selection," however, does not make either the I
able man or the fool. It only deals with him after I
other causes have made him, and would seem in the I
end to amount to little more than to a statement of the
fact that when variations have arisen they will accumu-r
late. One cannot look, as has already been said, for
the origin of species in that part of the course of nature
which settles the preservation or extinction of variations j
which have already arisen from some unknown cause, I
but one must look for it in the causes that have
led to variation at all. These causes must get, as it
were, behind the back of " natural selection," which is

250 LIFE AND HABIT.

rather a shield and hindrance to our perception of our
own ignorance than an explanation of what these causes
are.

The remarks made above will apply equally to plants
such as the misletoe and red clover. For the sake of
brevity I will deal only with the misletoe, which seems
to be the more striking case. Mr. Darwin writes : —

" Naturalists continually refer to external conditions,
such as climate, food, &c, as the only possible cause of
variation. In one limited sense, as we shall hereafter
see, this may be true ; but it is preposterous to attribute
to mere external conditions, the structure, for instance,
of the woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak, and tongue,
so admirably adapted to catch insects under the bark of
trees. In the case of the misletoe, which draws its
nourishment from certain trees, which has seeds that
must be transported by certain birds, and which has
flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the
agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one
flower to another, it is equally preposterous to account
for the structure of this parasite with its relations to
several distinct organic beings, by the effect of external
conditions, or of habit, or of the volition of the plant
itself" ("Natural Selection," p. 3, ed. 1876).

I cannot see this. To me it seems still more prepos-
terous to account for it by the action of " natural selec-
tion" operating upon indefinite variations. It would
be preposterous to suppose that a bird very different
from a woodpecker should have had a conception of a
woodpecker, and so by volition gradually grown towards
it. So in like manner with the misletoe. Neither plant

INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 251

nor bird knew how far they were going, or saw more than
a very little ahead as to the means of remedying this or
that with which they were dissatisfied, or of getting
this or that which they desired ; but given perceptions
at all, and thus a sense of needs and of the gratification
of those needs, and thus hope and fear, and a sense of
content and discontent — given also the lowest power of
gratifying those needs — given also that some individuals L
have these powers in a higher degree than others — given
also continued personality and memory over a vast
extent of time — and the whole phenomena of species
and genera resolve themselves into an illustration of the
old proverb, that what is one man's meat is another
man's poison. Life in its lowest form under the above
conditions — and we cannot conceive of life at all without
them — would be bound to vary, and to result after
not so very many millions of years in the infinite forms
and instincts which we see around us.

( 252)

CHAPTER XIII.

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN.

It will have been seen that in the preceding pages
the theory of evolution, as originally propounded by
Lamarck, has been more than once supported, as against
the later theory concerning it put forward by Mr. Dar-
win, and now generally accepted.

It is not possible for me, within the limits at my
command, to do anything like justice to the argu-
ments that may be brought forward in favour of either
of these two theories. Mr. Darwin's books are at the
command of every one; and so much has been dis-
covered since Lamarck's day, that if he were living
now, he would probably state his case very differently ;
I shall therefore content myself with a few brief re-
marks, which will hardly, however, aspire to the dignity
of argument.

According to Mr. Darwin, differentiations of struc-
ture and instinct have mainly come about through the
accumulation of small, fortuitous variations without
intelligence or desire upon the part of the creature
varying; modification, however, through desire and
sense of need, is not denied entirely, inasmuch as con-

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 253

siderable effect is ascribed by Mr. Darwin to use and
disuse, which involves, as has been already said, the
modification of a structure in accordance with the
wishes of its possessor.

According to Lamarck, genera and species have been
evolved, in the main, by exactly the same process as
that by which human inventions and civilisations are
now progressing; and this involves that intelligence,
ingenuity, heroism, and all the elements of romance,
should have had the main share in the development
of every herb and living creature around us.

I take the following brief outline of the most im-
portant part of Lamarck's theory from vol. xxxvi. of the
Naturalist's Library (Edinburgh, 1843) : —

"The more simple bodies," says the editor, giving
Lamarck's opinion without endorsing it, " are easily
formed, and this being the case, it is easy to conceive
how in the lapse of time animals of a more complex
structure should be produced, for it must be admitted as
a fundamental law, that the production of anew organ in
an animal body results from any new want or desire it
may experience. The first effort of a being just begin-
ning to develop itself must be to procure subsistence,
and hence in time there comes to be produced a
stomach or alimentary cavity." (Thus we saw that the
amoeba is in the habit of " extemporising " a stomach
when it wants one.) " Other wants occasioned by
circumstances will lead to other efforts, which in their
turn will generate new organs."

Lamarck's wonderful conception was hampered by
an unnecessary adjunct, namely, a belief in an inherent

254 £/^£ AND HABIT.

tendency towards progressive development in every
low organism. He was thus driven to account for the
presence of many very low and very ancient organisms
at the present day, and fell back upon the theory, which
is not yet supported by evidence, that such low forms
are still continually coming into existence from inorganic
matter. But there seems no necessity to suppose that
all low forms should possess an inherent tendency
towards progression. It would be enough that there
should occasionally arise somewhat more gifted speci-
mens of one or more original forms. These wTould
vary, and the ball .would be thus set rolling, while
the less gifted would remain in statu quo, provided
they were sufficiently gifted to escape extinction.

Nor do I gather that Lamarck insisted on continued
personality and memory so as to account for heredity at
all, and so as to see life as a single, or as at any rate,
only a few, vast compound animals, but without the
connecting organism between each component item in
the whole creature, which is found in animals that are
strictly called compound. Until continued personality
and memory are connected with the idea of heredity,
heredity of any kind is little more than a term for some-
thing which one does not understand. But there seems
little & priori difficulty as regards Lamarck's main idea,
now that Mr. Darwin has familiarised us with evolu-
tion, and made us feel what a vast array of facts can
be brought forward in support of it.

Mr. Darwin tells us, in the preface to his last edition
of the " Origin of Species," that Lamarck wTas partly
led to his conclusions by the analogy of domestic pro-

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 255

ductions. It is rather hard to say what these words
imply; they may mean anything from a baby to an
apple dumpling, but if they imply that Lamarck drew
inspirations from the gradual development of the
mechanical inventions of man, and from the progress
of man's ideas, I would say that of all sources this
would seem to be the safest and most fertile from
which to draw.

Plants and animals under domestication are indeed
a suggestive field for study, but machines are the
manner in which man is varying at this moment. We
know how our own minds work, and how our mechani-
cal organisations — for, in all sober seriousness, this is
what it comes to — have progressed hand in hand with
our desires; sometimes the power a little ahead, and
sometimes the desire; sometimes both combining to
form an organ with almost infinite capacity for varia-
tion, and sometimes comparatively early reaching the
limit of utmost development in respect of any new
conception, and accordingly coming to a full stop ;
sometimes making leaps and bounds, and sometimes
advancing sluggishly. Here we are behind the scenes,
and can see how the whole thing works. We have
man, the very animal which we can best understand,
caught in the very act of variation, through his own
needs, and not through the needs of others ; the whole
process is a natural one ; the varying of a creature as
much in a wild state as the ants and butterflies are
wild. There is less occasion here for the continual
" might be " and " may be," which we are compelled to
put up with when dealing with plants and animals, of the

256 LIFE AND HABIT.

workings of whose minds we can only obscurely judge.
Also, there is more prospect of pecuniary profit attaching
to the careful study of machinery than can be generally
hoped for from the study of the lower animals ; and
though I admit that this consideration should not be
carried too far, a great deal of very unnecessary suffer-
ing will be spared to the lower animals ; for much that
passes for natural history is little better than prying
into other people's business, from no other motive than
curiosity. I would, therefore, strongly advise the
reader to use man, and the present races of man, and
the growing inventions and conceptions of man, as his
guide, if he would seek to form an independent judge-
ment on the development of organic life. For all
growth is only somebody making something.

Lamarck's theories fell into disrepute, partly because
they were too startling to be capable of ready fusion
with existing ideas ; they were, in fact, too wide a cross
for fertility ; partly because they fell upon evil times,
during the reaction that followed the French Eevolu-
tion ; partly because, unless I am mistaken, he did not
sufficiently link on the experience of the race to that
of the individual, nor perceive the importance of the
principle that consciousness, memory, volition, intelli-
gence, &c, vanish, or become latent, on becoming
intense. He also appears to have mixed up matter
with his system, which was either plainly wrong, or so
incapable of proof as to enable people to laugh at him,
and pooh-pooh him ; but I believe it will come to be
perceived, that he has received somewhat scant justice
at the hands of his successors, and that his "crude

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN," 257

theories," as they have been somewhat cheaply called,
are far from having had their last say.

Keturning to Mr. Darwin, we find, as we have already
seen, that it is hard to say exactly how much Mr. Darwin
differs from Lamarck, and how much he agrees with him.
Mr. Darwin has always maintained that use and disuse
are highly important, and this implies that the effect
produced on the parent should be remembered by the
offspring, in the same way as the memory of a wound
is transmitted by one set of cells to succeeding ones,
who long repeat the scar, though it may fade finally
away. Also, after dealing with the manner in which
one eye of a young flat-fish travels round the head till
both eyes are on the same side of the fish, he gives
(" Natural Selection," p. 188, ed. 1875) an instance of a
structure " which apparently owes its origin exclusively
to use or habit." He refers to the tail of some American
monkeys "which has been converted into a wonder-
fully perfect prehensile organ, and serves as a fifth
hand. A reviewer," he continues, .... "remarks
on this structure — ' It is impossible to believe that in
any number of ages the first slight incipient tendency
to grasp, could preserve the lives of the individuals pos-
sessing it, or favour their chance of having and of rearing
offspring.' But there is no necessity for any such belief.
Habit, and this almost implies that some benefit, great
or small, is thus derived, would in all probability suffice
for the work." If, then, habit can do this — and it is no
small thing to develop a wonderfully perfect prehensile
organ which can serve as a fifth hand — how much more
may not habit do, even though unaided, as Mr. Darwin

258 LIFE AND HABIT.

supposes to have been the case in this instance, by
"natural selection"? After attributing many of the
structural and instinctive differences of plants and
animals to the effects of use — as we may plainly do
with Mr. Darwin's own consent — after attributing a
good deal more to unknown causes, and a good deal
to changed conditions, which are bound, if at all im-
portant, to result either in sterility or variation — how
much of the work of originating species is left for
natural selection ? — which, as Mr. Darwin admits
("Natural Selection," p. 63, ed. 1876), does not induce
variability, but * implies only the preservation of such
variations as arise, and are beneficial to the being under
its conditions of life?" An important part assuredly,
and one which we can never sufficiently thank Mr.
Darwin for having put so forcibly before us, but an
indirect part only, like the part played by time and
space, and not, I think, the one which Mr. Darwin
would assign to it.

Mr. Darwin himself has admitted that in the
earlier editions of his " Origin of Species " he " under-
rated, as it now seems probable, the frequency and
importance of modifications due to spontaneous vari-
ability." And this involves the having over-rated the
action of * natural selection " as an agent in the evolution
of species. But one gathers that he still believes the
accumulation of small and fortuitous variations through
the agency of " natural selection " to be the main cause
of the present divergencies of structure and instinct. I
do not, however, think that Mr. Darwin is clear about
his own meaning. I think the prominence given to

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 259

• natural selection " in connection with the " origin of
species " has led him, in spite of himself, and in spite
of his being on his guard (as is clearly shown by the
paragraph on page 63 "Natural Selection," above re-
ferred to), to regard "natural selection" as in some
way accounting for variation, just as the use of the
dangerous word " spontaneous," — though he is so often
on his guard against it, and so frequently prefaces it
with the words " so-called," — would seem to have led
him into very serious confusion of thought in the pas-
sage quoted at the beginning of this paragraph.

For after saying that he had under-rated " the fre-
quency and importance of modifications due to spon-
taneous variability," he continues, " but it is impossible
to attribute to this cause the innumerable structures
which are so well adapted to the habits of life of each
species." That is to say, it is impossible to attribute
these innumerable structures to spontaneous variability.

What is spontaneous variability ?

Clearly, from his preceding paragraph, Mr. Darwin
means only "so-called spontaneous variations," such as
" the appearance of a moss-rose on a common rose, or
of a nectarine on a peach-tree," which he gives as good
examples of so-called spontaneous variation.

And these variations are, after all, due to causes, but
to unknown causes; spontaneous variation being, in
fact, but another name for variation due to causes
which we know nothing about, but in no possible sense
a cause of variation. So that when we come to put
clearly before our minds exactly what the sentence we
are considering amounts to, it comes to this : that it is

26o LIFE AND HABIT.

impossible to attribute the innumerable structures which
are so well adapted to the habits of life of each species
to unknown causes.

" I can no more believe in this" continues Mr. Dar-
win, " than that the well-adapted form of a race-horse
or greyhound, which, before the principle of selection
by man was well understood, excited so much surprise
in the minds of the older naturalists, can thus be ex-
plained" ("Natural Selection," p. 171, ed. 1876).

Or, in other words, " I can no more believe that the
well- adapted structures of species are due to unknown
causes, than I can believe that the well-adapted form
of a race-horse can be explained by being attributed to
unknown causes."

I have puzzled over this paragraph for several hours
with the sincerest desire to get at the precise idea which
underlies it, but the more I have, studied it the more
convinced I am that it does not contain, or at any rate
convey, any clear or definite idea at all. If I thought
it was a mere slip, I should not call attention to it ; this
book will probably have slips enough of its own with-
out introducing those of a great man unnecessarily ; but
I I submit that it is necessary to call attention to it here,
inasmuch as it is impossible to believe that after years
of reflection upon his subject, Mr. Darwin should have
written as above, especially in such a place, if his mind
was really clear about his own position. Immediately
after the admission of a certain amount of miscalcula-
tion, there comes a more or less exculpatory sentence
which sounds so right that ninety-nine people out of a
hundred would walk through it, unless led by some

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 261

exigency of their own position to examine it closely
but which yet upon examination proves to be as nearly
meaningless as a sentence can be.

The weak point in Mr. Darwin's theory would seemi
to be a deficiency, so to speak, of motive power to origi-l
nate and direct the variations which time is to accumu- 1
late. It deals admirably with the accumulation of
variations in creatures already varying, but it does not
provide a sufficient number of sufficiently important
variations to be accumulated. Given the motive power I
which Lamarck suggested, and Mr. Darwin's mechan-
ism would appear (with the help of memory, as bearing
upon reproduction, of continued personality, and hence
of inherited habit, and of the vanishing tendency of con-
sciousness) to work with perfect ease. Mr. Darwin has
made us all feel that in some way or other variations
are accumulated, and that evolution is the true solution
of the present widely different structures around us,
whereas, before he wrote, hardly any one believed this.
However we may differ from him in detail, the present
general acceptance of evolution must remain as his
work, and a more valuable work can hardly be imagined.
Nevertheless, I cannot think that "natural selection,"
working upon small, fortuitous, indefinite, unintelligent *
variations, would produce the results we see around us. \
One wants something that will give a more definite aim
to variations, and hence, at times, cause bolder leaps in \
advance. One cannot but doubt whether so many
plants and animals would be being so continually saved
"by the skin of their teeth," as must be so saved if
the variations from which genera ultimately arise are as

262 LIFE AND HABIT.

small in their commencement and at each successive
stage as Mr. Darwin seems to believe. God — to use
the language of the Bible — is not extreme to mark
what is done amiss, whether with plant or beast or
man ; on the other hand, when towers of Siloam fall,
they fall on the just as well as the unjust.

One feels, on considering Mr. Darwin's position, that
if it be admitted that there is in the lowest creature a
power to vary, no matter how small, one has got in this
power as near the " origin of species " as one can ever
hope to get. For no one professes to account for the
origin of life ; but if a creature with a power to vary
reproduces itself at all, it must reproduce another crea-
ture which shall also have tlie power to vary ; so that,
given time and space enough, there is no knowing where
such a creature could or would stop.

If the primordial cell had been only capable of repro-
ducing itself once, there would have followed a single
line of descendants, the chain of which might at any
moment have been broken by casualty. Doubtless the
millionth repetition would have differed very mate-
rially from the original— as widely, perhaps, as we
differ from the primordial cell ; but it would only have
differed by addition, and could no more in any genera-
tion resume its latest development without having
passed through the initial stage of being what its first
forefather was, and doing what its first forefather did,
and without going through all or a sufficient number of
the steps whereby it had reached its latest differentia-
tion, than water can rise above its own level.

The very idea, then, of reproduction involves, unles

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 263

I am mistaken, that, no matter how much the creature
reproducing itself may gain in power and versatility, it
must still always begin with itself again in each gene-
ration. The primordial cell being capable of reproduc-
ing itself not only once, but many times over, each of
the creatures which it produces must be similarly gifted ;
hence the geometrical ratio of increase and the existing
divergence of type. In each generation it will pass
rapidly and unconsciously through all the earlier
stages of which there has been infinite experience,
and for which the conditions are reproduced with
sufficient similarity to cause no failure of memory or
hesitation ; but in each generation, when it comes to
the part in which the course is not so clear, it will
become conscious ; still, however, where the course is
plain, as in breathing, digesting, &c, retaining uncon-
sciousness. Thus organs which present all the appear^
ance of being designed — as, for example, the tip for its
beak prepared by the embryo chicken — would be pre-
pared in the end, as it were, by rote, and without sense
of design, though none the less owing their origin to j
design.

The question is not concerning evolution, but as to
the main cause which has led to evolution in such and
such shapes. To me it seems that the " Origin of Varia-
tion," whatever it is, is the only true " Origin of Species,"
and that this must, as Lamarck insisted, be looked for
in the needs and experiences of the creatures varying.
Unless we can explain the origin of variations, we are
met by the unexplained at every step in the progress of
a creature from its original homogeneous condition to its

264 LIFE AND HABIT.

differentiation, we will say, as an elephant ; so that to
say that an elephant has become an elephant through
the accumulation of a vast number of small, fortuitous,
but unexplained, variations in some lower creatures, is
really to say that it has become an elephant owing to
a series of causes about which we know nothing what-
ever, or, in other words, that one does not know how it
came to be an elephant. But to say that an elephant
has become an elephant owing to a series of variations,
nine-tenths of which were caused by the wishes of the
creature or creatures from which the elephant is de-
scended— this is to offer a reason, and definitely put
the insoluble one step further back. The question will
then turn upon the sufficiency of the reason — that is to
say, whether the hypothesis is borne out by facts.

The effects of competition would, of course, have an
extremely important effect upon any creature, in the
same way as any other condition of nature under which it
lived, must affect its sense of need and its opinions gene-
rally. The results of competition would be, as it were,
the decisions of an arbiter settling the question whether
such and such variation was really to the animal's ad-
vantage or not — a matter on which the animal will, on
the whole, have formed a pretty fair judgement for
itself. Undouhtedly the past decisions of such an arbiter
would affect the conduct of the creature, which would
have doubtless had its shortcomings and blunders, and
would amend them. The creature would shape its
course according to its experience of the common
course of events, but it would be continually trying,
and often successfully, to evade the law by all manner

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 265

of sharp practice. New precedents would thus arise,
so that the law would shift with time and circum-
stances; but the law would not otherwise direct the
channels into which life would flow, than as laws,
whether natural or artificial, have affected the de-
velopment of the widely differing trades and profes-
sions among mankind. These have had their origin
rather in the needs and experiences of mankind than in
any laws.

To put much the same as the above in different
words. Assume that small favourable variations are
preserved more commonly, in proportion to their num-
bers, than is perhaps the case, and assume that con-
siderable variations occur more rarely than they pro-
bably do occur, how account for any variation at all ?
" Natural selection " cannot create the smallest variation
unless it acts through perception of its mode of operation,
recognised inarticulately, but none the less clearly, by
the creature varying. " Natural selection " operates on
what it finds, and not on what it has made. Animals
that have been wise and lucky live longer and breed
more than others less wise and lucky. Assuredly. The
wise and lucky animals transmit their wisdom and luck.
Assuredly. They add to their powers, and diverge into
widely different directions. Assuredly. What is the
cause of this ? Surely the fact that they were capable
of feeling needs, and that they differed in their needs and '
manner of gratifying them, and that they continued
to live in successive generations, rather than the fact
that when lucky and wise they thrived and bred more
descendants. This last is an accessory hardly less im-

266 LIFE AND HABIT.

portant for the development of species than the fact
of the continuation of life at all ; but it is an accessory
of much the same kind as this, for if animals continue
to live at all, they must live in some way, and will find
that there are good ways and bad ways of living. An
animal which discovers the good way will gradually
develop further powers, and so species will get further
and further apart ; but the origin of this is to be looked
for, not in the power which decides whether this or that
way was good, but in the cause which determines the
creature, consciously or unconsciously, to try this or
that way.

But Mr. Darwin might say that this is not a fair
way of stating the issue. He might say, " You beg the
question; you assume that there is an inherent ten-
dency in animals towards progressive development,
whereas I say that there is no good evidence of any
such tendency. I maintain that the differences that
have from time to time arisen have come about mainly
from causes so far beyond our ken, that we can only
call them spontaneous ; and if so, natural selection which
you must allow to have at any rate played an important
part in the accumulation of variations, must also be
allowed to be the nearest thing to the cause of Specific
differences, which we are- able to arrive at."

Thus he writes ("Natural Selection," p. 176, ed.
1 876) : " Although we have no good evidence of the
existence in organic beings of a tendency towards pro-
gressive development, yet this necessarily follows, as I
have attempted to show in the fourth chapter, through
the continued action of natural selection." Mr. Darwin

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 267

does not say that organic beings have no tendency to
vary at all, but only that there is no good evidence that
they have a tendency to progressive development, which,
I take it, means, to see an ideal a long way off, and very
different to their present selves, which ideal they think
will suit them, and towards which they accordingly make.
I would admit this as contrary to all experience. I
doubt whether plants and animals have any innate
tendency to vary at all, being led to question this by
gathering from "Plants and Animals under Domes-
tication " that this is Mr. Darwin's own opinion. I am .
inclined rather to think that they have only an innate
power to vary slightly, in accordance with changed con-
ditions, and an innate capability of being affected both in
structure and instinct, by causes similar to those which
we observe to affect ourselves. But however this may
be, they do vary somewhat, and unless they did, they
would not in time have come to be so widely different
from each other as they now are. The question is as to
the origin and character of these variations.

We say they mainly originate in a creature through
a sense of its needs, and vary through the varying sur-
roundings which wiR cause those needs to vary, and
through the opening up of new desires in many crea-
tures, as the consequence of the gratification of old
ones; they depend greatly on differences of individual
capacity and temperament; they are communicated, j
and in the course of time transmitted, as what we call
hereditary habits or structures, though these are only, in
truth, intense and epitomised memories of how certain
creatures liked to deal with protoplasm. The question

268 LIFE AND HABIT.

whether this or that is really good or ill, is settled, as
the proof of the pudding by the eating thereof, i.e.,
by the rigorous competitive examinations through
which most living organisms must pass. Mr. Darwin
says that there is no good evidence in support of any
great principle, or tendency on the part of the creature
itself, which would steer variation, as it were, and keep
its head straight, but that the most marvellous adapta-
tions of structures to needs are simply the result of
small and blind variations, accumulated by the opera-
tion of "natural selection," which is thus the main
cause of the origin of species.

Enough has perhaps already been said to make the
reader feel that the question wants reopening; I
shall, therefore, here only remark that we may assume
no fundamental difference as regards intelligence, me-
mory, and sense of needs to exist between man and the
lowest animals, and that in man we do distinctly see a
tendency towards progressive development, operating
through his power of profiting by and transmitting his
experience, but operating in directions which man can-
not foresee for any long distance. We also see this in
many of the higher animals under domestication, as
with horses which have learnt to canter and dogs which
point ; more especially we observe it along the line of
latest development, where equilibrium of settled convic-
tions has not yet been fully attained. One neither finds
nor expects much a priori knowledge, whether in man
or beast ; but one does find some little in the beginnings
of, and throughout the development of, every habit, at
the commencement of which, and on every successive

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 269

improvement in which, deductive and inductive methods
are, as it were, fused. Thus the effect, where we can
best watch its causes, seems mainly produced by a desire
for a definite object — in some cases a serious and sensible
desire, in others an idle one, in others, again, a mis-
taken one ; and sometimes by a blunder which, in the
hands of an otherwise able creature, has turned up
trumps. In wild animals and plants the divergences
have been accumulated, if they answered to the pro-
longed desires of the creature itself, and if these desires
were to its true ultimate good ; with plants or animals
under domestication they have been accumulated if they
answered a little to the original wishes of the creature,
and much, to the wishes of man. As long as man con-
tinued to like them, they would be advantageous to the
creature ; when he tired of them, they would be disad-
vantageous to it, and would accumulate no longer.
Surely the results produced in the adaptation of struc-
ture to need among many plants and insects are better
accounted for on this, which I suppose to be Lamarck's
view, namely, by supposing that what goes on amongst
ourselves has gone on amongst all creatures, than by
supposing that these adaptations are the results of per-
fectly blind and unintelligent variations.

Let me give two examples of such adaptations, taken
from Mr. St. George Mivart's " Genesis of Species," to
which work I would wish particularly to call the
reader's attention. He should also read Mr. Darwin's
answers to Mr. Mivart (p. 176, "Natural Selection," ed.
1876, and onwards).

Mr. Mivart writes : —

270 LIFE AND HABIT.

" Some insects which imitate leaves extend the imi-
tation even to the very injuries on those leaves made
by the attacks of insects or fungi. Thus speaking of
the walking-stick insects, Mr. Wallace says, ■ One of
these creatures obtained by myself in Borneo (ceroxylus
laceratus) was covered over with foliaceous excre-
scences of a clear olive green colour, so as exactly
to resemble a stick grown over by a creeping moss
or jungermannia. The Dyak who brought it me as-
sured me it was grown over with moss, though alive,
and it was only after a most minute examination that I
could convince myself it was not so.' Again, as to the
leaf butterfly, he says, * We come to a still more extra-
ordinary part of the imitation, for we find represen-
tations of leaves in every stage of decay, variously
blotched, and mildewed, and pierced with holes, and in
many cases irregularly covered with powdery black
dots, gathered into patches and spots so closely resem-
bling the various kinds of minute fungi that grow on
dead leaves, that it is impossible to avoid thinking at
first sight that the butterflies themselves have been
attacked by real fungi.' "

I can no more believe that these artificial fungi in
which the moth arrays itself are due to the accumulation
of minute, perfectly blind, and unintelligent variations,
than I can believe that the artificial flowers which a
woman wears in her hat can have got there without
design; or that a detective puts on plain clothes
without the slightest intention of making his victim
think that he is not a policeman.

Again Mr. Mivart writes : —

LAMARCK AND MR. DARWIN. 271

" In the work just referred to (' The Fertilisation of
Orchids '), Mr. Darwin gives a series of the most won-
derful and minute contrivances, by which the visits of
insects are utilised for the fertilisation of orchids —
structures so wonderful that nothing could well be
more so, except the attribution of their origin to minute,
fortuitous, and indefinite variations.

"The instances are too numerous and too long to
quote, but in his ' Origin of Species '■ he describes two
which must not be passed over. In one (coryanthes)
the orchid has its lower lip enlarged into a bucket,
above which stand two water-secreting horns. These
latter replenish the bucket, from which, when half-
filled, the water overflows by a spout on one side. Bees
visiting the flower fall into the bucket and crawl out
at the spout. By the peculiar arrangement of the parts
of the flower, the first bee which does so, carries away
the pollen mass glued to his back, and then when he
has his next involuntary bath in another flower, as he
crawls out, the pollen attached to him comes in contact
with the stigma of that second flower and fertilises it.
In the other example (catasetum), when a bee gnaws a
certain part of the flower, he inevitably touches a long
delicate projection which Mr. Darwin calls the ' antenna.'
'This antenna transmits a vibration to a membrane
which is instantly ruptured ; this sets free a spring by
which the pollen mass is shot forth like an arrow in
the right direction, and adheres by its viscid extremity
to the back of the bee ' " (" Genesis of Species," p. 63).

No one can tell a story so charmingly as Mr. Darwin,
but I can no more believe that all this has come about

272 LIFE AND HABIT.

without design on the part of the orchid, and a gradual
perception of the advantages it is able to take over the
bee, and a righteous determination to enjoy them, than
I can believe that a mousetrap or a steam-engine is the
result of the accumulation of blind minute fortuitous
variations in a creature called man, which creature has
never wanted either mouse-traps or steam-engines, but
has had a sort of promiscuous tendency to make them, and
was benefited by making them, so that those of the race
who had a tendency to make them survived and left
issue, which issue would thus naturally tend to make
more mousetraps and more steam-engines.

Pursuing this idea still further, can we for a moment
believe that these additions to our limbs — for this is
what they are — have mainly come about through the
occasional birth of individuals, who, without design on
their own parts, nevertheless made them better or
worse, and who, accordingly, either survived and trans-
mitted their improvement, or perished, they and their
incapacity together ?

When I can believe in this, then — and not till then —
can I believe in an origin of species which does not
\ resolve itself mainly into sense of need, faith, intelli-
\gence, and memory. Then, and not till then, can I
believe that such organs as the eye and ear can have
arisen in any other way than as the result of that kind
of mental ingenuity, and of moral as well as physical
capacity, without which, till then, I should have con-
sidered such an invention as the steam-engine to be
impossible.

(273)

CHAPTER XIV.

ME. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN.

"A distinguished zoologist, Mr. St. George Mivart,"
writes Mr. Darwin, " has recently collected all the ob-
jections which have ever been advanced by myself and
others against the theory of natural selection, as pro-
pounded by Mr. Wallace and myself, and has illustrated
them with admirable art and force ("Natural Selec-
tion," p. 176, ed. 1876). I have already referred the
reader to Mr. Mivart's work, but quote the above
passage as showing that Mr. Mivart will not, probably,
be found to have left much unsaid that would appear to
make against Mr. Darwin's theory. It is incumbent
upon me both to see how far Mr. Mivart's objections
are weighty as against Mr. Darwin, and also whether or
not they tell with equal force against the view which I
am myself advocating. I will therefore touch briefly
upon the most important of them, with the pur-
pose of showing that they are serious as against the
doctrine that small fortuitous variations are the origin
of species, but that they have no force against evolution
as guided by intelligence and memory.

But before doing this, I would demur to the words
used by Mr. Darwin, and just quoted above, namely,

274 UFE AND HABIT.

" the theory of natural selection." I imagine that I
see in them the fallacy which I believe to run through
almost all Mr. Darwin's work, namely, that "natural
selection" is a theory (if, indeed, it can be a theory
at all), in some way accounting for the origin of
variation, and so of species — " natural selection," as we
have already seen, being unable to " induce variability,"
and being only able to accumulate what — on the occa-
sion of each successive variation, and so during the whole
process — must have been originated by something else.

Again, Air. Darwin writes — " In considering the
origin of species it is quite conceivable that a natu-
ralist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic
beings, or their embryological relations, their geogra-
phical distribution, geological succession, and other such
facts, might come to the conclusion that species had not
been independently created, but had descended, like
varieties from other species. Nevertheless, such a con-
clusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory,
until it could be shown how the innumerable species
inhabiting this world had been modified, so as to acquire
that perfection of structure and co-adaptation which
justly excites our admiration " (" Origin of Species," p.
2, ed. i8;6).

After reading the above we feel that nothing more
satisfactory could be desired. We are sure that we are
in the hands of one who can indeed tell us " how the
innumerable species inhabiting this world have been
modified," and we are no less sure that though others
may have written upon the subject before, there has
been, as yet, no satisfactory explanation put forward of

MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN. 275

the grand principle upon which modification has pro-
ceeded. Then follows a delightful volume, with facts
upon facts concerning animals, all showing that species
is due to successive small modifications accumulated
in the course of nature. But one cannot suppose that
Lamarck ever doubted this; for he can never have
meant to say, that a low form of life made itself into an
elephant at one or two great bounds ; and if he did not
mean this, he must have meant that it made itself into
an elephant through the accumulation of small succes-
sive modifications; these, he must have seen, were
capable of accumulation in the scheme of nature, though
he may not have dwelt on the manner in which this is
accomplished, inasmuch as it is obviously a matter of
secondary importance in comparison with the origin
of the variations themselves. We believe, however,
throughout Mr. Darwin's book, that we are being told
what we expected to be told ; and so convinced are we,
by the facts adduced, that in some way or other evolu-
tion must be true, and so grateful are we for being
allowed to think this, that we put down the volume
without perceiving that, whereas Lamarck did adduce a
great and general cause of variation, the insufficiency
of which, in spite of errors of detail, has yet to be
shown, Mr. Darwin's main cause of variation resolves
itself into a confession of ignorance.

This, however, should detract but little from our
admiration for Mr. Darwin's achievement. Any
one can make people see a thing if he puts it in the
right way, but Mr. Darwin made us see evolution, in
spite of his having put it, in what seems to not a few,

276 LIFE AND HABIT.

an exceedingly mistaken way. Yet his triumph is com-
plete, for no matter how much any one now moves the
foundation, he cannot shake the superstructure, which
has become so currently accepted as to be above the
need of any support from reason, and to be as difficult
to destroy as it was originally difficult of construction.
Less than twenty years ago, we never met with, or
heard of, any one who accepted evolution ; we did not
even know that such a doctrine had been ever broached ;
unless it was that some one now and again said that
there was a very dreadful book going about like a
rampant lion, called "Vestiges of Creation," whereon
we said that we would on no account read it, lest it
should shake our faith ; then we would shake our heads
and talk of the preposterous folly and wickedness of such
shallow speculations. Had not the book of Genesis been
written for our learning ? Yet, now, who seriously dis-
putes the main principles of evolution ? I cannot believe
that there is a bishop on the bench at this moment who
does not accept them; even the " holy priests " themselves
bless evolution as their predecessors blessed Cleopatra
— when they ought not. It is not he who first con-
ceives an idea, nor he who sets it on its legs and makes
it go on all fours, but he who makes other people accept
the main conclusion, whether on right grounds or on
wrong ones, who has done the greatest work as regards
the promulgation of an opinion. And this is what Mr.
Darwin has done for evolution. He has made us think
that we know the origin of species, and so of genera, in
spite of his utmost efforts to assure us that we know
nothing of the causes from which the vast majority of

MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN. 177

modifications have arisen — that is to say, he has made
us think we know the whole road, though he has
almost ostentatiously blindfolded us at every step of
the journey. But to the end of time, if the question be
asked, " Who taught people to believe in evolution ? "
there can only be one answer— that it was Mr. Darwin.

Mr. Mivart urges with much force the difficulty of
starting any modification on which " natural selection "
is to work, and of getting a creature to vary in any defi-
nite direction. Thus, after quoting from Mr. Wallace
some of the wonderful cases of "mimicry" which are to
be found among insects, he writes : —

" Now, let us suppose that the ancestors of these various
animals were all destitute of the very special protection
they at present possess, as on the Darwinian hypothesis
we must do. Let it be also conceded that small devia-
tions from the antecedent colouring or form would tend
to make some of their ancestors escape destruction, by
causing them more or less frequently to be passed over
or mistaken by their persecutors. Yet the deviation
must, as the event has shown, in each case, be in some
definite direction, whether it be towards some other
animal or plant, or towards some dead or inorganic
matter. But as, according to Mr. Darwin's theory, there
is a constant tendency to indefinite variation, and as the
minute incipient variations will be in all directions, they
must tend to neutralise each other, and at first to form
such unstable modifications, that it is difficult, if not
impossible, to see how such indefinite modifications of

278 LIFE AND HABIT.

insignificant beginnings can ever build up a sufficiently
appreciable resemblance to a leaf, bamboo, or other
object for " natural selection," to seize upon and per-
petuate. This difficulty is augmented when we consider
— a point to be dwelt upon hereafter — how necessary it
is that many individuals should be similarly modified
simultaneously. This has been insisted on in an able
article in the 'North British Review' for June 1867,
p. 286, and the consideration of the article has occa-
sioned Mr. Darwin " (" Origin of Species," 5th ed., p.
104) "to make an important modification in his views"
(" Genesis of Species," p. 38).

To this Mr. Darwin rejoins : —

" But in all the foregoing cases the insects in their
original state, no doubt, presented some rude and acci-
dental resemblance to an object commonly found in the
stations frequented by them. Nor is this improbable,
considering the almost infinite number of surrounding
objects, and the diversity of form and colour of the host
of insects that exist" (" Natural Selection," p. 182, ed.
1876).

Mr. Mivart has just said : " It is difficult to see how
such indefinite modifications of insignificant beginnings
can ever build up a sufficiently appreciable resemblance to
a leaf, bamboo, or other object, for ' natural selection ' to
work upon."

The answer is, that " natural selection " did not begin

to work until, from unknown causes, an appreciable re-

s semblance had nevertheless been presented. I think the

reader will agree with me that the development of the

lowest life into a creature which bears even * a rude

MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN. 279

resemblance" to the objects commonly found in the
station in which it is moving in its present differentia-
tion, requires more explanation than is given by the
word " accidental."

Mr. Darwin continues : " As some rude resemblance
is necessary for the first start," &c; and a little lower
he writes : " Assuming that an insect originally hap-
pened to resemble in some degree a dead twig or a
decayed leaf, and that it varied slightly in many ways,
then all the variations which rendered the insect at all
more like any such object, and thus favoured its escape,
would be preserved, while other variations would be
neglected, and ultimately lost, or if they rendered the
insect at all less like the imitated object, they would
be eliminated."

But here, again, we are required to begin with Natu-
ral Selection when the work is already in great part
done, owing to causes about which we are left com-
pletely in the dark ; we may, I think, fairly demur to
flie insects originally happening to resemble in some
degree a dead twig or a decayed leaf. And when we
bear in mind that the variations, being supposed by Mr.
Darwin to be indefinite, or devoid of aim, will appear
in every direction, we cannot forget what Mr. Mivart
insists upon, namely, that the chances of many favour-
able variations being counteracted by other unfavour-
able ones in the same creature are not inconsiderable.
Nor, again, is it likely that the favourable variation
would make its mark upon the race, and escape being
absorbed in the course of a few generations, unless — as
Mr. Mivart elsewhere points out, in a passage to which

T

280. LIFE AND HABIT.

I shall call the reader's attention presently — a larger
number of similarly varying creatures made their ap-
pearance at the same time than there seems sufficient
reason to anticipate, if the variations can be called for-
tuitous.

" There would," continues Mr. Darwin, " indeed be
force in Mr. Mivart's objection if we were to attempt
to account for the above resemblances, independently
of 'natural selection/ through mere fluctuating varia-
bility j but as the case stands, there is none."

This comes to" saying that, if there was no power in
nature which operates so that of all the many fluctu-
ating variations, those only are preserved which tend
to the resemblance which is beneficial to the creature,
then indeed there would be difficulty in understanding
how the resemblance could have come about ; but that
as there is a beneficial resemblance to start with, and as
there is a power in nature which would preserve and
accumulate further beneficial resemblance, should it
arise from this cause or that, the difficulty is removed.
But Mr. Mivart does not, I take it, deny the existence
of such a power in nature, as Mr. Darwin supposes,
though, if I understand him rightly, he does not see
that its operation upon small fortuitous variations is at
all the simple and obvious process, which on a super-
ficial view of the case it would appear to be. He thinks —
and I believe the reader will agree with him — that this
process is too slow and too risky. What he wants to
know is, how the insect came even rudely to resemble
the object, and how, if its variations are indefinite, we
are ever to get into such a condition as to be able to

MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN. • 281

report progress, owing to the constant liability of the
creature which has varied favourably, to play the part
of Penelope and undo its work, by varying in some one
of the infinite number of other directions which are
open to it — all of which, except this one, tend to destroy
the resemblance, and yet may be in some other respect
even more advantageous to the creature, and so tend to
its preservation. Moreover, here, too, I think (though I
cannot be sure), we have a recurrence of the original
fallacy in the words — " If we were to account for the
above resemblances, independently of 'natural selec-
tion/ through mere fluctuating variability." Surely Mr.
Darwin does, after all, " account for the resemblances
through mere fluctuating variability," for " natural selec-
tion " does not account for one single variation in the
whole list of them from first to last, other than in-
directly, as shewn in the preceding chapter.

It is impossible for me to continue this subject fur-
ther ; but I would beg the reader to refer to other para-
graphs in the neighbourhood of the one just quoted, in
which he may — though I do not think he will — see reason
to think that I should have given Mr. Darwin's answer
more fully. I do not quote Mr. Darwin's next para-
graph, inasmuch as I see no great difficulty about " the
last touches of perfection in mimicry," provided Mr.
Darwin's theory will account for any mimicry at all.
If it could do this, it might as well do more ; but a strong
impression is left on my mind, that without the help of
something over and above the power to vary, which / <L
should give a definite aim to variations, all the " natural
selection " in the world would not have prevented stag-

282 LIFE AND HABIT.

nation and self-stultification, owing to the indefinite
tendency of the variations, which thus could not have
developed either a preyer or a preyee, but would have
gone round and round and round the primordial cell
till they were weary of it.

As against Mr. Darwin, therefore, I think that the
objection just given from Mr. Mivart is fatal. I believe,
also, that the reader will feel the force of it much more
strongly if he will turn to Mr. Mivart's own pages.
Against the view which I am myself supporting, the
objection breaks down entirely, for grant " a little dose of
^judgement and reason " on the part of the creature itself
— grant also continued personality and memory — and
a definite tendency is at once given to the variations.
The process is thus started, and is kept straight, and
helped forward through every stage by " the little dose
of reason," &c, which enabled it to take its first step.
We are, in fact, no longer without a helm, but can steer
each creature that is so discontented with its condition,
as to make a serious effort to better itself, into some —
and into a very distant — harbour.

It has been objected against Mr. Darwin's theory that
if all species and genera have come to differ through the
accumulation of minute but — as a general rule — fortui-
tous variations, there has not been time enough, so far
as we are able to gather, for the evolution of all existing
forms by so slow a process. On this subject I would
again refer the reader to Mr. Mivart's book, from which
I take the following : —

MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN. 283

" Sir William Thompson has lately advanced argu-
ments from three distinct lines of inquiry agreeing in
one approximate result. The three lines of inquiry are —
(1) the action of the tides upon the earth's rotation ; (2)
the probable length of time during which the sun has
illuminated this planet ; and (3) the temperature of the
interior of the earth. The result arrived at by these
investigations is a conclusion that the existing state of
things on the earth, life on the earth, all geological history
showing continuity of life, must be limited within some
such period of past time as one hundred million years.
The first question which suggests itself, supposing Sir W.
Thompson's views to be correct, is : Has this period been
anything like enough for the evolution of all organic
forms by 'natural selection' ? The second is : Has the
period been anything like enough for the deposition of
the strata which must have been deposited if all organic
forms have been evolved by minute steps, according to
the Darwinian theory ? " (" Genesis of Species," p. 154).

Mr. Mivart then quotes from Mr. Murphy — whose
work I have not seen — the following passage : —

"Darwin justly mentions the greyhound as being
equal to any natural species in the perfect co-ordination
of its parts, ' all adapted for extreme fleetness and for
running down weak prey/ Yet it is an artificial
species (and not physiologically a species at all) formed
by a long- continued selection under domestication ; and
there is no reason to suppose that any of the variations
which have been selected to form it have been other
than gradual and almost imperceptible. Suppose that
it has taken five hundred years to form the greyhound

284 LIFE AND HABIT. '

out of his wolf-like ancestor. This is a mere guess, but
it gives the order of magnitude. Now, if so, how long
would it take to obtain an elephant from a protozoon or
even from a tadpole-like fish ? Ought it not to take
much more than a million times as long ? " (" Genesis
of Species," p. 155).

I should be very sorry to pronounce any opinion
upon the foregoing data; but a general impression is
left upon my mind, that if the differences between an
elephant and a tadpole -like fish have arisen from the
accumulation of small variations that have had no direc-
tion given them by intelligence and sense of needs, then
no time conceivable by man would suffice for their
development. But grant " a little dose of reason and
judgement," even to animals low down in the scale of
nature, and grant this, not only during their later life,
but during their embryological existence, and see with
what infinitely greater precision of aim and with what
increased speed the variations would arise. Evolution
entirely unaided by inherent intelligence must be a
very slow, if not quite inconceivable, process. Evolution
helped by intelligence would still be slow, but not so
desperately slow. One can conceive that there has
been sufficient time for the second, but one cannot con-
ceive it for the first.

I find from Mr. Mivart that objection has been taken
to Mr. Darwin's views, on account of the great odds
that exist against the appearance of any given variation

MR. MIVART AND MR. DARWIN. 28$

at one and the same time, in a sufficient number of in-
dividuals, to prevent its being obliterated almost as soon
as produced by the admixture of unvaried blood which
would so greatly preponderate around it; and indeed
the necessity for a nearly simultaneous and similar
variation, or readiness so to vary on the part of many
individuals, seems almost a postulate for evolution at
all. On this subject Mr. Mivart writes : —

" The ■ North British Eeview ' (speaking of the sup-
position that species is changed by the survival of a few
individuals in a century through a similar and favour-
able variation) says —

" * It is very difficult to see how this can be accom-
plished, even when the variation is eminently favourable
indeed ; and still more, when the advantage gained is
very slight, as must generally be the case. The advan-
tage, whatever it may be, is utterly outbalanced by
numerical inferiority. A million creatures are borii;
ten thousand survive to produce offspring. One of the
million has twice as good a chance as any other of sur-
viving, but the chances are fifty to one against the
gifted individuals being one of the hundred survivors.
No doubt the chances are twice as great against any
other individual, but this does not prevent their being
enormously in favour of some average individual.
However slight the advantage may be, if it is
shared by half the individuals produced, it will pro-
bably be present in at least fifty -one of the sur-
vivors, and in a larger proportion of their offspring;
but the chances are against the preservation of any
one " sport " (i.e., sudden marked variation) in a nume-

286 LIFE AND HABIT.

rous tribe. The vague use of an imperfectly-understood
doctrine of chance, has led Darwinian supporters, first,
to confuse the two cases above distinguished, and
secondly, to imagine that a very slight balance in favour
of some individual sport must lead to its perpetuation.
All that can be said is that in the above example the
favoured sport would be preserved once in fifty times.
Let us consider what will be its influence on the main
stock when preserved. It will breed and have a pro-
geny of say ioo ; now this progeny will, on the whole,
be intermediate between the average individual and the
sport. The odds in favour of one of this generation of
the new breed will be, say one and a half to one, as
compared with the average individual; the odds in
their favour will, therefore, be less than that of their
parents ; but owing to their greater number the chances
are that about one and a half of them would survive.
Lrnless these breed together — a most improbable event —
their progeny would again approach the average indi-
vidual; there would be 150 of them, and their supe-
riority would be, say in the ratio of one and a quartei
to one ; the probability would now be that nearly two
of them would survive, and have 200 children with an
eighth superiority. Bather more than two of these
would survive ; but the superiority would again
dwindle; until after a few generations it would no
longer be observed, and would count for no more in the
struggle for life than any of the hundred trifling advan-
tages which occur in the ordinary organs.

" ' An illustration will bring this conception home.
Suppose a white man to have been wrecked on an

MR. MI V ART AND MR. DARWIN. 287

island inhabited by negroes, and to have established
himself in friendly relations with a powerful tribe,
whose customs he has learnt. Suppose him to possess
the physical strength, energy, and ability of a dominant
white race, and let the food of the island suit his con-
stitution ; grant him every advantage which we can
conceive a white to possess over the native; concede
that in the struggle for existence, his chance of a long
life will be much superior to that of the native chiefs ;
yet from all these admissions there does not follow the
conclusion, that after a limited or unlimited number of
generations, the inhabitants of the island will be white.
Our shipwrecked hero would probably become king; he
would kill a great many blacks in the struggle for
existence; he would have a great many wives and
children. ... In the first generation there will be
some dozens of intelligent young mulattoes, much
superior in average intelligence to the negroes. We
might expect the throne for some generations to be
occupied by a more or less yellow king ; but can any
one believe that the whole island will gradually acquire
a white, or even a yellow population? . . . Darwin
says, that in the struggle for life a grain may turn the
balance in favour of a given structure, which will then
be preserved. But one of the weights in the scale of
nature is due to the number of a given tribe. Let
there be 7000 A's and 7000 B's representing two
varieties of a given animal, and let all the B's, in virtue
of a slight difference of structure, have the better
chance by ^Vir part. We must allow that there is a
slight probability that the descendants of B will sup-

288 LIFE AND HABIT.

plant the descendants of A; but let there be 7001 A's
against 7000 B's at first, and the chances are once
more equal, while if there be 7002 A's to start, the odds
would be laid on the A's. Thus they stand a greater
chance of being killed ; but, then, they can better afford
to be killed. The grain will only turn the scales when
these are very nicely balanced, and an advantage in
numbers counts for weight, even as an advantage in
structure. As the numbers of the favoured variety
diminish, so must its relative advantages increase, if
the chance of its existence is to surpass the chance of
its extinction, until hardly any conceivable advantage
would enable the descendants of a single pair to exter-
minate the descendants of many thousands, if they and
their descendants are supposed to breed freely with the
inferior variety, and so gradually lose their ascen-
dancy,'" ("North British Review," June 1867, p. 286
" Genesis of Species," p. 64, and onwards).

Against this it should be remembered that there is
always an antecedent probability that several specimens
of a given variation would appear at one time and place.
This would probably be the case even on Mr. Darwin's
hypothesis, that the variations are fortuitous; if they
are mainly guided by sense of need and intelligence, it
would almost certainly be so, for all would have much
the same idea as to their well-being, and the same cause
which would lead one to vary in this direction would
lead not a few others to do so at the same time, or to
follow suit. Thus we see that many human ideas and
inventions have been conceived independently but simul-
taneously. The chances, moreover, of specimens that have

MR. M IV ART AND MR. DARWIN. 283

varied successfully, intermarrying, are, I think, greater
than the reviewer above quoted from would admit. I
believe that on the hypothesis that the variations are
fortuitous, and certainly on the supposition that they
are intelligent, they might be looked for. in members of
the same family, who would hence have a better chance
of finding each other out. Serious as is the difficulty
advanced by the reviewer as against Mr. Darwin's
theory, it may be in great measure parried without
departing from Mr. Darwin's own position, but the
3 little dose of judgement and reason " removes it,
absolutely and entirely. As for the reviewer's ship-
wrecked hero, surely the reviewer must know that Mr.
Darwin would no more expect an island of black men
to be turned white, or even perceptibly whitened after
a few generations, than the reviewer himself would do
so. But if we turn from what "might" or what
"would" happen to what "does" happen, we find
that a few white families have nearly driven the
Indian from the United States, the Australian natives
from Australia, and the Maories from New Zealand.
True, these few families have been helped by immi-
gration; but it will be admitted that this has only
accelerated a result which would otherwise, none the
less surely, have been effected.

There is all the difference between a sudden sport,
or even a variety introduced from a foreign source, and
the gradual, intelligent, and, in the main, steady, growth
of a race towards ends always a little, but not much, in
advance of what it can at present compass, until it has
reached equilibrium with its surroundings. So far as

2QO LIFE AND HABIT.

Mr. Darwin's variations are of the nature of "sport,"
i.e., rare, and owing to nothing that wre can in the least
assign to any known cause, the reviewer's objections
carry much weight. Against the view here advocated,
they are powerless.

I cannot here go into the difficulties of the geologic
record, but they too will, I believe, be felt to be almost
infinitely simplified by supposing the development of
structure and instinct to be guided by intelligence and
memory, which, even under unstable conditions, would
be able to meet in some measure the demands made
upon them.

When Mr. Mivart deals with evolution and ethics,
I am afraid that I differ from him even more widely
than I have done from Mr. Darwin. He writes
("Genesis of Species," p. 234): "That 'natural selec-
tion ' could not have produced from the sensations of
pleasure and pain experienced by brutes a higher degree
of morality than was useful; therefore it could have
produced any amount of 'beneficial habits/ but not
abhorrence of certain acts as impure and sinful."

Possibly " natural selection " may not be able to do
much in the way of accumulating variations that do not
arise ; but that, according to the views supported in this
volume, all that is highest and most beautiful in the
soul, as well as in the body, could be, and has been,
developed from beings lower than man, I do not greatly

MR. M IV ART AND MR. DARWIN. 291

doubt. Mr. Mivart and myself should probably differ
as to what is and what is not beautiful. Thus he writes
of "the noble virtue of a Marcus Aurelius" (p. 235),
than whom, for my own part, I know few respectable
figures in history to whom I am less attracted. I can-
not but think that Mr. Mivart has taken his estimate
of this emperor at second-hand, and without reference
to the writings which happily enable us to form a fair
estimate of his real character.

Take the opening paragraphs of the * Thoughts " of
Marcus Aurelius, as translated by Mr. Long : —

" From the reputation and remembrance of my father
[I learned] modesty and a manly character ; from my
mother, piety and beneficence, abstinence not only from
evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts. . . . From my
great-grandfather, not to have frequented public schools,
and to have had good teachers at home, and to know that
on such things a man should spend liberally. . . . From
Diognetus ... [I learned] to have become intimate
with philosophy, . . . and to have written dialogues
in my youth, and to have desired a plank bed and skin,
and whatever else of the kind belongs to the Greek dis-
cipline. . . . From Rusticus I received the impression
that my character required improvement and disci-
pline;" and so on to the end of the chapter, near which,
however, it is right to say that there appears a redeem-
ing touch, in so far as that he thanks the gods that he
could not write poetry, and that he had never occupied
himself about the appearance of things in the heavens.

Or, again, opening Mr. Long's translation at random
I find (p. 37) :—

292 LIFE AND HABIT.

"As physicians have always their instruments and
knives ready for cases which suddenly require their
skill, so do thou have principles ready for the under-
standing of things divine and human, and for doing
everything, even the smallest, with a recollection of the
bond that unites the divine and human to one another.
For neither wilt thou do anything well which pertains
to man without at the same time having a reference to
things divine ; nor the contrary."

Unhappy one ! No wonder the Roman empire went
to pieces soon after him. If I remember rightly, he
established and subsidised professorships in all parts of
his dominions. Whereon the same befell the arts and
literature of Rome as befell Italian painting after the
Academic system had taken root at Bologna under the
Caracci. Mr. Martin Tupper, again, is an amiable and
well-meaning man, but we should hardly like to see
him in Lord Beaconsfield's place. The Athenians
poisoned Socrates ; and Aristophanes — than whom few
more profoundly religious men have ever been born —
did not, so far as we can gather, think the worse of his
countrymen on that account. It is not improbable that
if they had poisoned Plato too, Aristophanes would have
been well enough pleased ; but I think he would have
preferred either of these two men to Marcus Aurelius.

I know nothing about the loving but manly devotion
of a St. Lewis, but I strongly suspect that Mr. Mivart
has taken him, too, upon hearsay.

On the other hand, among dogs we find examples of
every heroic quality, and of all that is most perfectly
charming to us in man.

MR. M1VART AND MR. DARWIN. 293

As for the possible development of the more brutal
human natures from the more brutal instincts of the
lower animals, those who read a horrible story told in a
note, pp. 233, 234 of Mr. Mivart's " Genesis of Species,"
will feel no difficulty on that score. I must admit,
however, that the telling of that story seems to me to
be a mistake in a philosophical work, which should not,
I think, unless under compulsion, deal either with the
horrors of the French Eevolution — or of the Spanish or
Italian Inquisition.

For the rest of Mr. Mivart's objections, I must refer
the reader to his own work. I have been unable to
find a single one, which I do not believe to be easily
met by the Lamarckian view, with the additions (if
indeed they are additions, for I must own to no very
profound knowledge of what Lamarck did or did not
say), which I have in this volume proposed to make to
it. At the same time I admit, that as against the Dar-
winian view, many of them seem quite unanswerable.

( 294 )

CHAPTEE XV.

CONCLUDING REMAEKS.

Heee, then, I leave my case, though well aware that I
have crossed the threshold only of my subject. My
work is of a tentative character, put before the public
as a sketch or design for a, possibly, further endeavour,
in whicli I hope to derive assistance from the criticisms
which this present volume may elicit. Such as it is,
however, for the present I must leave it.

We have seen that we cannot do anything thoroughly
till we can do it unconsciously, and that we cannot do
anything unconsciously till we can do it thoroughly;
this at first seems illogical ; but logic and consistency
are luxuries for the gods, and the lower animals, only.
Thus a boy cannot really know how to swim till he can
swim, but he cannot swim till he knows how to swim.
Conscious effort is but the process of rubbing off the
rough corners from these two contradictory statements,
till they eventually fit into one another so closely that
it is impossible to disjoin them.

Whenever, therefore, we see any creature able to go
through any complicated and difficult process with little
or no effort — whether it be a bird building her nest, or
a hen's egg making itself into a chicken, or an ovum

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 295

turning itself into a baby — we may conclude that the
creature has done the same thing on a very great
number of past occasions.

We found the phenomena exhibited by heredity to
be so like those of memory, and to be so utterly in-
explicable on any other supposition, that it was easier
to suppose them due to memory in spite of the fact that
we cannot remember having recollected, than to believe
that because we cannot so remember, therefore the
phenomena cannot be due to memory.

We were thus led to consider " personal identity," in
order to see whether there was sufficient reason for
denying that the experience, which we must have
clearly gained somewhere, was gained by us when we
were in the persons of our forefathers ; we found, not
without surprise, that unless we admitted that it might
be so gained, in so far as that we once actually were our
remotest ancestor, we must change our ideas concerning
personality altogether.

We therefore assumed that the phenomena of here-
dity, whether as regards instinct or structure were
mainly due to memory of past experiences, accumu-
lated and fused till they had become automatic, or
quasi automatic, much in the same way as after a
long life —

..." Old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain."

After dealing with certain phenomena of memory,
but more especially with its abeyance and revival, we
inquired what the principal corresponding phenomena

296 LIFE AND HABIT.

of life and species should be, on the hypothesis that
they were mainly due to memory.

I think I may say that we found the hypothesis fit in
with' actual facts in a sufficiently satisfactory manner.
We found not a few matters, as, for example, the sterility
of hybrids, the phenomena of old age, and puberty as
generally near the end of development, explain them-
selves with more completeness than I have yet heard of
their being explained on any other hypothesis.

We considered the most important difficulty in the
way of instinct as hereditary habit, namely, the struc-
ture and instincts of neuter insects; these are very
unlike those of their parents, and cannot apparently
be transmitted to offspring by individuals of the pre-
vious generation, in whom such structure and instincts
appeared, inasmuch as these creatures are sterile. I do
not say that the difficulty is wholly removed, inasmuch
as some obscurity must be admitted to remain as to
the manner in which the structure of the larva is
aborted ; this obscurity is likely to remain till we know
more of the early history of civilisation among bees
than I can find that we know at present ; but I believe
the difficulty was reduced to such proportions as to
make it little likely to be felt in comparison with that
of attributing instinct to any other cause than inherited
habit, or inherited habit modified by changed conditions.

We then inquired what was the great principle under-
lying variation, and answered, with Lamarck, that it
must be "^sense of need;" and though not without
being haunted by suspicion of a vicious circle, and also
well aware that we were not much nearer the origin of

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 297

life than when we started, we still concluded that here
was the truest origin of species, and hence of genera ;
and that the accumulation of variations, which in time
amounted to specific and generic differences, was due
to intelligence and memory on the part of the creature
varying, rather than to the operation of what Mr. Dar-
win has called " natural selection." At the same time
we admitted that the course of nature is very much as
Mr. Darwin has represented it, in this respect, in so far
as that there is a struggle for existence, and that the
weaker must go to the wall. But we denied that this
part of the course of nature would lead to much, if
any, accumulation of variation, unless the variation was
directed mainly by intelligent sense of need, with con-
tinued personality and memory.

We conclude, therefore, that the small, structureless,
impregnate ovum from which we have each one of us
sprung, has a potential recollection of all that has hap-
pened to each one of its ancestors prior to the period at
which any such ancestor has issued from the bodies of
its progenitors — provided, that is to say, a sufficiently
deep, or sufficiently often-repeated, impression has been
made to admit of its being remembered at all.

Each step of normal development will lead the im-
pregnate ovum up to, and remind it of, its next ordinary
course of action, in the same way as we, when we recite
a well-known passage, are led up to each successive
sentence by the sentence which has immediately pre-
ceded it.

And for this reason, namely, that as it takes two
people " to tell " a thing— a speaker and a comprehend-

298 LIFE AND HABIT.

ing listener, without which last, though much may have
been said, there has been nothing told — so also it takes
two people, as it were, to "remember" a thing — the crea-
ture remembering, and the surroundings of the creature
at the time it last remembered. Hence, though the
ovum immediately after impregnation is instinct with
all the memories of both parents, not one of these
memories can normally become active till both the
ovum itself, and its surroundings, are sufficiently like
what they respectively were, when the occurrence now
to be remembered last took place. The memory will
then immediately return, and the creature will do as it
did on the last occasion that it was in like case as now.
This ensures that similarity of order shall be preserved
in all the stages of development, in successive genera-
tions.

Life, then, is faith founded upon experience, which
experience is in its turn foundecT upon faith — or more
simply, it is memory. Plants and animals only differ
from one another because they remember different
..things; plants and animals only grow up in the shapes
they assume because this shape is their memory, their
! idea concerning their own past history.

Hence the term " Natural History," as applied to the
different plants and animals around us. For surely the
study of natural history means only the study of plants
and animals themselves, which, at the moment of using
the words " Natural History," we assume to be the most
important part of nature.

A living creature well supported by a mass of healthy
ancestral memory is a young and growing creature, free

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 299

from ache or pain, and thoroughly acquainted with its
business so far, but with much yet to be reminded of.
A creature which finds itself and its surroundings not
so unlike those of its parents about the time of their
begetting it, as to be compelled to recognise that it
never yet was in any such position, is a creature in the
heyday of life. A creature which begins to be aware
of itself is one which is beginning to recognise that the
situation is a new one.

It is the young and fair, then, who are the truly old
and the truly experienced ; it is they who alone have a
trustworthy memory to guide them ; they alone know
things as they are, and it is from them that, as we
grow older, we must study if we would still cling to
truth. The whole charm of youth lies in its advantage
over age in respect of experience, and where this has
for some reason failed, or been misapplied, the charm is
broken. When we say that we are getting old, we should
say rather that we are getting new or young, and are
suffering from inexperience, which drives us into doing
things which we do not understand, and lands us, even-
tually, in the utter impotence of death. The kingdom
of heaven is the kingdom, of little children.
" A living creature bereft of all memory dies. If be-
reft of a great part of memory, it swoons or sleeps ; and
when its memory returns, we say it. has returned to life.

Life and death, then, should be memory and forget-
fulness, for we are dead to all that we have forgotten. "

Life is that property of matter whereby it can re-
member. Matter which can remember is living ; matter
which cannot remember is dead, f^j^ ^^^ JU-4*

300 LIFE AND HABIT.

Life, then, is memory. The life of a creature is the
memory of a creature. We are all the same stuff to
start with, but we remember different things, and if we
did not remember different things we should be abso-
lutely like each other. As for the stuff itself of which
we are made, we know nothing save only that it is
" such as dreams are made of."

I am aware that there are many expressions through-
out this book, which are not scientifically accurate.
Thus I imply that we tend towards the centre of the
earth, when, I believe, I should say we tend towards to
the centre of gravity of the earth. I speak of " the pri-
mordial cell," when I mean only the earliest form of
life, and I thus not only assume a single origin of life
when there is no necessity for doing so, and perhaps no
evidence to this effect, but I do so in spite of the fact
that the amoeba, which seems to be " the simplest form
of life," does not appear to be a cell at all. I have used
the word " beget," of what, I am told, is asexual genera-
tion, whereas the word should be confined to sexual
generation only. Many more such errors have been
pointed out to me, and I doubt not that a larger num-
ber remain of which I know nothing now, but of which
I may perhaps be told presently.

I did not, however, think that in a work of this
description the additional words which would have
been required for scientific accuracy were worth the
paper and ink and loss of breadth which their intro-
duction would entail. Besides, I know nothing about

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 301

science, and it is as well that there should be no mis-
take on this head ; I neither know, nor want to know,
more detail than is necessary to enable me to give a
fairly broad and comprehensive view of my subject.
When for the purpose of giving this, a matter impor-
tunately insisted on being made out, I endeavoured to
make it out as well as I could ; otherwise — that is to
say, if it did not insist on being looked into, in spite of
a good deal of snubbing, I held that, as it was blurred
and indistinct in nature, I had better so render it in my
work.

Nevertheless, if one has gone for some time through
a wood full of burrs, some of them are bound to stick.
I am afraid that I have left more such burrs in
one part and another of my book, than the kind of
reader whom I alone wish to please will perhaps put
up with. Fortunately, this kind of reader is the best-
natured critic in the world, and is long suffering of a
good deal that the more consciously scientific will not
tolerate; I wish, however, that I had not used such
expressions as " centres of thought and action " quite so
often.

As for the kind of inaccuracy already alluded to, my
reader will not, I take it, as a general rule, know, or
wish to know, much more about science than I do,
sometimes perhaps even less; so that he and I shall
commonly be wrong in the same places, and our two
wrongs will make a sufficiently satisfactory right for
practical purposes.

Of course, if I were a specialist writing a treatise or
primer on such and such a point of detail, I admit that

3o2 LIFE AND HABIT.

scientific accuracy would be de rigueur; but I have been
trying to paint a picture rather than to make a dia-
gram, and I claim the painter's license "quidlibet
audendi" I have done my utmost to give the spirit of
my subject, but if the letter interfered with the spirit, I
have sacrificed it without remorse.

May not what is commonly called a scientific subject
have artistic value which it is a pity to neglect ? But
if a subject is to be treated artistically — that is to say,
with a desire to consider not only the facts, but the way
in which the reader will feel concerning those facts,
and the way in which he will wish to see them rendered,
thus making his mind a factor of the intention, over
and above the subject itself — then the writer must not
be denied a painter's license. If one is painting a hill-
side at a sufficient distance, and cannot see whether it is
covered with chestnut-trees or walnuts, one is not bound
to go across the valley to see. If one is painting a city,
it is not necessary that one should know the names of
the streets. If a house or tree stands inconveniently
for one's purpose, it must go without more ado ; if two
important features, neither of which can be left out,
want a little bringing together or separating before the
spirit of the place can be well given, they must be
brought together, or separated. Which is a more truth-
ful view, of Shrewsbury, for example, from a spot where
St. Alkmund's spire is in parallax with St. Mary's — a
view which should give only the one spire which can be
seen, or one which should give them both, although the
one is hidden ? There would be, I take it, more repre-
sentation in the misrepresentation than in the repre-

CONCL UDING REMARKS. 303

sentation — " the half would be greater than the whole,'
unless, that is to say, one expressly told the spectator
that St. Alkmund's spire was hidden behind St. Mary's —
a sort of explanation which seldom adds to the poetical
value of any work of art. Do what one may, and no
matter how scientific one may be, one cannot attain
absolute truth. The question is rather, how do people
like to have their error ? than, will they go without any
error at all ? All truth and no error cannot be given by
the scientist more than by the artist ; each has to sacri-
fice truth in one way or another ; and even if perfect
truth could be given, it is doubtful whether it would not
resolve itself into unconsciousness pure and simple, con-
sciousness being, as it were, the clash of small conflicting
perceptions, without which there is neither intelligence
nor recollection possible. It is not, then, what a man
has said, nor what he has put down with actual paint
upon his canvass, which speaks to us with living lan-
guage— it is what he has thought to us (as is so well
put in the letter quoted on page 83), by which our
opinion should be guided ; — what has he made us feel
that he had it in him, and wished to do ? If he has said
or painted enough to make us feel that he meant and
felt as we should wish him to have done, he has done
the utmost that man can hope to do.

I feel sure that no additional amount of technical
accuracy would make me more likely to succeed, in this
respect, if I have otherwise failed ; and as this is the
only success about which I greatly care, I have left my
scientific inaccuracies uncorrected, even when aware of
them. At the same time, I should say that I have

3o4 LIFE AND HABIT.

taken all possible pains as regards anything which I
thought could materially affect the argument one way
or another.

It may be said that I have fallen between two stools,
and that the subject is one which, in my hands, has
shown neither artistic nor scientific value. This would
be serious. To fall between two stools, and to be
hanged for a lamb, are the two crimes which —

" Nor gods, nor men, nor any schools allow."

Of the latter, I go in but little danger ; about the
former, I shall know better when the public have
enlightened me.

The practical value of the views here advanced (if
they be admitted as true at all) would appear to be not
inconsiderable, alike as regards politics or the well-
being of the community, and medicine which deals with
that of the individual. In the first case we see the
rationale of compromise, and the equal folly of making
experiments upon too large a scale, and of not making
them at all. We see that new ideas cannot be ' fused
with old, save gradually and by patiently leading up to
them in such a way as to admit of a sense of continued
identity between the old and the new. This should
teach us moderation. For even though nature wishes
to travel in a certain direction, she insists on being
allowed to take her own time ; she will not be hurried,
and will cull a creature out even more surely for fore-
stalling her wishes too readily, than for lagging a little
behind them. So the greatest musicians, painters, and
poets owe their greatness rather to their fusion and as-

CONCLUDING REMARK'S. 305

similation of all the good that has been done up to, and
especially near about, their own time, than to any very
startling steps they have taken in advance. Such men
will be sure to take some, and important, steps forward ;
for unless they have this power, they will not be able to
assimilate well what has been done already, and if they
have it, their study of older work will almost indefi-
nitely assist it ; but, on the whole, they owe their great-
ness to their completer fusion and assimilation of older
ideas ; for nature is distinctly a fairly liberal conserva-
tive rather than a conservative liberal. All which is
well said in the old couplet —

" Be not the first by whom the new is tried,
Nor yet the last to throw the old aside."

Mutatis mutandis, the above would seem to hold as
truly about medicine as about politics. We cannot
reason with our cells, for they know so much more than
we do that they cannot understand us; — but though we
cannot reason with them, we can find out what they
have been most accustomed to, and what, therefore, they
are most likely to expect; we can see that they get
this, as far as it is in our power to give it them, and
may then generally leave the rest to them, only bearing
in mind that they will rebel equally against too sudden
a change of treatment, and no change at all.

Friends have complained to me that they can never
tell whether I am in jest or earnest. I think, however,
it should be sufficiently apparent that I am in very
serious earnest, perhaps too much so, from the first page
of my book to the last. I am not aware of a single
argument put forward which is not a bond fide argument,

306 LIFE AND HABIT.

although, perhaps, sometimes admitting of a humorous
side. If a grain of corn looks like a piece of chaff, I
confess I prefer it occasionally to something which
looks like a grain, but which turns out to be a piece of
chaff only. There is no lack of matter of this descrip-
tion going about in some very decorous volumes ; I have,
therefore, endeavoured, for a third time, to furnish the
public with a book whose fault should lie rather in the
direction of seeming less serious than it is, than of being
less so than it seems.

At the same time, I admit that when I began to
write upon my subject I did not seriously believe in it.
I saw, as it were, a pebble upon the ground, with a
sheen that pleased me ; taking it up, I turned it over
and over for my amusement, and found it always grow
brighter and brighter the more I examined it. At
length I became fascinated, and gave loose rein to self-
illusion. The aspect of the world seemed changed ; the
trifle which I had picked up idly had proved to be a
talisman of inestimable value, and had opened a door
through which I caught glimpses of a strange and
interesting transformation. Then came one who told
me that the stone was not mine, but that it had been
dropped by Lamarck, to whom it belonged rightfully,
but who had lost it ; whereon I said I cared not who
was the owner, if only I might use it and enjoy it.
Now, therefore, having polished it with what art and
care one who is no jeweller could bestow upon it, I
return it, as best I may, to its possessor.

What am I to think or say ? That I tried to deceive
others till I have fallen a victim to my own falsehood ?

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 307

Surely this is the most reasonable conclusion to arrive
at. Or that I have really found Lamarck's talisman,
which had been for some time lost sight of ?

Will the reader bid me wake with him to a world
of chance and blindness? Or can I persuade him to
dream with me of a more living faith than either he or
I had as yet conceived as possible ? As I have said,
reason points remorselessly to an awakening, but faith
and hope still beckon to the dream.

\

APPENDIX

AUTHOR'S ADDENDA

See Page 13

But I may say in passing that though articulate
speech and the power to maintain the upright position
come much about the same time, yet the power of
making gestures of more or less significance is prior
to that of walking uprightly, and therefore to that of
speech. Not only is gesticulation the earlier faculty
in the individual, but it was so also in the history of
our race. Our semi-simious ancestors could gesticulate
long before they could talk articulately. It is signifi-
cant of this that gesture is still found easier than
speech even by adults, as may be observed on our river
steamers, where the captain moves his hand but does
not speak, a boy interpreting his gesture into language.
To develop this here would complicate the argument ;
let us be content to note it and pass on.

II

See Page 18

Nevertheless, the smallness of the effort touches
upon the deepest mystery of organic life — the power to
originate, to err, to sport, the power which differen-
tiates the living organism from the machine, however
complicated. The action and working of this power is

308

APPENDIX 309

found to be like the action of any other mental and,
therefore, physical power (for all physical action of
living beings is but the expression of a mental action),
but I can throw no light upon its origin any more
than upon the origin of life. This, too, must be noted
and passed over.

Ill

See Page 25

How different from the above uncertain sound is
the full clear note of one who truly believes : —

"The Church of England is commonly called a
Lutheran church, but whoever compares it with the
Lutheran churches on the Continent will have reason
to congratulate himself on its superiority. It is in
fact a church sui generis, yielding in point of dignity,
purity and decency of its doctrines, establishment and
ceremonies, to no congregation of christians in the
world ; modelled to a certain and considerable extent,
but not entirely, by our great and wise pious re-
formers on the doctrines of Luther, so far as they are
in conformity with the sure and solid foundation on
which it rests, and we trust for ever will rest — the
authority of the Holy Scriptures, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief corner stone." ("Sketch of Modern
and Antient Geography," by Dr. Samuel Butler, of
Shrewsbury. Ed. 1813.)

This is the language of faith, compelled by the
exigencies of the occasion to be for a short time con-
scious of its own existence, but surely very little
likely to become so to the extent of feeling the need
of any assistance from reason. It is the language of
one whose convictions are securely founded upon the
current opinion of those among whom he has been
born and bred ; and of all merely post-natal faiths a

3io APPENDIX

faith so founded is the strongest. It is pleasing to
see that the only alterations in the edition of 1838
consist in spelling Christians with a capital C and
the omission of the epithet " wise " as applied to the
reformers, an omission more probably suggested by a
desire for euphony than by any nascent doubts con-
cerning the applicability of the epithet itself.

IV

See Page 239

Or take, again, the constitution of the Church of
England. The bishops are the spiritual queens, the
clergy are the neuter workers. They differ widely in
structure (for dress must be considered as a part of
structure), in the delicacy of the food they eat
kind of house they inhabit, and also in many
instincts, from the bishops, who are their e
parents. Not only this, but there are two
kinds of neuter workers — priests and deacons ; and o
the former there are deans, archdeacons, prebends,
canons, rural deans, vicars, rectors, curates, yet all
spiritually sterile. In spite of this sterility, however,
is there anyone who will maintain that the widely
differing structures and instincts of these castes aro
not due to inherited spiritual habit ? Still less will
he be inclined to do so when he reflects that by such
slight modification of treatment as consecration and
endowment any one of them can be rendered spiritu-
ally fertile.

WM. BFENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, TLYMOUTH

49 7

QH Butler, Samuel

366 Life and habit. New ed

1910

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