Here, 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 which I hope to derive assistance from the criticisms which
this present volume may elicit. {125} 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 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 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 inexplicable on any other supposition than that they
were modes of memory, 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 heredity, whether as regards
instinct or structure, were due to memory of past experiences,
accumulated and fused till they had become automatic, or quasi automatic,
much in the same way as after a long life--
. . . "Old experience doth 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 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 principle underlying
longevity, the phenomena of old age, and puberty as generally near the
end of development, explain themselves with more completeness than I have
yet heard of their being explained on any other hypothesis. Most indeed
of these phenomena have been left hitherto without even an attempt at an
explanation.
We considered the most important difficulty in the way of instinct as
hereditary habit, namely, the structure and instincts of neuter insects;
these are very unlike those of their parents, and cannot, apparently, be
transmitted to offspring by individuals of the previous 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 memory on the part of offspring, of habits contracted
in the persons of its ancestors. {127}
We then inquired what was the great principle underlying 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 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. Darwin 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 continued personality and memory.
We conclude, therefore, that the small, apparently structureless,
impregnate ovum from which we have each one of us sprung, has a potential
recollection of all that has happened 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 impregnate 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 preceded it.
And for this reason, namely, that as it takes two people "to tell" a
thing--a speaker and a comprehending 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 creature 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 generations.
Life then is the being possessed of memory. We are all the same stuff to
start with; plants and animals only differ from one another because they
remember different things; they grow up in the shapes they bear because
these shapes are the embodiments of their ideas concerning their own past
history; they are forms of faith or faiths of form whichever the reader
chooses.
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 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 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, eventually, in the utter impotence of death. The kingdom of heaven
is the kingdom of little children.