Unconscious Memory

and Habit," and the circum

dry ethereal medium which we call space, and yet remained alive. If they travelled slowly, they would die; if fast, they would catch fire, as meteors do on entering the earth's atmosphere. The idea, again, of their having been created by a quasi-anthropomorphic being out of the matter upon the earth was at variance with the whole spirit of evolution, which indicate

thing or things that were not what we called living at all; that they had grown up, in fact, out of the material substan

hension but what is spontaneous; if the motion is spontaneous, the thing moving must he alive, for nothing can move of itself or without our understanding why unless it is alive. Everything that is alive and not too large can be tortured, and perhaps eaten; let us therefore spring upon the tag" and they spring upon it. Cats are above this; yet give the cat something which presents a few more of those appearances which she is accustomed to see whenever she sees life, and she

action for each one of the successive emergencies of life as it arose, would not take us in for good and all, and look so much as if it were alive that, whether we liked it or not, we should be compelled to think it and call it so; and whether the being alive was not simply the being an exceedingly complicated machine, whose parts were set in motion by the action upon them of exterior circumstances; whether, in fact, man was not a kind of toy-mouse in the shape of a man, only capable of going for seventy

of mechanism was "being alive," why should not machines ultimately become as complicated as we are, or at any rate complicated enough to be called living, and to be inde

cule of matter, inasmuch as it destroys the separation between the organic and inorganic, and maintains that whatever the organic is the inorganic is also. Deny it in theory as much as we please, we shall still always feel that an orga

hink of death or mechanism, I find it so inconceivable, that it is easier to call it life again. The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between the organic and inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with our other ideas, and therefore more acceptable, to start with every molecule as a living thing, and then deduce death as the breaking

pick at most easily. Having worked upon it a certain time, I drew the inference about machines becoming animate, and in 1862 or 1863 wrote the sketch of the chap

ks later than June 13, 1863, I published a second letter in the Press putting this view forward. Of this letter I have lost the only copy I had; I have not seen it for years. The first was certainly not good; the second, if I remember rightly, was a good deal worse, though I believed more in the views it put forward

carried about with us or left at home at pleasure. I was not, however, satisfied, and should have gone on with the subject at once if I had n

chines as limbs, but also limbs as machines. I felt immediately that I was upon firmer ground. The use of the word "organ" for a limb told its own story; the word could not have become so current under this meani

erto? Not unless he and his ancestors are one and the same person. Perhaps, then, they are the same person after all. What is sameness? I remembered Bishop Butler's sermon on "Personal Identity," read it again, and saw very plainly that if a man of eighty may consider himself identical with the baby from whom he has developed, so that he may say, "I am the

impregnate ovum from which it has developed. If so, the octogenarian will prove to have been a fish once in this

fish, but it is true that the reptile embryo" (and what is said here of the reptile holds good also for the human embryo), "at

th a view to acceptance at their next forthcoming annual exhibition, and that the President and Council regretted they were unable through want of space, &c., &c."-and as much more as th

ault, and has nothing whatever to do with the matter, which must be decided, not, as it were, upon his own evidence as to what deeds he may or may not re

n by the same individual in successive generations. It was natural, therefore, that they should come in the course of time to be done unconsciously, and a cons

to go to Canada, and for the next year and a half did hardly any writing. The first passage in

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 accumulated life of centuries. 'Do this, this, this,

ntry beyond it was suffused with a colour which even Italy cannot surpass. Sitting down for a while, I began making notes for "Life and Habit," of which I was then continually thinking, and had written the first few lines of the above, when the bells of Notre Dame in Montreal b

5, and early in 1876 began putting these notes into more coherent form. I did this in thirty pages of closely written matter, of which a pressed copy r

ly, the oneness of personality between parents and offspring; memory on the part of offspring of certain actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers

hese notes may serve as

mals come mainly within the womb, or are done involuntarily, as our [g

run about as soon as it is hatched, . . . bu

a great many things b

s and feathe

knew nothing

thers, and makes its bones larger,

t knows nothing

en does

now so well as to be un

upon the confine

know that we know. When we will very

arly in August. It was perhaps thus that I failed to hear of the account of Professor Hering's lecture given by Professor Ray Lankester in Nature, July 13 1876; though, never at that time seeing Nature, I should pro

s any truth in it, it is almost sure to occur to several people much about the same time, and a reasonable person will look upon his work with great suspicion unless he can confirm it with the support of others who have gone before him. Still I knew of nothing in the least resembling it, and was so afraid of what I was doing, that though I could see no flaw in the argument, nor any loophole for escape from the conclusion it led to, yet I did not dare to put it forward with the seriousness and s

e I had a visit from a friend, who kindly called to answer a question of mine, relative, if I remember rightly, to "Pangenesis." He came, September 26, 1877. One of the first things he said was, that the theory which had pleased him more than anything he had heard of for some time was one referring all life to memory. I said that was exactly what I was doing myself, and inquired where he had met with his theory. He replied that Professor Ray Lankester had written a letter about it in Nature some time ago, but he could not remember exactly when, and had given extracts from a lecture by Professor Ewald Hering, who had originated

lection" and evolution were much the same thing, and having found so many attacks upon evolution produce no effect upon me, I declined to read it. I had as yet no idea that a writer could attack Neo-Darwinism without attacking evolution. But my friend kindly sent me a copy; and when I read it, I foun

at without this there could have been no progress in organic development. I got the latest edition of the "Origin of Species" in order to see how Mr. Darwin met Professor Mivart, and found his answers in many respects unsatisfa

nd then transmitted by inheritance to the succeeding generations. It can be clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts with

. The concluding words, "I am surprised that no one has hitherto advanced this demonstrative case of neuter insects against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit as advanced by Lamarck," [23b] were positively awful. There was a quiet consciousness of strength about them which was more convincing than any amount of more detailed explanation. This was the firs

more closely, and I may say more sceptically, the antagonism between Mr. Darwin and Lamarck became fully apparent to me, and I saw how incoherent and unworkable in practice the later view was in comparison with the earlier. Then I read Mr. Darwin's answers to miscellaneous objections, and was met, and this time brought up, by the passage beginning "In the earlier editions of this work," [24a] &c., on which I wrote very severely in "Life and Habit";

rs, "Instincts of Neuter Insects," "Lamarck and Mr. Darwin," "Mr. Mivart and Mr. Darwin," and the concluding chapter, all of them in the month of October and the early part of November 1877, the complete book leaving the binder's hands December 4, 1877, but, according to trade custom, being dated 1878. It will be seen that these five concluding chapters were rapidly written, and this