322 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



the configuration of the body. To examine into the dis- 

 position to sport in the progeny, even when there is 

 only one parent as in many vegetables, and to inves- 

 tigate how much variation is modified by the mind 

 or nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living 

 thing itself during its progress to maturity ; how far it 

 depends upon external circumstance, and how far on 

 the will, irritability, and muscular exertion, is open to 

 examination and experiment. In the first place, we 

 ought to examine its dependency upon the preceding 

 links of the particular chain of life, variety being often 

 merely types or approximations of former parentage ; 

 thence the variation of the family as well as of the indi- 

 vidual must be embraced by our experiments. 



"This continuation of family type, not broken by 

 casual particular aberration, is mental as well as corpo- 

 real, and is exemplified in many of the dispositions or 

 instincts of particular races of men. These innate or 

 continuous ideas or habits seem proportionally greater in 

 the insect tribes, and in those especially of shorter revolu- 

 tion ; and forming an abiding memory, may resolve much 

 of the enigma of instinct, and the foreknowledge ivhich 

 these tribes have of what is necessary to completing their 

 round of life, reducing this to knowledge or impressions 

 and habits acquired by a long experience. 



" This greater continuity of existence, or rather con- 

 tinuity of perceptions and impressions in insects, is 

 highly probable ; it is even difficult in some to ascertain 

 the particular steps ivhen each individual commences, 

 under the different phases of egg, larva, pupa, or if 

 much consciousness of individuality exists. The con- 



