86 The Universe and Life 



We are forced, I believe, to say that biological 

 science finds no support for such a doctrine. Life does 

 indeed continue but in other individuals. It is toward 

 fulness and adequacy and variety that life strives. 

 But this is attained, perhaps quite as fully, or more 

 fully, through the life of successive individuals as it 

 would be through the continued life of the individuals 

 now in existence. Continued life of the present indi- 

 viduals would indeed avoid the process of aging and 

 death, which casts a shadow on the life of those exist- 

 ing, and in so far works aganist the fulness and ade- 

 quacy of life. But we are forced to take life as we find 

 it, and what we find is that life consists not of indefi- 

 nitely continuing individuals but of successive ones. 

 No single individual of a later generation represents 

 any single individual of a foregoing generation. For 

 in the processes of reproduction, the materials of life, 

 the genes, from many earlier generations, are thrown 

 together, and from the mixture a new combination is 

 extracted; so that each new individual represents or 

 continues not one but many different individuals of 

 foregoing generations. And no individual of a later 

 generation is found to continue the conscious per- 

 sonality of any individual of a previous generation, 

 as the later hours of a single individual continue his 

 earlier hours, through continuity of memory. The 

 succeeding individuals are different combinations of 

 materials, of genes, from any now existing. They 

 have diverse characteristics, diverse characters, dif- 

 ferent personalities, from any that have before ex- 

 isted. And there is no evidence of the sort required for 



