THE UNIQUE MAMMAL 15 



walk and talk still more unconsciously j our breathing is, to a 

 certain extent, under our control, our heart's beating is per- 

 ceivable but not under control, our digestion is unperceivable 

 and beyond control. 



"3. A baby cannot grow itself in the womb unless it knows 

 how to do it, and to know how to do it, it must have done it 

 before or it will be contradicting all human experience. Its 

 unconsciousness is the result of over-knowledge. 



"4. It learnt to do it when it did it before j that is, on the 

 previous occasion when it was an impregnate ovum. 



"5. It has attained to unconscious knowledge of how to do it 

 by doing it a very great number of times in the persons of its 

 ancestors. 



"6. But how about identity? There is no identity of matter 

 between me as I am now and me as I was when I was an 

 impregnate ovum, but there may be continuity of existence. 

 And there may be a modified identity between me as an impreg- 

 nate ovum and my father and mother as impregnate ova. Let us 

 consider my ovum as the means adopted by my parents' ova not 

 for reproducing themselves but for continuing themselves, and 

 let us see the intermediate lives as a long potato shoot from one 

 eye to the place where it will grow its next tuber. 



"7. Given a single creature capable of reproducing itself 

 and it must reproduce a creature capable of reproducing itself 

 and so on ad infmitum, 



"Then comes Descent with Modification. Similarity tem- 

 pered with dissimilarity and dissimilarity tempered with simi- 

 larity — a contradiction in terms like almost everything else that 

 is true or useful or indeed intelligible at all. A begets A' which 

 is A with the additional experience of the prime. A^ begets A^% 

 which is A with the additional experience of A^ and A^' and so 

 on to A^'y but you can never eliminate the A. 



"8. Let y4" stand for a man. He begins as the primordial cell 

 splitting himself up for ever, and for ever gaining experience, 

 always doing as he did before when last he was in the same 

 position but always with the additional experience gained by 



