LIFE; BODY AND MIND 207 



discoverers, but now there are fewer of these 

 "mute inglorious Miltons." Every discovery, 

 every trifling invention, every new trick of 

 salesmanship is at once broadcast from any part 

 of the world and garnered into our large gran- 

 aries of knowledge. 



If now we cease to make invidious distinc- 

 tions between man and the animals, and con- 

 sider the latter by themselves, it seems natural 

 to class together the three traits that we call 

 memory, habit and instinct. They relate to 

 phenomena of quite similar aspect, and while 

 we say that memory is acquired during the life 

 of an individual, and that instinct is acquired 

 over a much longer period by the species, still 

 it may be that the distinction between an indi- 

 vidual and his ancestors is far less sharp among 

 the animals than it is with man. When we con- 

 sider the continuity between the more complex 

 forms of life and the simpler unicellular organ- 

 isms which propagate by simple fission, where 

 it would be absurd to call one half the parent 

 and the other half the child, it seems unwise to 

 insist upon too sharp a distinction between an 

 individual and his ancestors. 



While, therefore, we might be inclined to 

 treat instinct as merely inherited memory, we 



