10 Colouration in Animals and Plants. 



probably survive in the struggle for existence ; but he was not born 

 with the larger and harder hoof because of his subsequently surviving. 

 He survived because he was born fit — not he was born fit because 

 he survived. The variation must arise first and be preserved 

 afterwards."* 



Mr. Butler works out with admirable force the arguments, first, 

 that habitual action begets unconsciousness ; second, that there is a 

 unity of personality between parent and offspring ; third, that there 

 is a memory of the oft-repeated acts of past existences, and, lastly, 

 that there is a latency of that memory until it is re-kindled by the 

 presence of associated ideas. 



As to the first point, we need say no more, for daily experience 

 confirms it ; but the other points must be dealt with more fully. 



Mr. Butler argues for the absolute identity of the parent and off- 

 spring; and, indeed, this is a necessity. Personal identity is a 

 phrase, very convenient, it is true, but still only a provisional mode 

 of naming something we cannot define. In our own bodies we say 

 that our identity remains the same from birth to death, though we 

 know that our bodily particles are ever changing, that our habits, 

 thoughts, aspirations, even our features, change — that we are no 

 more really the same person than the ripple over a pebble in a brook 

 is the same from moment to moment, though its form remains. If 

 our personal identity thus elude our search in active life, it certainly 

 becomes no more tangible if we trace existence back into pre-natal 

 states. We are, in one sense, the same individual ; but, what is equally 

 important, we were part of our mother, as absolutely as her limbs are 

 part of her. There is no break of continuity between offspring and 

 parent — the river of life is a continuous stream. We judge of our 

 own identity by the continuity which we see and appreciate ; but 

 that greater continuity reaching backwards beyond the womb to the 

 origin of life itself is no less a fact which should be constantly kept 

 in view. The individual, in reality, never dies ; for the lamp of life 

 never goes out. 



For a full exposition of this problem, Mr. Butler's "Life and 

 Habit " must be consulted, where the reader will find it treated in 

 a masterly way. 



This point was very early appreciated in our work ; and in a 

 paper read before the Anthropological Institute j in the year 1879, 



* Evolution, Old and New, p. 346. 



t On a New Method of Expressing the Law of Specific Change. By A. Tylor. 



