Inherited Memory. 13 



developed or nascent cells, which precede them in the regular course 

 of growth. . . . Gemmules are supposed to be thrown off by 

 every unit ; not only during the adult state, but during each stage 

 of development of every organ; but not necessarily during the 

 continued existence of the same unit. Lastly, I assume that the 

 gemmules in their dormant state have a mutual affinity for each 

 other, leading to their aggregation into buds, or into the sexual 

 elements. Hence, it is not the reproductive organs or buds which 

 generate new organisms, but the units of which each individual is 

 composed."* 



Now, suppose that instead of these hypothetic gemmules we 

 endow the units with memory in ever so slight a degree, how 

 simple the explanation of all these facts becomes ! What an unit 

 has learned to do under given conditions it can do again under like 

 circumstances. Memory does pass from one unit to another, or we 

 could not remember anything as men that happened in childhood, 

 for we are not physically composed of the same materials. It is not 

 at all necessary that an unit should remember it remembers any 

 more than we in reading are conscious of the efforts we underwent 

 in learning our letters. Few of us can remember learning to walk, 

 and none of us recollect learning to talk. Yet surely the fact that 

 we do read, and walk, and talk, proves that we have not forgotten 

 how. 



Bearing in mind, then, the fundamental laws that the offspring 

 is one in continuity with its parents, and that memory arises chiefly 

 from repetition in a definite order (for we cannot readily reverse the 

 process — we cannot sing the National Anthem backwards), it is easy 

 to see how the oft-performed actions of an individual become its 

 unconscious habits, and these by inheritance become the instincts 

 and unconscious actions of the species. Experience and memory 

 are thus the key-note to the origin of species. 



Granting that all living matter possesses memory, we must 

 admit that all actions are at first conscious in a certain degree, and 

 in the " sense of need " we have the great stimulation to action. 



In Natural Selection, as expounded by Mr. Darwin, there is no 

 principle by which small variations can be accumulated. Take any 

 form, and let it vary in all directions. We may represent the 

 original form by a spot, and the variations by a ring of dots. Each 

 one of these dots may vary in all directions, and so other rings of 



* Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii., p. 370. 



