176 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



mediaries, which correspond to so many complications 

 of the social life. But the same diversity is found 

 in the functioning of histological elements belonging 

 to different tissues more or less akin. In both cases 

 there are manifold variations on one and the same 

 theme. The constancy of the theme is manifest, 

 however, and the variations only fit it to the diversity 

 of the circumstances. 



Now, in both cases, in the instinct of the animal and 

 in the vital properties of the cell, the same knowledge 

 and the same ignorance are shown. All ocs on as 

 if the cell knew, of the other cells, what concerns itself ; 

 as if the animal knew, of the other animals, what it 

 can utilise all else remaining in shade. It seems as 

 if life, as soon as it has become bound up in a 

 species, is cut off from the rest of its own work, 

 save at one or two points that are of vital concern 

 to the species just arisen. Is it not plain that life 

 goes to work here exactly like consciousness, exactly 

 like memory ? \Ye trail behind us, unawares, the 

 whole of our past ; but our memory pours into the 

 present only the odd recollection or two that in 

 some way complete our present situation. Thus the 

 instinctive knowledge which one species possesses of 

 another on a certain particular point has its root in the 

 very unity of life, which is, to use the expression of an 

 ancient philosopher, a &quot; whole sympathetic to itself.&quot; 

 It is impossible to consider some of the special instincts 

 of the animal and of the plant, evidently arisen in 

 extraordinary circumstances, without relating them to 

 those recollections, seemingly forgotten, which spring 

 up suddenly under the pressure of an urgent need. 



No doubt many secondary instincts, and also many 

 varieties of primary instinct, admit of a scientific ex- 



