352 Organic Nature s Riddle 



digestive organs impeded by the unAvonted food on which 

 he may have to Uve. After a little while, however, the evil 

 dimiaishes, and in time his organism may have ' learnt ' how 

 to correspond perfectly with the new conditions. Then with 

 each fresh meal the aUmentary canal and glands must 

 practically 'recognise' a return of the recently obtained 

 experience, and repeat its freshly acquired power of healthy 

 response thereto. Can ' memory ' be properly predicated of 

 such actions of the alimentary glands ? It can be so pre- 

 dicated only by a perversion of language. It is not memory, 

 because not only is it divorced from consciousness as it 

 occurs, but it cannot anyhow be made present to conscious- 

 ness. Again, a boy at school has had a kick at football, 

 which has left a deep scar on his leg. That boy, now 

 become an old man, stiU bears the same scar, though aU 

 his tissues have been again and again transformed in the 

 course of seventy years. Can the constant reproduction of 

 the mark, in any reasonable sense, be said to be an act of, 

 or due to, memory ? Evidently it cannot, and neither can 

 it be reasonably predicated of any of the actions of plants 

 or of the lowest animals. 



As, then, ' memory ' cannot be predicated, except by an 

 abuse of language, of the lower forms of life, it would appear 

 that neither intelligence nor rationality can truly exist in 

 them, so as to preside over aU those actions of nutrition, 

 repair, reproduction, and instinct which we have examined 

 and distinguished. 



Nevertheless, Hartmann and his followers do not on 

 this account hesitate to ascribe true intelligence to uncon- 

 scious nature, and though such ascription may seem too 

 absurd to deserve serious consideration, it would never- 

 theless be a great mistake to despise such opinions. For, 

 as Mr. Lewes truly says,^ ' As there are many truths which 



^ Problems of Life and Mivd, ii. iii. iv. of Third Series, p. 85. 



