CONCLUSIONS 



USIONS 451 



// ,, ' Cj l 



keep a record of past events and is able to refer to such 

 records when necessary to guide his actions, wHith/^ve 

 call memory. 



Without this power of memory, the cell could not build 

 the plants and animals we see, nor could the civilization 

 of man be maintained without his ability to keep a record 

 of the past to guide his actions. The physical forces, pro- 

 vided with the same material to work on, always produce 

 the same results ; they always have done so and always 

 will. The rivers always have and always will flow to the 

 sea ; the heat of the sun has moved wind and water in the 

 past as it does today ; the chemical actions and crystalliza- 

 tions have taken place in the past just as they do today 

 and always will. Knowing the combination, the chemist 

 knows the result. In life it is different because the cell is 

 an animal or individual like man, who is able to override 

 and direct the blind forces of nature to his own use. The 

 environment of climate, wind, earth and water is made 

 to serve him and does not control him. The young barn- 

 acle, called copepod, looks like a cross between a crab 

 and a fish ; he has a nervous system, eyes and limbs for 

 locomotion. He swims about in the sea until he fastens 

 onto a fish and there becomes a stationary individual. He 

 tears down those structures and organs which are of no 

 more use to him, like eyes and limbs, and becomes noth- 

 ing but a sack fastened to the fish. This might seem a 

 very foolish thing to do from our point of view, that is, 

 to destroy one's eyes and limbs and convert one's self into 

 nothing more than a sack or stomach. However, looked 

 at from the correct point of view, it is the right thing to 

 do if one can do it. While a free swimming animal the 

 copepod has to lead a very strenuous and uncertain life. 

 While moving about in search of food, he is liable to be 

 swallowed and his existence terminated any minute by 



