HISTORICAL SKETCH OF EVOLUTION. 67 



I was myself when I put it forward recently in ' Life and 

 Habit.' I have never seen the lecture in which Pro- 

 fessor Hering has referred the phenomena of heredity 

 to memory, but will give an extract from it which 

 appeared in the ' AthenaBum,' as translated by Professor 

 Bay Lankester.* The only new feature which I 

 believe I may claim to have added to received ideas 

 concerning evolution, is a perception of the fact that 

 the unconsciousness with which we go through our em- 

 bryonic and infantile stages, and with which we dis- 

 charge the greater number and more important of our 

 natural functions, is of a piece with what we observe 

 concerning all habitual actions, as well as concerning 

 memory ; an explanation of the phenomena of old age ; 

 and of the main principle which underlies longevity. 

 I may, perhaps, claim also to have more fully ex- 

 plained the passage of reason into instinct than I yet 

 know of its having been explained elsewhere.t 



* See page 199 of this volume. 



t Apropos of this, a friend has kindly sent me the following extract 

 from Balzac: " Historiquement, les paysans sont encore au lende- 

 main de la Jacquerie, leur defaite est restee inscritc dans leur cervelle. 

 7/s ne se souriennent phis du fait, il est passe u Pctat d'iilte instinctive" 

 Balzac, ' Les Paysans,' v. 



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