APPLICATION OF FOREGOING PRINCIPLES. 61 



This is indeed to make bricks with but a small 

 modicum of straw. There is no man in the whole 

 world who knows consciously and articulately as much 

 as a half-hatched hen's egg knows unconsciously. 

 Surely the egg in its own way must know quite as 

 much as the chicken does. We say of the chicken that 

 it knows how to run about as soon as it is hatched. 

 So it does ; but had it no knowledge before it was 

 hatched ? What made it lay the foundations of those 

 limbs which should enable it to run about ? What 

 made it grow a horny tip to its bill before it was 

 hatched, so that it might peck all round the larger end 

 of the eggshell and make a hole for itself to get out 

 at ? Having once got outside the eggshell, the chicken 

 throws away this horny tip ; but is it reasonable to 

 suppose that it would have grown it at all unless it 

 had known that it would want something with which 

 to break the eggshell ? And again, is it in the least 

 agreeable to our experience that such elaborate 

 machinery should be made without endeavour, failure, 

 perseverance, intelligent contrivance, experience, and 

 practice ? 



In the presence of such considerations, it seems 

 impossible to refrain from thinking that there must 

 be a closer continuity of identity, life, and memory, 

 between successive generations than we generally 

 imagine. To shear the thread of life, and hence ot 

 memory, between one generation and its successor, is, 

 so to speak, a brutal measure, an act of intellectual 

 butchery, and like all such strong high-handed measures, 

 a sign of weakness in him who is capable of it till all 



