ASSIMILA TION OF UTS IDE MA TTER. \ 2 7 



of the individual, and the various phases or conditions 

 of life through which his forefathers have passed. I 

 suppose, then, that the fish of fifty million years back 

 and the man of to-day are one single living being, in 

 the same sense, or very nearly so, as the octogenarian 

 is one single living being with the infant from which 

 he has grown ; and that the fish has lived himself 

 into manhood, not as we live out our little life, living, 

 and living, and living till we die, but living by pulsa- 

 tions, so to speak ; living so far, and after a certain 

 time going into a new body, and throwing off the old ; 

 making his body much as we make anything that we 

 want, and have often made already, that is to say, as 

 nearly as may be in the same way as he made it last 

 time ; also that he is as unable as we ourselves are, 

 to make what he wants without going through the 

 usual processes with which he is familiar, even though 

 there may be other better ways of doing the same 

 thing, which might not be far to seek, if the creature 

 thought them better, and had not got so accustomed to 

 such and such a method, that he would only be baffled 

 and put out by any attempt to teach him otherwise. 



And this oneness of personality between ourselves 

 and our supposed fishlike ancestors of many millions 

 of years ago, must hold also between each individual 

 one of us and the single pair of fishes from which we 

 are each (on the present momentary hypothesis) 

 descended ; and it must also hold between such pair of 

 fishes and all their descendants besides man, it may 

 be some of them birds, and others fishes ; all these 

 descendants, whether human or otherwise, being but the 



