ASSIMILA TION OF UTSIDE MA TTER. 141 



ing continuity without sudden break as the underlying 

 principle of identity, we forget that this involves per- 

 sonal identity between all the beings who are in 

 one chain of descent, the numbers of such beings, 

 whether in succession, or contemporaneous, going for 

 nothing at all. Thus we take two eggs, one male and 

 one female, and hatch them ; after some months the 

 pair of fowls so hatched, having succeeded in putting 

 a vast quantity of grain and worms into false positions, 

 become full-grown, breed, and produce a dozen new eggs. 



Two live fowls and a dozen eggs are the present 

 phase of the personality of the two original eggs. They 

 are also part of the present phase of the personality of all 

 the worms and grain which the fowls have assimilated 

 from their leaving the eggshell ; but the personalities 

 of these last do not count ; they have lost their grain 

 and worm memories, and are instinct with the memo- 

 ries of the whole ancestry of the creature which has 

 assimilated them. 



We cannot, perhaps, strictly say that the two fowls 

 and the dozen new eggs actually are the two original 

 eggs ; these two eggs are no longer in existence, and we 

 see the two birds themselves which were hatched from 

 them. A bird cannot be called an egg without an 

 abuse of terms. Xevertheless, it is doubtful how far 

 we should not say this, for it is only with a mental 

 reserve and with no greater mental reserve 

 that we predicate absolute identity concerning any 

 living being for two consecutive moments ; and it 

 is certainly as free from quibble to say to two fowls 

 and a dozen eggs, " you are the two eggs I had on niy 



