148 LIFE AND HABIT. 



reason, lose all sense of our identity with ourselves as 

 infants), and remembers nothing but its past exist- 

 ences as a moth. 



We observe this to hold throughout the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. In any one phase of the existence 

 of the lower animals, we observe that they remember 

 the corresponding stage, and a little on either side of 

 it, of all their past existences for a very great length 

 of time. In their present existence they remember a 

 little behind the present moment (remembering more 

 and more the higher they advance in the scale of life), 

 and being able to foresee about as much as they could 

 foresee in their past existences, sometimes more and 

 sometimes less. As with memory, so with prescience. 

 The higher they advance in the scale of life the more 

 prescient they are. It must, of course, be remembered, 

 and will later on be more fully dwelt upon, that no 

 offspring can remember anything which happens to its 

 parents after it and its parents have parted company ; 

 and this is why there is, perhaps, more irregularity as 

 regards our wisdom-teeth than about anything else 

 that we grow ; inasmuch as it must not uncommonly 

 have happened in a long series of generations, that the 

 offspring has been born before the parents have grown 

 their wisdom-teeth, and thus there will be faults in the 

 memory. 



Is there, then, anything in memory, as we observe 

 it in ourselves and others, under circumstances in 

 which we shall agree in calling it memory pure and 

 simple without ambiguity of terms is there any- 

 thing in memory which bars us from supposing it 



