74 LIFE AND HABIT. 



same chicken which made itself over and over again. 

 So far we can see, it always is unconscious of the 

 greater part of its own wonderful performance. Surely- 

 then we have a presumption that it is the same chicken 

 which makes itself over and over again ; for such uncon- 

 sciousness is not won, so far as our experience goes, 

 by any other means than by frequent repetition of the 

 same act on the part of one and the same individual. 

 How this can be we shall perceive in subsequent 

 chapters. In the meantime, we may say that all 

 knowledge and volition would seem to be merely parts 

 of the knowledge and volition of the primordial cell 

 (whatever this may be), which slumbers but never 

 dies — which has grown, and multiplied, and differen- 

 tiated itself into the compound life of the world, and 

 which never becomes conscious of knowing what it 

 has once learnt effectually, till it is for some reason on 

 the point of, or in danger of, forgetting it. 



The action, therefore, of an embryo making its way 

 up in the world from a simple cell to a baby, develop- 

 ing for itself eyes, ears, hands, and feet while yet 

 unborn, proves to be exactly of one and the same kind 

 as that of a man of fifty who goes into the City and 

 tells his broker to buy him so many Great Northern 

 A shares — that is to say, an effort of the will exercised 

 in due course on a balance of considerations as to the 

 immediate expediency, and guided by past experience ; 

 while children who do not reach birth are but pre- 

 natal spendthrifts, ne'er-do-weels, inconsiderate in- 

 novators, the unfortunate in business, either through 

 their own fault or that of others, or through inevitable 



