(I2 5 ) 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS — THE 

 ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER. 



Let us now return to the position which we left at 

 the end of the fourth chapter. We had then con- 

 cluded that the self-development of each new life in 

 succeeding generations — the various stages through 

 which it passes (as it would appear, at first sight, with- 

 out rhyme or reason) — the manner in which it prepares 

 structures of the most surpassing intricacy and delicacy, 

 for which it has no use at the time when it prepares 

 them — and the many elaborate instincts which it ex- 

 hibits immediately on, and indeed before, birth — all 

 point in the direction of habit and memory, as the only 

 causes which could produce them. 



Why should the embryo of any animal go 

 through so many stages — embryological allusions to 

 forefathers of a widely different type ? And why, 

 again, should the germs of the same kind of creature 

 always go through the same stages ? If the germ of 

 any animal now living is, in its simplest state, but part 

 of the personal identity of one of the original germs of 

 all life whatsoever, and hence, if any now living organ- 



