ASSIMILATION OF OUTSIDE MATTER. 145 



that the eggs must disappear before fowls can he 

 hatched from them, whereas, the hens so hatched may 

 outlive the development of other hens, from the eggs 

 which they in due course have laid. The original 

 eggs being out of sight are out of mind, and it is 

 without an effort that we acquiesce in the assertion, 

 that the dozen new eggs actually are the two original 

 ones. But the original four fowls being still in sight, 

 cannot be ignored, we only, therefore, see the new 

 ones as growths from the original ones. 



The strict rendering of the facts should be, " you 

 are part of the present phase of the identity of such 

 and such a past identity," i.e., either of the two eggs or 

 the four fowls, as the case may be ; this will put the 

 eggs and the fowls, as it were, into the same box, and 

 will meet both the philosophical and legal require- 

 ments of the case, only it is a little long. 



So far then, as regards actual identity of person- 

 ality ; which, we find, will allow us to say, that eggs j 

 are part of the present phase of a certain past identity, / 

 whether of other eggs, or of fowls, or chickens, and in 

 like manner that chickens are part of the present 

 phase of certain other chickens, or eggs, or fowls ; in 

 fact, that anything is part of the present phase of any 

 past identity in the line of its ancestry. But as 

 regards the actual memory of such identity (unconsci- 

 ous memory, but still clearly memory), we observe that 

 the egg, as long as it is an egg, appears to have a very 

 distinct recollection of having been an egg before, and 

 the fowl of having been a fowl before, but that neither 

 egg nor fowl appear to have any recollection of any 



