CONCLUDING REMARKS. 297 



life than when we started, we still concluded that here 

 was the truest origin of species, and hence of genera ; 

 and that the accumulation of variations, which in time 

 amounted to specific and generic differences, was due 

 to intelligence and memory on the part of the creature 

 varying, rather than to the operation of what Mr. Dar- 

 win has called " natural selection." At the same time 

 we admitted that the course of nature is very much as 

 Mr. Darwin has represented it, in this respect, in so far 

 as that there is a struggle for existence, and that the 

 weaker must go to the wall. But we denied that this 

 part of the course of nature would lead to much, if 

 any, accumulation of variation, unless the variation was 

 directed mainly by intelligent sense of need, with con- 

 tinued personality and memory. 



We conclude, therefore, that the small, structureless, 

 impregnate ovum from which we have each one of us 

 sprung, has a potential recollection of all that has hap- 

 pened to each one of its ancestors prior to the period at 

 which any such ancestor has issued from the bodies of 

 its progenitors — provided, that is to say, a sufficiently 

 deep, or sufficiently often-repeated, impression has been 

 made to admit of its being remembered at all. 



Each step of normal development will lead the im- 

 pregnate ovum up to, and remind it of, its next ordinary 

 course of action, in the same way as we, when we recite 

 a well-known passage, are led up to each successive 

 sentence by the sentence which has immediately pre- 

 ceded it. 



And for this reason, namely, that as it takes two 

 people " to tell " a thing— a speaker and a comprehend- 



