140 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



conscious, of higher nerve cells and lower, of double 

 cerebrum and wayward ganglia. It hints at many 

 voiceless beings that live out in our body their joy and 

 pain and scarce give sign dwellers in the subcentres, 

 with whom it rnay be often lies the initiative when the 

 conscious centre itself is free. This / is no doubt a 

 hierarchy or commonwealth of physical units that at 

 death dissolves and sinks below the threshold of con- 

 sciousness." "We see that never again can there be 

 such an orgy of the ego (in philosophic thought) as that 

 led by Fichte and Hegel." 



Of course, some of the above-quoted phraseology 

 is figurative, and could not be applied literally to the 

 personality of Richard Roe. His self- 

 consciousness arose from the co-opera- 

 tive action of his higher nerve cells. 

 That it arose from many, not from any particular 

 one, gave it in some degree the semblance of being 

 apart from them all. But this was only a semblance, 

 and the elements of which his personality was made 

 had been in one way used before him by many 

 others. 



With all this, we may be sure that the stream of 

 Richard Roe's life will not rise much above its potential 

 fountain. He will have no powers far beyond those 

 potential in his ancestors. But who can tell what pow- 

 ers have remained latent in these ancestors ? It takes a 

 series of peculiar circumstances to bring any group of 

 qualities into general notice. These men who are famous 

 in spite of an unknown ancestry are not 



necessarily very different from this an- 

 greatness. _; . . . ... 



cestry. Fame is a jutting crag which 



may project from a very low mountain. Far higher 

 elevations may not catch the eye if their outline is not 

 unusual. Even under the plebeian name by which " Fate 



