xxii Unconscious Memory 



the Universit3^ of Louisiana, published a Httle book entitled 

 " A Theory of Heredity." Herein he insists on the ner- 

 vous control of the whole body, and on the transmission 

 to the reproductive cells of such stimuli, received by the 

 body, as will guide them on their path until they shall 

 have acquired adequate experience of their own in the 

 new body they have formed. I have found the name of 

 neither Butler nor Hering, but the treatment is essentially 

 on their lines, and is both clear and interesting. 



In 1896 I wrote an essay on " The Fundamental Prin- 

 ciples of Heredit3^" primarily directed to the man in the 

 street. This, after being held over for more than a year by 

 one leading review, was " declined with regret," and again 

 after some weeks met the same fate from another editor. 

 It appeared in the pages of " Natural Science " for October, 

 1897, and in the " Biologisches Central blatt " for the same 

 year, I reproduce its closing paragraph : — 



" This theory [Hering-Butler's] has, indeed, a tentative 

 character, and lacks symmetrical completeness, but is the 

 more welcome as not aiming at the impossible. A whole 

 series of phenomena in organic beings are correlated under 

 the term of memory, conscious and unconscious, patent and 

 latent. ... Of the order of unconscious memory, latent till 

 the arrival of the appropriate stimulus, is all the co-operative 

 growth and work of the organism, including its development 

 from the reproductive cells. Concerning the modus operandi 

 we know nothing : the phenomena may be due, as Hering 

 suggests, to molecular vibrations, which must be at least as 

 distinct from ordinary physical disturbances as Rontgen's 

 rays are from ordinary light ; or it may be correlated, as we 

 ourselves are inclined to think, with complex chemical changes 

 in an intricate but orderly succession. For the present, at 

 least, the problem of heredity can only be elucidated by the 

 light of mental, and not material processes." 



It will be seen that I express doubts as to the validity 

 of Hering's invocation of molecular vibrations as the 

 mechanism of memory, and suggest as an alternative 

 rhythmic chemical changes. This view has recently been 



