Introduction to Hering's Lecture 57 



matter there, so Professor Hering resolves the phenomena 

 of personal identity into the phenomena of a living 

 mechanism whose equilibrium is disturbed by vibrations 

 of a certain character — and leaves it there. We now want 

 to understand more about the vibrations. 



But if, according to Professor Hering, the personal 

 identity of the single life consists in the uninterruptedness 

 of vibrations, so also do the phenomena of heredity. For 

 not only may vibrations of a certain violence or character 

 be persistent unperceived for many years in a living body, 

 and communicate themselves to the matter it has assimi- 

 lated, but they may, and will, under certain circumstances, 

 extend to the particle which is about to leave the parent 

 body as the germ of its future offspring. In this minute 

 piece of matter there must, if Professor Hering is right, 

 be an infinity of rhythmic undulations incessantly vibrating 

 with more or less activity, and ready to be set in more 

 active agitation at a moment's warning, under due ac- 

 cession of vibration from exterior objects. On the occur- 

 rence of such stimulus, that is to say, when a vibration 

 of a suitable rhythm from without concurs with one within 

 the body so as to augment it, the agitation may gather 

 such strength that the touch, as it were, is given to a 

 house of cards, and the whole comes toppling over. This 

 toppling over is what we call action ; and when it is the 

 result of the disturbance of certain usual arrangements 

 in certain usual ways, we call it the habitual development 

 and instinctive characteristics of the race. In either case, 

 then, whether we consider the continued identity of the 

 individual in what we call his single life, or those features 

 in his offspring which we refer to heredity, the same 

 explanation of the phenomena is applicable. It follows 

 from this as a matter of course, that the continuation of 

 life or personal identity in the individual and the race are 

 fundamentally of the same kind, or, in other words, that 

 there is a veritable prolongation of identity or oneness 

 of personahty between parents and offspring. Professor 



