62 Unconscious Memory 



these phenomena, but there is nothing in the above at 

 variance with his lecture. 



Another matter on which Professor Hering has not 

 touched is the bearing of his theory on that view of evolu- 

 tion which is now commonly accepted. It is plain he 

 accepts evolution, but it does not appear that he sees how 

 fatal his theory is to any view of evolution except a teleo- 

 logical one — the purpose residing within the animal and 

 not without it. There is, however, nothing in his lecture 

 to indicate that he does not see this. 



It should be remembered that the question whether 

 memory is due to the persistence within the body of certain 

 vibrations, which have been already set up within the 

 bodies of its ancestors, is true or no, will not affect the 

 position I took up in " Life and Habit." In that book I 

 have maintained nothing more than that whatever memory 

 is heredity is also. I am not committed to the vibration 

 theory of memory, though inclined to accept it on a 

 prima facie view. All I am committed to is, that if memory 

 is due to persistence of vibrations, so is heredity ; and if 

 memory is not so due, then no more is heredity. 



Finall}^ I may say that Professor Hering's lecture, the 

 passage quoted from Dr. Erasmus Darwin on p. 26 of 

 this volume, and a few hints in the extracts from Mr. 

 Patrick Mathew which I have quoted in " Evolution, 

 Old and New," are all that I j^et know of in other writers 

 as pointing to the conclusion that the phenomena of 

 heredity are phenomena also of memory. 



