78 Unconscious Memory 



peculiarities of an organism, and the proclivity on the 

 part of the germ in virtue of which it develops the special 

 characteristics of its parent. 



The microscope teaches us that no difference can be 

 perceived between one germ and another ; it cannot, 

 however, be objected on this account that the determining 

 cause of its ulterior development must be something 

 immaterial, rather than the specific kind of its material 

 constitution. 



The curves and surfaces which the mathematician 

 conceives, or finds conceivable, are more varied and infinite 

 than the forms of animal life. Let us suppose an infinitely 

 small segment to be taken from every possible curv^e ; each 

 one of these will appear as like every other as one germ 

 is to another, yet the whole of every curve lies dormant, 

 as it were, in each of them, and if the mathematician 

 chooses to develop it, it will take the path indicated by 

 the elements of each segment. 



It is an error, therefore, to suppose that such fine dis- 

 tinctions as physiology must assume lie beyond the limits 

 of what is conceivable by the human mind. An infinitely 

 small change of position on the part of a point, or in the 

 relations of the parts of a segment of a curve to one another, 

 suffices to alter the law of its whole path, and so in like 

 manner an infinitely small influence exercised by the 

 parent organism on the molecular disposition of the 

 germ ^ may suffice to produce a determining effect upon 

 its whole farther development. 



What is the descent of special peculiarities but a re- 

 production on the part of organised matter of processes 

 in which it once took part as a germ in the germ-containing 

 organs of its parent, and of which it seems still to retain 

 a recollection that reappears when time and the occasion 

 serve, inasmuch as it responds to the same or hke stimuli 



1 That is to say, " an infinitely small change in the kind of vibra- 

 tion communicated from the parent to the germ." 



