82 Unconscious Memory 



The chicken not only displays great dexterity in the 

 performance of movements for the effecting of which it 

 has an innate capacity, but it exhibits also a tolerably 

 high perceptive power. It immediately picks up an}^ grain 

 that may be thrown to it. Yet, in order to do this, more 

 is wanted than a mere visual perception of the grains ; 

 there must be an accurate apprehension of the direction 

 and distance of the precise spot in which each grain is 

 lying, and there must be no less accuracy in the adjustment 

 of the movements of the head and of the whole body. The 

 chicken cannot have gained experience in these respects 

 ^^•hile it was still in the egg. It gained it rather from the 

 thousands of thousands of beings that have lived before it, 

 and from which it is directly descended. 



The memory of organised substance displaj^s itself here 

 in the most surprising fashion. The gentle stimulus of 

 the light proceeding from the grain that affects the retina 

 of the chicken,^ gives occasion for the reproduction of a 

 many-linked chain of sensations, perceptions, and emotions, 

 which were never yet brought together in the case of the 

 individual before us. We are accustomed to regard these 

 surprising performances of animals as manifestations of 

 what we call instinct, and the mysticism of natural 

 philosophy has ever shown a predilection for this theme ; 

 but if we regard instinct as the outcome of the memory 

 or reproductive power of organised substance, and if we 

 ascribe a memory to the race as we already ascribe it 

 to the individual, then instinct becomes at once in- 

 telligible, and the physiologist at the same time finds, a 

 point of contact \\'hich will bring it into connection with 

 the great series of facts indicated above as phenomena 

 of the reproductive faculty. Here, then, we have a physical 



^ This is the passage which makes me suppose Professor Hering 

 to mean that vibrations from exterior objects run into vibrations 

 already existing within the Uving body, and that the accession to 

 power thus derived is his key to an explanation of the physical 

 basis of action. 



