Chapter X 



Recapitulation and statement of an objection. 



THE true theory of unconscious action, then, is that 

 of Professor Hering, from whose lecture it is no 

 strained conclusion to gather that he holds the action of 

 all living beings, from the moment of their conception to 

 that of their fullest development, to be founded in volition 

 and design, though these have been so long lost sight of 

 that the work is now carried on, as it were, departmentally 

 and in due course according to an official routine which 

 can hardly now be departed from. 



This involves the older " Darwinism " and the theory 

 of Lamarck, according to which the modification of living 

 forms has been effected mainly through the needs of the 

 living forms themselves, which vary with varying con- 

 ditions, the survival of the fittest (which, as I see Mr. 

 H. B. Baildon has just said, " sometimes comes to mean 

 merely the survival of the survivors " ^) being taken almost 

 as a matter of course. According to this view of evolution, 

 there is a remarkable analogy between the development 

 of living organs or tools and that of those organs or tools 

 external to the body which has been so rapid during the 

 last few thousand years. 



Animals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are 

 guided throughout their development, and preserve the 

 due order in each step which they take, through memory 

 of the course they took on past occasions when in the 

 persons of their ancestors. I am afraid I have already 

 too often said that if this memory remains for long periods 



1 The Spirit of Nature. J. A. Churchill & Co., 1880, p. 39. 



146 



