152 Unconscious Memory 



have nothing to do with the one, why should they with 

 the other? 



Remember also the cases in which aged females develop 

 male characteristics. Here are growths, often of not in- 

 considerable extent, which make their appearance during 

 the decay of the body, and grow with greater and greater 

 vigour in the extreme of old age, and even for days after 

 death itself. It can hardly be doubted that an especial 

 tendency to develop these characteristics runs as an in- 

 heritance in certain families ; here then is perhaps the 

 best case that can be found of a development strictly 

 inherited, but having clearly nothing whatever to do with 

 memory. Why should not all development stand upon 

 the same footing ? 



A friend who had been arguing with me for some time 

 as above, concluded with the following words : — 



" If you cannot be content with the similar action of 

 similar substances (living or non-living) under similar 

 circumstances — if you cannot accept this as an ultimate 

 fact, but consider it necessary to connect repetition of 

 similar action with memory before you can rest in it and 

 be thankful — be consistent, and introduce this memory 

 which you find so necessary into the inorganic world also. 

 Either say that a chrysalis becomes a butterfly because it 

 is the thing that it is, and, being that kind of thing, must 

 act in such and such a manner and in such a manner only, 

 so that the act of one generation has no more to do with 

 the act of the next than the fact of cream being churned 

 into butter in a dairy one day has to do with other cream 

 being churnable into butter in the following week — either 

 say this, or else develop some mental condition — which I 

 have no doubt you will be very well able to do if you feel 

 the want of it — in which you can make out a case for 

 saying that oxygen and hydrogen on being brought to- 

 gether, and cream on being churned, are in some way 

 acquainted with, and mindful of, action taken by other 

 cream and other oxygen and hydrogen on past occasions." 



