Statement of an Objection i 53 



I felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me 

 with being able to develop a mental organism if I felt the 

 need of it, for his own ingenious attack on my position, 

 and indeed every action of his life was but an example of 

 this omnipresent principle. 



When he was gone, however, I thought over what he 

 had been saying. I endeavoured to see how far I could 

 get on without volition and memory, and reasoned as 

 follows : — A repetition of like antecedents will be certainly 

 followed by a repetition of like consequents, v/hether the 

 agents be men and women or chemical substances. " If 

 there be two cowards perfectly similar in every respect, 

 and if they be subjected in a perfectly similar way to two 

 terrifying agents, which are themselves perfectly similar, 

 there are few who will not expect a perfect similarity in 

 the running away, even though ten thousand years inter- 

 vene between the original combination and its repetition."^ 

 Here certainly there is no coming into play of memory, 

 more than in the pan of cream on two successive churning 

 days, yet the action is similar. 



A clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the 

 day for dinner. About half-past twelve he begins to feel 

 hungry ; at once he takes down his hat and leaves the 

 office. He does not yet know the neighbourhood, and on 

 getting down into the street asks a policeman at the 

 corner which is the best eating-house within easy distance. 

 The policeman tells him of three houses, one of which is 

 a little farther off than the other two, but is cheaper. 

 Money being a greater object to him than time, the clerk 

 decides on going to the cheaper house. He goes, is satis- 

 fied, and returns. 



Next day he wants his dinner at the same hour, and — 

 it will be said — remembering his satisfaction of yesterday, 

 will go to the same place as before. But what has his 

 memory to do with it ? Suppose him to have entirely 

 forgotten all the circumstances of the preceding day from 



^ Erewhon, chap, xxiii. 



