178 Unconscious Memory 



the essentials of reproduction, and that both air and water 

 possess this po^^•er in a very high degree. The essence of 

 a reproductive system, then, is found low down in the 

 scheme of nature. 



At present our leading men of science are in this diffi- 

 culty ; on the one hand their experiments and their 

 theories alike teach them that spontaneous generation 

 ought not to be accepted ; on the other, they must have 

 an origin for the life of the living forms, which, by their 

 own theory, have been evolved, and they can at present 

 get this origin in no other way than by the Dens ex machind 

 method, which they reject as unproved, or a spontaneous 

 generation of living from non-living matter, which is no 

 less foreign to their experience. As a general rule, they 

 prefer the latter alternative. So Professor Tyndall, in his 

 celebrated article {Nineteenth Century, November 1878), 

 wrote : — 



" It is generally conceded (and seems to be a necessary 

 inference from the lessons of science) that spontaneous 

 generation must at one time have taken place " (italics mine). 



No inference can well be more unnecessary or un- 

 scientific. I suppose spontaneous generation ceases to be 

 objectionable if it was " only a very little one," and came 

 off a long time ago in a foreign country. The proper in- 

 ference is, that there is a low kind of livingness in every 

 atom of matter. Life eternal is as inevitable a conclusion 

 as matter eternal. 



It should not be doubted that wherever there is vibra- 

 tion or motion there is life and memory, and that there 

 is vibration and motion at all times in all things. 



The reader who takes the above position will find that 

 he can explain the entry of what he calls death among 

 what he calls the living, whereas he could by no means 

 introduce life into his system if he started without it. 

 Death is deducible ; life is not deducible. Death is a 

 change of memories ; it is not the destruction of all me- 

 mory. It is as the liquidation of one company, each 



