150 Life and Matter [chap. rut 



ment, which it can be thought of as having 

 acquired here. Such a statement as this 

 last cannot be made of magnetism, to which 

 no known law of evolution and progress 

 can be supposed to apply ; but of life, of 

 anything subject to continuous evolution or 

 linear progress embodied in the race, 

 of any condition not cyclically determinate 

 and returning into itself, but progressing 

 and advancing acquiring fresh poten- 

 tialities, fresh powers, fresh beauties, new 

 characteristics such as perhaps may never 

 in the whole universe have been displayed 

 before of everything which possesses such 

 powers as these, a statement akin to the 

 above may certainly be made. To all such 

 things, when they reach a high enough 

 stage, the ideas of continued personality, of 

 memory, of persistent individual existence, 

 not only may, but I think must, apply ; not- 

 withstanding the admitted return of the 

 individual after each? incarnation to the 

 central store from which it was differentiated 

 and individualised. 



