46 Heredity. 



ception is an act essentially active, into which the whole mind 

 enters. But we need not dwell upon a point which would require 

 a lengthy explanation, carrying us beyond the limits of our subject 

 We shall presently see whether the heredity of the intellectual 

 faculties, in their highest forms, can be directly established. 



CHAPTER III. 



HEREDITY OF THE MEMORY. 



IF, in treating of Memory, we confine ourselves to a description 

 of the phenomena, and the investigation of their organic conditions, 

 our task is simple. Nothing is easier than to attribute recollection 

 to a special faculty which knows the past as consciousness knows 

 the present. Unfortunately, however, this supposed faculty adds 

 nothing to our knowledge, and with it we are in possession of only 

 what the phenomena gave us, with just a word over. On the other 

 hand, when we go beyond mere description and verbal explana- 

 tions, the problem of memory, simple as it appears, becomes very 

 difficult. Yet since, in order to understand the relation between 

 heredity and memory, it is necessary to have some precise notions 

 about this subject, the problem must be attempted. 



The phenomena of memory, considered in their ultima ratio, are 

 explained by the law of the indestructibility of force, of the conser- 

 vation of energy, which is one of the most important laws of the 

 universe. Nothing is lost; nothing that exists can ever cease 

 to be. In physics, this is admitted readily enough the principle 

 is well-established, and confirmed by so many facts, that doubt 

 is impossible. In morals, the case is different : we are commonly so 

 accustomed to regard all occurrences as the results of chance, and 

 as subject to no laws, that many at least implicitly admit the annihila- 

 tion of that which once was a state of consciousness to be possible. 

 Yet annihilation is as inadmissible in the moral as it is in the 

 physical world ; and but little reflection is needed to see that in 

 all orders of phenomena it is alike impossible for something to 

 become nothing, or for nothing to become something. Such a 



