CHAPTER VIII 



THE PHENOMENON OF MEMORY AND THE VITAL 

 PHENOMENON 



The comparison between the phenomena of develop- 

 ment and the phenomena of memory especially after the 

 discovery of the fundamental biogenetic law, that onto- 

 geny is a recapitulation of phylogeny, has presented 

 itself spontaneously to a large number of authors. 

 "The germ," said Claude Bernard, "seems to preserve 

 the memory of the organism from which it came." 230 

 Haeckel attributes development to the mnemonic quality 

 of his plastidules. We have seen in the sixth chapter 

 how Orr endeavored to explain the recapitulation of 

 phylogeny during ontogeny by the mnemonic law of 

 habit; how Cope held that ontogeny is called forth by 

 the unconscious memory of phylogeny; how Nageli and 

 in some places, Hertwig himself, attributes to the idio- 

 plasm the faculty of remembering, so to speak, the suc- 

 cessive stages through which it had gradually passed. 



But by far the boldest contender for the acceptance 

 of the essential likeness of the ontogenetic and mnemonic 

 phenomena has been Hering: "What else is this re- 

 appearance in the developing daughter organism of 

 characters of the parent organism, than a reproduction, 



280 Claude Bernard: Lemons sur les phenomenes de la vie com- 

 muns aux animaux et aux vegetaux. P. 66. 



