400 Appendix 



which animals prepare in advance for future conditions of 

 which they themselves are probably ignorant all these 

 "finalistic" phenomena of life, identical in their nature, can 

 be explained as so many manifestations of a purely 

 mnemonic nature, as we have seen in our earlier writings 

 mentioned above. 



And now in the present essay we see that affective 

 tendencies, which are even more conspicuously "finalistic" 

 manifestations, are likewise based upon the mnemonic 

 property of living substance, and hence in the last analysis 

 upon the faculty of "specific accumulation," a faculty be- 

 longing exclusively to the nervous energy which underlies 

 all life. 



This mnemonic property, this faculty of "specific ac- 

 cumulation," which by its absence leaves inorganic nature 

 exclusively in the power of forces a tergo and deprives 

 it of every finalistic aspect, is on the other hand every- 

 where present in organic nature and because of its pres- 

 ence makes the world of life a world apart, of which the 

 most characteristc elements cannot be explained by the 

 laws of physics and chemistry alone in the limited sense 

 assigned to them to-day. 



EUGENIO RlGNANO. 



MILAN, ITALY. 



