CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE WILL 87 



First, there is the organization of the nervous 

 system. This must be regarded as absolutely per- 

 sonal or specific for each human individual. If we 

 knew enough about the make-up of human brains, 

 we could probably distinguish many types of organi- 

 zation, but while those organs falling within each type 

 would resemble each other closely, each brain would, 

 nevertheless, possess distinctive features. One is 

 prone to think of the newly born child as lacking in 

 the physical traces of experience; and there is one 

 sort of experience of which the brain of the newly 

 born child is apparently destitute. The phenomena 

 of instinct have their probable explanation in the 

 records or latent memories of race experiences, 

 which, in the helpful hypothesis of Semon, are 

 known as the mneme. When a newborn infant 

 grasps a bar with its toes in simian fashion, it does 

 so in response to the awakening of this racial memory. 

 The respective centers have thus been written upon 

 by impressions carried in the germ plasm. 



Now if any fact emerges with clearness, it is that 

 the individual human being is answerable neither for 

 his nervous organization nor for the imprints or 

 engrams which have sunk into that organization. 

 These are things which he must accept as he accepts 

 the weather not necessarily with approval, but 

 with acquiescence. The second element which 

 molds his life history and personality is made up 

 of the massed experiences of his career, which have 

 reacted with the organization of the brain in such a 



