78 THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 



but for style or manner of working, to fit it for its natural 

 work of hunting and killing sheep or other animals, the dog 

 is the equal of man by the mere exertion of its memory. 



God makes no errors. Had memory been left intact in the 

 mind of man, he would never have developed civilisation, 

 religion, government, science, for he would have had no in- 

 ducement to study, and fear would have prevented all pro- 

 gress. Also had his offspring been able from birth upwards 

 to recall in detail the acts of their parents, all powers of 

 authority and control that the parents are now able to exert 

 over the minds of their children would never have existed. 

 It would have been impossible to have educated the young idea 

 how to shoot. Each one of us would have acted on his own 

 knowledge and memory, and would have discarded the know- 

 ledge others might have acquired and been willing to impart. 

 How completely our memory has been withdrawn, except for 

 the right, indistinctly to recall past actions I will ask the 

 reader to judge, by casting his thoughts back twenty years 

 and see if he cannot recall many circumstances in public affairs 

 that should have taught mankind a lesson ; yet in less than 

 ten short years the bulk of those, whose ancestors have never 

 had to weigh or consider like events and their consequences, 

 have forgotten they ever happened, although they may have 

 been the worst sufferers, or if they have not forgotten them, 

 they have at least attributed the effects to the wrong causes. 



Had memory remained perfect, the past failures would 

 have been so deeply rooted in the minds of mankind that some 

 of us would never have had the courage to face one- 

 thousandth part of the difficulties mankind has overcome. And 

 as I will demonstrate hereafter, had we never evolved super- 

 stition, we could never have developed any form of religion, 

 for, as in all other animals, memory would have only retained 

 the impression of fear, and man would never have had the 

 necessary courage to succeed. When memory is withdrawn, 

 fear is changed first into superstition and then into reverence, 

 and in this way has evolved religion and civilisation to its 

 present standard, which would have been impossible, and man 

 would have been still no more than a savage animal had not 

 memory been withdrawn, for if fear is aroused, or circum- 

 stances arise which have caused fear in the past, so great is 

 the force of past recollection in the animal mind that the 



