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 RIGNANO. 
Mian, ITALY, 
