HISTORICAL SKETCH OF EVOLUTION. 67 



I waa myself when 1 put it forward recently in ' Life and 

 Habit.' I Lave never seen the lecture in wliich Pro- 

 fessor Hering has referred the phenomena of heredity 

 to memory, but will give an extract from it which 

 appeared in the ' Athenaeum,' as translated by Professor 

 Kay Lankester.* The only new feature which I 

 believe I may claim to have added to received ideas 

 concerning evolution, is a perception of the fact that 

 the unconsciousness with which we go through our em- 

 bryonic and infantile stages, and with which we dis- 

 charge the greater number and more important of our 

 natural functions, is of a piece with what we observe 

 concerning all habitual actions, as well as concerning 

 memory ; an explanation of the phenomena of old age ; 

 and of the main principle which underlies longevity. 

 I may, perhaps, claim also to have more fully ex- 

 plained the passage of reason into instinct than I yet 

 Imow of its having been explained elsewliere.t 



♦ See page 199 of this volume. 



t Apropos of this, a friend has kindly sent me the following extract 

 from Balzac: — " Historiquement, 'les paysans sont encore au lende- 

 main de la Jacquerie, leur de'faite est rest^e inscrite dans leur cervelle. 



lis ne se souviennent plus dufait, il est passe a Petat cfidee instinctive." — 

 Balzac, ' Les Paysana,' v. 



F 2 



