140 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
conscious, of higher nerve cells and lower, of double 
cerebrum and wayward ganglia. It hints at many 
voiceless beings that live out in our body their joy and 
pain and scarce give sign dwellers in the subcentres, 
with whom it may be often lies the initiative when the 
conscious centre itself is free. This / is no doubt a 
hierarchy or commonwealth of physical units that at 
death dissolves and sinks below the threshold of con- 
sciousness.” ‘We see that never again can there be 
such an orgy of the ego (in philosophic thought) as that 
led by Fichte and Hegel.” 
Of course, some of the above-quoted phraseology 
is figurative, and could not be applied literally to the 
personality of Richard Roe. His self- 
consciousness arose from the co-opera- 
tive action of his higher nerve cells. 
That it arose from many, not from any particular 
one, gave it in some degree the semblance of being 
apart from them all. But this was only a semblance, 
and the elements of which his personality- was made 
had been in one way used before him by many 
others. 
With all this, we may be sure that the stream of 
Richard Roe’s life will not rise much above its potential 
fountain. He will have no powers far beyond those 
potential in his ancestors. But who can tell what pow- 
ers have remained latent in these ancestors? It takes a 
series of peculiar circumstances to bring any group of 
qualities into general notice. These men who are famous 
in spite of an unknown ancestry are not 
necessarily very different from this an- 
cestry. Fame is a jutting crag which 
may project from a very low mountain. Far higher 
elevations may not catch the eye if their outline is not 
unusual, Even under the plebeian name by which “ Fate 
The ego a 
co-operation. 
Fame not 
greatness, 
