176 Unconscious Memory 



and this on fuller consideration I do not believe to be the 

 case ; I can conceive of no matter which is not able to 

 remember a little, and which is not living in respect of 

 what it can remember. I do not see how action of any 

 kind is conceivable without the supposition that every 

 atom retains a memory of certain antecedents. I cannot, 

 however, at this point, enter upon the reasons which have 

 compelled me to this conclusion. Whether these would 

 be deemed sufficient or no, at any rate we cannot believe 

 that a system of self-reproducing associations should de- 

 velop from the simplicity of the amoeba to the complexity 

 of the human body without the presence of that memory 

 which can alone account at once for the resemblances and 

 the differences between successive generations, for the 

 arising and the accumulation of divergences — for the 

 tendency to differ and the tendency not to differ. 



At parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader 

 to see every atom in the universe as living and able to 

 feel and to remember, but in a humble way. He must 

 have life eternal, as well as matter eternal ; and the life 

 and the matter must be joined together inseparably as 

 body and soul to one another. Thus he will see God every- 

 where, not as those who repeat phrases conventionally, 

 but as people who would have their words taken according 

 to their most natural and legitimate meaning ; and he 

 will feel that the main difference between him and many 

 of those who oppose him lies in the fact that whereas both 

 he and they use the same language, his opponents only 

 half mean what they say, while he means it entirely. 



The attempt to get a higher form of a hfe from a lower 

 one is in accordance with our observation and experience. 

 It is therefore proper to be believed. The attempt to get 

 it from that which has absolutely no life is like trying to 

 get something out of nothing. The millionth part of a 

 farthing put out to interest at ten per cent, will in five 

 hundred years become over a million pounds, and so long 

 as we have any millionth of a millionth of the farthing to 



