138 THE EVOLUTION OF CONTINUITY 



but as the main variations in the female body, expressing 

 themselves in terms of size, proportion, and shape, depend 

 on the number and method of grouping of constituent cells, 

 and on their characters and locally proportionate quantities, 

 so we may imagine that the variations in ova depend on the 

 size, pattern, or grouping of the ovum's plasmolecules, and 

 on the character of these, and the locally proportionate 

 quantities of their ultimate particles. As finer variations 

 of the body will depend on the molecular constitution of 

 the body-cells, so will the finer variations of the ovum depend 

 on the ultimate plan or constitution of the ovum's plas- 

 molecules. It must be the power of endless variation of 

 patterns and proportions of ultimate particles which gives us 

 the ceaseless variation of the human body. 



When a fixed character, or parental variation it may be, is trans- 

 mitted to the offspring, the somatic part exhibiting it may be said 

 to remember its exhibition in the parent. There is a return to an 

 appearance last seen in the parent. It was force of Repulsion which 

 set free the elements whose fusion originated the offspring, and this 

 fusion was an act of Attraction which in turn was followed by the 

 repeated alternation of the two forces till the elements again appeared. 

 The sexual elements lose their plans of identity to regain them, and 

 regain them to lose them once more in a new cycle. The growth- 

 cycle is thus truly a " repeating " reaction ; it is a true cycle. It 

 is probable that this " repetition " possessed by living basoplasm is the 

 actual basis of what we call Memory ; that perhaps Memory is based 

 on the return to a " particulate pattern " previously exhibited. The 

 brain cells are specially adapted to register all impressions, faint or 

 marked, affecting the body as a whole or in its parts ; and many of 

 these impressions being repeated or almost exactly repeated, we may 

 picture the same " patterns " recurring directly or indirectly as a 

 result. Thus, recognition may be induced by the re-formation of 

 a given pattern-effect, this the result of the repetition of the original 

 cause ; the cause being always Environmental Force in some 

 aspect. 



A certain sound or scent may make us recall in a flash some 

 long-forgotten place or incident. In this case the given sound or 

 scent, no doubt, must always produce its own proper particulate 

 pattern-effect in the brain cells involved, and this induces or passes 

 on into other associated pattern-effects which were the true effects 

 of other impressions received on the occasion when the sound or scent 

 was originally perceived. Thus, by a species of pattern evolution, 

 in its essence a return or a reversal, a train of thought may be started 

 which, if uninterrupted by any fresh impression, may recall a great 

 piece of the past or break off on a side-line to quite distinct subjects. 



