UNCONSCIOUS
MEMORY.) {181a}

The true theory of unconscious action is that of Professor Hering, from
whose lecture {181b} it is no strained conclusion to gather that he holds
the action of all living beings, from the moment of conception to that of
fullest development, to be founded in volition and design, though these
have been so long lost sight of that the work is now carried on, as it
were, departmentally and in due course according to an official routine
which can hardly be departed from.

This involves the older "Darwinism" and the theory of Lamarck, according
to which the modification of living forms has been effected mainly
through the needs of the living forms themselves, which vary with varying
conditions--the survival of the fittest (which, as I see Mr. H. B.
Baildon has just said, "sometimes comes to mean merely the survival of
the survivors" {181c}) being taken as a matter of course. According to
this view of evolution, there is a remarkable analogy between the
development of living organs, or tools, and that of those organs or tools
external to the body which has been so rapid during the last few thousand
years.

Animals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are guided throughout
their development, and preserve the due order in each step they take,
through memory of the course they took on past occasions when in the
persons of their ancestors. I am afraid I have already too often said
that if this memory remains for long periods together latent and without
effect, it is because the vibrations of the molecular substance of the
body which are its supposed explanation are during these periods too
feeble to generate action, until they are augmented in force through an
accession of similar vibrations issuing from exterior objects; or, in
other words, until recollection is stimulated by a return of the
associated ideas. On this the internal agitation becomes so much
enhanced, that equilibrium is visibly disturbed, and the action ensues
which is proper to the vibrations of the particular substance under the
particular conditions. This, at least, is what I suppose Professor
Hering to intend.

Leaving the explanation of memory on one side, and confining ourselves to
the fact of memory only, a caterpillar on being just hatched is supposed,
according to this theory, to lose its memory of the time it was in the
egg, and to be stimulated by an intense but unconscious recollection of
the action taken by