usand times. It is this assumption, tacitly made
by every man, beast, and plant in the universe, throughout all time and
in every action of their lives, that has made any improvement in action
possible--for it is this which lies at the root of the power to profit by
experience. I do not exactly know _why_ we make this assumption, and I
cannot find out that any one else knows much better than myself, but I do
not recommend any one to dispute it.

As we admit of no doubt concerning the main result, so we do not suppose
an alternative to lie before any atom of any molecule at any moment
during the process of combination. This process is, in all probability,
an exceedingly complicated one, involving a multitude of actions and
subordinate processes, which follow one upon the other, and each one of
which has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though they all come to pass
in what appears to be an instant of time. Yet at no point do we conceive
of any atom as swerving ever such a little to right or left of a
determined course, but invest each one of them with so much of the divine
attributes as that with it there shall be no variableness neither shadow
of turning.

We attribute this regularity of action to what we call the necessity of
things, as determined by the nature of the atoms and the circumstances in
which they are placed. We say that only one proximate result can ever
arise from any given combination. If, then, so great uniformity of
action as nothing can exceed is manifested by atoms to which no one will
impute memory, why this desire for memory, as though it were the only way
of accounting for regularity of action in living beings? Sameness of
action may be seen abundantly where there is no room for anything that we
can consistently call memory. In these cases we say that it is due to
sameness of substance in same circumstances.

The most cursory reflection upon our actions will show us that it is no
more possible for living action to have more than one set of proximate
consequents at any given time than for oxygen and hydrogen when mixed in
the proportions proper for the formation of water. Why then not
recognise this fact, and ascribe repeated similarity of living action to
the reproduction of the necessary antecedents, with no more sense of
connection between the steps in the action, or memory of similar action
taken before, than we suppose on the part of oxygen and hydrogen
molecules between the severa