e policeman has no memory too) he will ask and be answered, and ask and
be answered, till he and the policeman die of old age. This similarity
of action is plainly due to that--whatever it is--which ensures that like
persons or things when placed in like circumstances shall behave in a
like manner.

Allow the clerk ever such a little memory, and the similarity of action
will disappear; for the fact of remembering what happened to him on the
first day he went out in search of dinner will be a modification in him
in regard to his then condition when he next goes out to get his dinner.
He had no such memory on the first day, and he has upon the second. Some
modification of action must ensue upon this modification of the actor,
and this is immediately observable. He wants his dinner, indeed, goes
down into the street, and sees the policeman as yesterday, but he does
not ask the policeman; he remembers what the policeman told him and what
he did, and therefore goes straight to the eating-house without wasting
time: nor does he dine off the same dish two days running, for he
remembers what he had yesterday and likes variety. If, then, similarity
of action is rather hindered than promoted by memory, why introduce it
into such cases as the repetition of the embryonic processes by
successive generations? The embryos of a well-fixed breed, such as the
goose, are almost as much alike as water is to water, and by consequence
one goose comes to be almost as like another as water to water. Why
should it not be supposed to become so upon the same grounds--namely,
that it is made of the same stuffs, and put together in like proportions
in the same manner?

ON CYCLES. (CHAPTER XI. OF UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY.)

The one faith on which all normal living beings consciously or
unconsciously act, is that like antecedents will be followed by like
consequents. This is the one true and catholic faith, undemonstrable,
but except a living being believe which, without doubt it shall perish
everlastingly. In the assurance of this all action is taken. But if
this fundamental article is admitted, it follows that if ever a complete
cycle were formed, so that the whole universe of one instant were to
repeat itself absolutely in a subsequent one, no matter after what
interval of time, then the course of the events between these two moments
would go on repeating itself for ever and ever afterwards in due order,
down to the minutest detail, in