y the words
that immediately follow, namely, "Matter which cannot remember is dead;"
for they imply that there is such a thing as matter which cannot remember
anything at all, 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 (chemical as much as vital) 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 join the many who are now adopting this
conclusion. Whether these would be deemed sufficient or no, at any rate
we cannot believe that a system of self-reproducing associations should
develop 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 everywhere, 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 life 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 start with, our getting as many million
pounds as we have a fancy for is only a question of time, but without the
initial millionth of a millionth of