ifetime is too infinitesimally small to relearn procedures that have
taken aeons to develop.

"Just as the lathe operator has a choice of tapes which will cause the
lathe to function in different ways, so does new life have a choice. The
accumulated instructions and wisdom of the whole race may be available,
except for those tapes which have been lost or destroyed through the
ages. New life has a choice from that vast library of tapes. In its
inexperience, it relies on the parentage for the selection of many
proven combinations, and so we conclude certain characteristics are
'dominant' or 'inherited,' but we haven't been able to discover the
slightest reason why this is so.

"A selection of things other than color of eyes, the height of growth to
be attained, the shape of the body must also be made. A choice of modes
of facing the exterior world, a choice of stratagems to be used in
attaining survival and security in that world, must be made.

"And there is one other important factor: Mammalian life is created in a
universe where only life exists. The mammal in the womb does not know of
the existence of the external universe. Somewhere, sometime, the first
awareness of this external universe arises. In the womb. Outside the
womb. Early in fetal life, or late. When and where this awareness comes
is an individual matter. But when it comes, it arrives with lethal
impact.

"Awareness brings a million sensory invasions--chemical, physical,
extrasensory--none of them understood, all of them terrifying.

"This terrible fear that arises in this moment of awareness and
non-understanding is almost sufficient to cause a choice of death rather
than life at this point. Only because of the developed toughness,
acquired through the aeons, does the majority of mammalian life choose
to continue.

"In this moment, choices must be made as to how to cope with the
external world, how to understand it so as to diminish the fear it
inspires. The library of genetic tapes is full of possible solutions.
Parental experience is examined, too, and the very sensory impacts that
are the source of the terror are inspected to a greater or lesser extent
to see how they align with taped information.

"A very basic choice is then made. It may not be a single decision, but,
rather, a system of decisions all based on some fundamental underlying
principle. And the choice may not be made in an instant. How long a time
it may occupy I do not know.

"