e lady to define
"sameness" or "personal identity," he would have soon secured his
victory.

The main fact, compared with which all else is a matter of detail, is
the admission that instinct is only reason become habitual. This
admission involves, consciously or unconsciously, the admission of all
the principles contended for in 'Life and Habit'; principles which, if
admitted, make the facts of heredity intelligible by showing that they
are of the same character as other facts which we call intelligible, but
denial of which makes nonsense of half the terms in common use
concerning it. For the view that instinct is habitual reason involves
sameness of personality and memory as common to parents and offspring;
it involves also the latency of that memory till rekindled by the return
of a sufficient number of its associated ideas, and points the
unconsciousness with which habitual actions are performed. These
principles being grasped, the infertility _inter se_ of widely distant
species, the commonly observed sterility of hybrids, the sterility of
certain animals and plants under confinement, the phenomena of old age
as well as those of growth, and the principle which underlies longevity
and alternate generations, follow logically and coherently, as I showed
in 'Life and Habit.' Moreover, we find that the terms in common use show
an unconscious sense that some such view as I have insisted on was
wanted and would come, for we find them made and to hand already; few if
any will require altering; all that is necessary is to take common words
according to their common meanings.

Dr. Darwin is very good on this head. Here, as everywhere throughout his
work, if things or qualities appear to resemble one another sufficiently
and without such traits of unlikeness, on closer inspection, as shall
destroy the likeness which was apparent at first, he connects them, all
theories notwithstanding. I have given two instances of his manner of
looking at instinct and reason.[158] "If these are not," he concludes,
"deductions _from their own previous experience, or observation_, all
the actions of mankind must be resolved into instincts."[159]

If by "previous experience" we could be sure that Dr. Darwin
persistently meant "previous experience in the persons of their
ancestors," he would be in an impregnable position. As it is, we feel
that though he had caught sight of the truth, and had even held it in
his hands, yet somehow or other it