ance from the criticisms which
this present volume may elicit. {125} Such as it is, however, for the
present I must leave it.

We have seen that we cannot do anything thoroughly till we can do it
unconsciously, and that we cannot do anything unconsciously till we can
do it thoroughly; this at first seems illogical; but logic and
consistency are luxuries for the gods, and the lower animals, only. Thus
a boy cannot really know how to swim till he can swim, but he cannot swim
till he knows how to swim. Conscious effort is but the process of
rubbing off the rough corners from these two contradictory statements,
till they eventually fit into one another so closely that it is
impossible to disjoin them.

Whenever we see any creature able to go through any complicated and
difficult process with little or no effort--whether it be a bird building
her nest, or a hen's egg making itself into a chicken, or an ovum turning
itself into a baby--we may conclude that the creature has done the same
thing on a very great number of past occasions.

We found the phenomena exhibited by heredity to be so like those of
memory, and to be so inexplicable on any other supposition than that they
were modes of memory, that it was easier to suppose them due to memory in
spite of the fact that we cannot remember having recollected, than to
believe that because we cannot so remember, therefore the phenomena
cannot be due to memory.

We were thus led to consider "personal identity," in order to see whether
there was sufficient reason for denying that the experience, which we
must have clearly gained somewhere, was gained by us when we were in the
persons of our forefathers; we found, not without surprise, that unless
we admitted that it might be so gained, in so far as that we once
_actually were_ our remotest ancestor, we must change our ideas
concerning personality altogether.

We therefore assumed that the phenomena of heredity, whether as regards
instinct or structure, were due to memory of past experiences,
accumulated and fused till they had become automatic, or quasi automatic,
much in the same way as after a long life--

. . . "Old experience doth attain
To something like prophetic strain."

After dealing with certain phenomena of memory, but more especially with
its abeyance and revival, we inquired what the principal corresponding
phenomena of life and species should be, on the hypothesis that they were
mainly due to memory.