{127}
We then inquired what was the great principle underlying variation, and
answered, with Lamarck, that it must be "sense of need;" and though not
without being haunted by suspicion of a vicious circle, and also well
aware that we were not much nearer the origin of life than when we
started, we still concluded that here was the truest origin of species,
and hence of genera; and that the accumulation of variations, which in
time amounted to specific and generic differences, was due to
intelligence and memory on the part of the creature varying, rather than
to the operation of what Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection." At
the same time we admitted that the course of nature is very much as Mr.
Darwin has represented it, in this respect, in so far as that there is a
struggle for existence, and that the weaker must go to the wall. But we
denied that this part of the course of nature would lead to much, if any,
accumulation of variation, unless the variation was directed mainly by
intelligent sense of need, with continued personality and memory.
We conclude, therefore, that the small, apparently structureless,
impregnate ovum from which we have each one of us sprung, has a potential
recollection of all that has happened to each one of its ancestors prior
to the period at which any such ancestor has issued from the bodies of
its progenitors--provided, that is to say, a sufficiently deep, or
sufficiently often-repeated, impression has been made to admit of its
being remembered at all.
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