"
I felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me with being able
to develop a mental organism if I felt the need of it, for his own
ingenious attack on my position, and indeed every action of his life, was
but an example of this omnipresent principle.
When he was gone, however, I thought over what he had been saying. I
endeavoured to see how far I could get on without volition and memory,
and reasoned as follows:--A repetition of like antecedents will be
certainly followed by a repetition of like consequents, whether the
agents be men and women or chemical substances. "If there be two cowards
perfectly similar in every respect, and if they be subjected in a
perfectly similar way to two terrifying agents, which are themselves
perfectly similar, there are few who will not expect a perfect similarity
in the running away, even though ten thousand years intervene between the
original combination and its repetition." {189} Here certainly there is
no coming into play of memory, more than in the pan of cream on two
successive churning days, yet the action is similar.
A clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the day for dinner.
About half-past twelve he begins to feel hungry; at one he takes down his
hat and leaves the office. He does not yet know the neighbourhood, and
on getting down into the street asks a policeman at the corner which is
the best eating-house within easy distance.
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