" I should perhaps have written, "Life is the
being possessed of a memory--the life of a thing at any moment is the
memories which at that moment it retains;" and I would modify the words
that immediately follow, namely, "Matter which cannot remember is dead;"
for they imply that there is such a thing as matter which cannot remember
anything at all, and this on fuller consideration I do not believe to be
the case; I can conceive of no matter which is not able to remember a
little, and which is not living in respect of what it can remember. I do
not see how action of any kind (chemical as much as vital) is conceivable
without the supposition that every atom retains a memory of certain
antecedents. I cannot, however, at this point, enter upon the reasons
which have compelled me to join the many who are now adopting this
conclusion. Whether these would be deemed sufficient or no, at any rate
we cannot believe that a system of self-reproducing associations should
develop from the simplicity of the amoeba to the complexity of the human
body without the presence of that memory which can alone account at once
for the resemblances and the differences between successive generations,
for the arising and the accumulation of divergences--for the tendency to
differ and the tendency not to differ.
At parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader to see every atom in
the universe as living and able to feel and to remember, but in a humble
way.
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