Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) - Samuel Butler (digital e reader TXT) 📗
- Author: Samuel Butler
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Instances Of Men's Minds Having Gone Round And Round So Nearly In A
Perfect Cycle That Many Revolutions Have Occurred Before The
Cessation Of A Tendency To Recur. Lastly, In The Generation Of
Plants And Animals We Have, Perhaps, The Most Striking And Common
Example Of The Inevitable Tendency Of All Action To Repeat Itself
When It Has Once Proximately Done So. Let Only One Living Being Have
Once Succeeded In Producing A Being Like Itself, And Thus Have
Returned, So To Speak, Upon Itself, And A Series Of Generations Must
Follow Of Necessity, Unless Some Matter Interfere Which Had No Part
In The Original Combination, And, As It May Happen, Kill The First
Reproductive Creature Or All Its Descendants Within A Few
Generations. If No Such Mishap Occurs As This, And If The Recurrence
Of The Conditions Is Sufficiently Perfect, A Series Of Generations
Follows With As Much Certainty As A Series Of Seasons Follows Upon
The Cycle Of The Relations Between The Earth And Sun. Let The First
Periodically Recurring Substance--We Will Say A--Be Able To Recur Or
Reproduce Itself, Not Once Only, But Many Times Over, As A1, A2, &C.;
Let A Also Have Consciousness And A Sense Of Self-Interest, Which
Qualities Must, Ex Hypothesi, Be Reproduced In Each One Of Its
Offspring; Let These Get Placed In Circumstances Which Differ
Sufficiently To Destroy The Cycle In Theory Without Doing So
Practically--That Is To Say, To Reduce The Rotation To A Spiral, But
To A Spiral With So Little Deviation From Perfect Cycularity As For
Each Revolution To Appear Practically A Cycle, Though After Many
Revolutions The Deviation Becomes Perceptible; Then Some Such
Differentiations Of Animal And Vegetable Life As We Actually See
Follow As Matters Of Course. A1 And A2 Have A Sense Of Self-Interest
As A Had, But They Are Not Precisely In Circumstances Similar To A's,
Nor, It May Be, To Each Other's; They Will Therefore Act Somewhat
Differently, And Every Living Being Is Modified By A Change Of
Action. Having Become Modified, They Follow The Spirit Of A's Action
More Essentially In Begetting A Creature Like Themselves Than In
Begetting One Like A; For The Essence Of A's Act Was Not The
Reproduction Of A, But The Reproduction Of A Creature Like The One
From Which It Sprung--That Is To Say, A Creature Bearing Traces In
Its Body Of The Main Influences That Have Worked Upon Its Parent.
Within The Cycle Of Reproduction There Are Cycles Upon Cycles In The
Life Of Each Individual, Whether Animal Or Plant. Observe The Action
Of Our Lungs And Heart, How Regular It Is, And How A Cycle Having
Been Once Established, It Is Repeated Many Millions Of Times In An
Individual Of Average Health And Longevity. Remember Also That It Is
This Periodicity--This Inevitable Tendency Of All Atoms In
Combination To Repeat Any Combination Which They Have Once Repeated,
Unless Forcibly Prevented From Doing So--Which Alone Renders Nine-
Tenths Of Our Mechanical Inventions Of Practical Use To Us. There Is
No Internal Periodicity About A Hammer Or A Saw, But There Is In The
Steam-Engine Or Watermill When Once Set In Motion. The Actions Of
These Machines Recur In A Regular Series, At Regular Intervals, With
The Unerringness Of Circulating Decimals.
When We Bear In Mind, Then, The Omnipresence Of This Tendency In The
World Around Us, The Absolute Freedom From Exception Which Attends
Chapter 11 (On Cycles) Pg 128Its Action, The Manner In Which It Holds Equally Good Upon The
Vastest And The Smallest Scale, And The Completeness Of Its Accord
With Our Ideas Of What Must Inevitably Happen When A Like Combination
Is Placed In Circumstances Like Those In Which It Was Placed Before--
When We Bear In Mind All This, Is It Possible Not To Connect The
Facts Together, And To Refer Cycles Of Living Generations To The Same
Unalterableness In The Action Of Like Matter Under Like Circumstances
Which Makes Jupiter And Saturn Revolve Round The Sun, Or The Piston
Of A Steam-Engine Move Up And Down As Long As The Steam Acts Upon It?
But Who Will Attribute Memory To The Hands Of A Clock, To A Piston-
Rod, To Air Or Water In A Storm Or In Course Of Evaporation, To The
Earth And Planets In Their Circuits Round The Sun, Or To The Atoms Of
The Universe, If They Too Be Moving In A Cycle Vaster Than We Can
Take Account Of? {160} And If Not, Why Introduce It Into The
Embryonic Development Of Living Beings, When There Is Not A Particle
Of Evidence In Support Of Its Actual Presence, When Regularity Of
Action Can Be Ensured Just As Well Without It As With It, And When At
The Best It Is Considered As Existing Under Circumstances Which It
Baffles Us To Conceive, Inasmuch As It Is Supposed To Be Exercised
Without Any Conscious Recollection? Surely A Memory Which Is
Exercised Without Any Consciousness Of Recollecting Is Only A
Periphrasis For The Absence Of Any Memory At All.
Chapter 12 Pg 129
Refutation--Memory At Once A Promoter And A Disturber Of Uniformity
Of Action And Structure.
To Meet The Objections In The Two Foregoing Chapters, I Need Do
Little More Than Show That The Fact Of Certain Often Inherited
Diseases And Developments, Whether Of Youth Or Old Age, Being
Obviously Not Due To A Memory On The Part Of Offspring Of Like
Diseases And Developments In The Parents, Does Not Militate Against
Supposing That Embryonic And Youthful Development Generally Is Due To
Memory.
This Is The Main Part Of The Objection; The Rest Resolves Itself Into
An Assertion That There Is No Evidence In Support Of Instinct And
Embryonic Development Being Due To Memory, And A Contention That The
Chapter 12 Pg 130Necessity Of Each Particular Moment In Each Particular Case Is
Sufficient To Account For The Facts Without The Introduction Of
Memory.
I Will Deal With These Two Last Points Briefly First. As Regards The
Evidence In Support Of The Theory That Instinct And Growth Are Due To
A Rapid Unconscious Memory Of Past Experiences And Developments In
The Persons Of The Ancestors Of The Living Form In Which They Appear,
I Must Refer My Readers To "Life And Habit," And To The Translation
Of Professor Hering's Lecture Given In This Volume. I Will Only
Repeat Here That A Chrysalis, We Will Say, Is As Much One And The
Same Person With The Chrysalis Of Its Preceding Generation, As This
Last Is One And The Same Person With The Egg Or Caterpillar From
Which It Sprang. You Cannot Deny Personal Identity Between Two
Successive Generations Without Sooner Or Later Denying It During The
Successive Stages In The Single Life Of What We Call One Individual;
Nor Can You Admit Personal Identity Through The Stages Of A Long And
Varied Life (Embryonic And Postnatal) Without Admitting It To Endure
Through An Endless Series Of Generations.
The Personal Identity Of Successive Generations Being Admitted, The
Possibility Of The Second Of Two Generations Remembering What
Happened To It In The First Is Obvious. The A Priori Objection,
Therefore, Is Removed, And The Question Becomes One Of Fact--Does The
Offspring Act As If It Remembered?
The Answer To This Question Is Not Only That It Does So Act, But That
It Is Not Possible To Account For Either Its Development Or Its Early
Instinctive Actions Upon Any Other Hypothesis Than That Of Its
Remembering, And Remembering Exceedingly Well.
The Only Alternative Is To Declare With Von Hartmann That A Living
Being May Display A Vast And Varied Information Concerning All Manner
Of Details, And Be Able To Perform Most Intricate Operations,
Independently Of Experience And Practice. Once Admit Knowledge
Independent Of Experience, And Farewell To Sober Sense And Reason
From That Moment.
Firstly, Then, We Show That Offspring Has Had Every Facility For
Remembering; Secondly, That It Shows Every Appearance Of Having
Remembered; Thirdly, That No Other Hypothesis Except Memory Can Be
Brought Forward, So As To Account For The Phenomena Of Instinct And
Heredity Generally, Which Is Not Easily Reducible To An Absurdity.
Beyond This We Do Not Care To Go, And Must Allow Those To Differ From
Us Who Require Further Evidence.
As Regards The Argument That The Necessity Of Each Moment Will
Account For Likeness Of Result, Without There Being Any Need For
Introducing Memory, I Admit That Likeness Of Consequents Is Due To
Likeness Of Antecedents, And I Grant This Will Hold As Good With
Embryos As With Oxygen And Hydrogen Gas; What Will Cover The One Will
Cover The Other, For Time Writs Of The Laws Common To All Matter Run
Within The Womb As Freely As Elsewhere; But Admitting That There Are
Combinations Into Which Living Beings Enter With A Faculty Called
Chapter 12 Pg 131Memory Which Has Its Effect Upon Their Conduct, And Admitting That
Such Combinations Are From Time To Time Repeated (As We Observe In
The Case Of A Practised Performer Playing A Piece Of Music Which He
Has Committed To Memory), Then I Maintain That Though, Indeed, The
Likeness Of One
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