Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) by Samuel Butler (best novels ever .TXT) 📖
- Author: Samuel Butler
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Molecules Of The Nerve Fibres, Which Under Certain Circumstances
Recur, And Bring About A Corresponding Recurrence Of Visible Action.
This Approaches Closely To The Theory Concerning The Physics Of
Memory Which Has Been Most Generally Adopted Since The Time Of
Bonnet, Who Wrote As Follows:-
"The Soul Never Has A New Sensation But By The Inter Position Of The
Senses. This Sensation Has Been Originally Attached To The Motion Of
Certain Fibres. Its Reproduction Or Recollection By The Senses Will
Then Be Likewise Connected With These Same Fibres." . . . {54a}
And Again:-
"It Appeared To Me That Since This Memory Is Connected With The Body,
It Must Depend Upon Some Change Which Must Happen To The Primitive
State Of The Sensible Fibres By The Action Of Objects. I Have,
Therefore, Admitted As Probable That The State Of The Fibres On Which
An Object Has Acted Is Not Precisely The Same After This Action As It
Was Before I Have Conjectured That The Sensible Fibres Experience
More Or Less Durable Modifications, Which Constitute The Physics Of
Memory And Recollection." {54b}
Professor Hering Comes Near To Endorsing This View, And Uses It For
Chapter 5 Pg 62The Purpose Of Explaining Personal Identity. This, At Least, Is What
He Does In Fact, Though Perhaps Hardly In Words. I Did Not Say More
Upon The Essence Of Personality Than That It Was Inseparable From The
Idea That The Various Phases Of Our Existence Should Have Flowed One
Out Of The Other, "In What We See As A Continuous, Though It May Be
At Times A Very Troubled, Stream" {55} But I Maintained That The
Identity Between Two Successive Generations Was Of Essentially The
Same Kind As That Existing Between An Infant And An Octogenarian. I
Thus Left Personal Identity Unexplained, Though Insisting That It Was
The Key To Two Apparently Distinct Sets Of Phenomena, The One Of
Which Had Been Hitherto Considered Incompatible With Our Ideas
Concerning It. Professor Hering Insists On This Too, But He Gives Us
Farther Insight Into What Personal Identity Is, And Explains How It
Is That The Phenomena Of Heredity Are Phenomena Also Of Personal
Identity.
He Implies, Though In The Short Space At His Command He Has Hardly
Said So In Express Terms, That Personal Identity As We Commonly Think
Of It--That Is To Say, As Confined To The Single Life Of The
Individual--Consists In The Uninterruptedness Of A Sufficient Number
Of Vibrations, Which Have Been Communicated From Molecule To Molecule
Of The Nerve Fibres, And Which Go On Communicating Each One Of Them
Its Own Peculiar Characteristic Elements To The New Matter Which We
Introduce Into The Body By Way Of Nutrition. These Vibrations May Be
So Gentle As To Be Imperceptible For Years Together; But They Are
There, And May Become Perceived If They Receive Accession Through The
Running Into Them Of A Wave Going The Same Way As Themselves, Which
Wave Has Been Set Up In The Ether By Exterior Objects And Has Been
Communicated To The Organs Of Sense.
As These Pages Are On The Point Of Leaving My Hands, I See The
Following Remarkable Passage In Mind For The Current Month, And
Introduce It Parenthetically Here:-
"I Followed The Sluggish Current Of Hyaline Material Issuing From
Globules Of Most Primitive Living Substance. Persistently It
Followed Its Way Into Space, Conquering, At First, The Manifold
Resistances Opposed To It By Its Watery Medium. Gradually, However,
Its Energies Became Exhausted, Till At Last, Completely Overwhelmed,
It Stopped, An Immovable Projection Stagnated To Death-Like Rigidity.
Thus For Hours, Perhaps, It Remained Stationary, One Of Many Such
Rays Of Some Of The Many Kinds Of Protoplasmic Stars. By Degrees,
Then, Or Perhaps Quite Suddenly, Help Would Come To It From Foreign
But Congruous Sources. It Would Seem To Combine With Outside
Complemental Matter Drifted To It At Random. Slowly It Would Regain
Thereby Its Vital Mobility. Shrinking At First, But Gradually
Completely Restored And Reincorporated Into The Onward Tide Of Life,
It Was Ready To Take Part Again In The Progressive Flow Of A New
Ray." {56}
Chapter 5 Pg 63
To Return To The End Of The Last Paragraph But One. If This Is So--
But I Should Warn The Reader That Professor Hering Is Not Responsible
For This Suggestion, Though It Seems To Follow So Naturally From What
He Has Said That I Imagine He Intended The Inference To Be Drawn,--If
This Is So, Assimilation Is Nothing Else Than The Communication Of
Its Own Rhythms From The Assimilating To The Assimilated Substance,
To The Effacement Of The Vibrations Or Rhythms Heretofore Existing In
This Last; And Suitability For Food Will Depend Upon Whether The
Rhythms Of The Substance Eaten Are Such As To Flow Harmoniously Into
And Chime In With Those Of The Body Which Has Eaten It, Or Whether
They Will Refuse To Act In Concert With The New Rhythms With Which
They Have Become Associated, And Will Persist Obstinately In Pursuing
Their Own Course. In This Case They Will Either Be Turned Out Of The
Body At Once, Or Will Disconcert Its Arrangements, With Perhaps Fatal
Consequences. This Comes Round To The Conclusion I Arrived At In
"Life And Habit," That Assimilation Was Nothing But The Imbuing Of
One Thing With The Memories Of Another. (See "Life And Habit," Pp.
136, 137, 140, &C.)
It Will Be Noted That, As I Resolved The Phenomena Of Heredity Into
Phenomena Of Personal Identity, And Left The Matter There, So
Professor Hering Resolves The Phenomena Of Personal Identity Into The
Phenomena Of A Living Mechanism Whose Equilibrium Is Disturbed By
Vibrations Of A Certain Character--And Leaves It There. We Now Want
To Understand More About The Vibrations.
But If, According To Professor Hering, The Personal Identity Of The
Single Life Consists In The Uninterruptedness Of Vibrations, So Also
Do The Phenomena Of Heredity. For Not Only May Vibrations Of A
Certain Violence Or Character Be Persistent Unperceived For Many
Years In A Living Body, And Communicate Themselves To The Matter It
Has Assimilated, But They May, And Will, Under Certain Circumstances,
Extend To The Particle Which Is About To Leave The Parent Body As The
Germ Of Its Future Offspring. In This Minute Piece Of Matter There
Must, If Professor Hering Is Right, Be An Infinity Of Rhythmic
Undulations Incessantly Vibrating With More Or Less Activity, And
Ready To Be Set In More Active Agitation At A Moment's Warning, Under
Due Accession Of Vibration From Exterior Objects. On The Occurrence
Of Such Stimulus, That Is To Say, When A Vibration Of A Suitable
Rhythm From Without Concurs With One Within The Body So As To Augment
It, The Agitation May Gather Such Strength That The Touch, As It
Were, Is Given To A House Of Cards, And The Whole Comes Toppling
Over. This Toppling Over Is What We Call Action; And When It Is The
Result Of The Disturbance Of Certain Usual Arrangements In Certain
Usual Ways, We Call It The Habitual Development And Instinctive
Characteristics Of The Race. In Either Case, Then, Whether We
Consider The Continued Identity Of The Individual In What We Call His
Single Life, Or Those Features In His Offspring Which We Refer To
Heredity, The Same Explanation Of The Phenomena Is Applicable. It
Follows From This As A Matter Of Course, That The Continuation Of
Chapter 5 Pg 64Life Or Personal Identity In The Individual And The Race Are
Fundamentally Of The Same Kind, Or, In Other Words, That There Is A
Veritable Prolongation Of Identity Or Oneness Of Personality Between
Parents And Offspring. Professor Hering Reaches His Conclusion By
Physical Methods, While I Reached Mine, As I Am Told, By
Metaphysical. I Never Yet Could Understand What "Metaphysics" And
"Metaphysical" Mean; But I Should Have Said I Reached It By The
Exercise Of A Little Common Sense While Regarding Certain Facts Which
Are Open To Every One. There Is, However, So Far As I Can See, No
Difference In The Conclusion Come To.
The View Which Connects Memory With Vibrations May Tend To Throw
Light Upon That Difficult Question, The Manner In Which Neuter Bees
Acquire Structures And Instincts, Not One Of Which Was Possessed By
Any Of Their Direct Ancestors. Those Who Have Read "Life And Habit"
May Remember, I Suggested That The Food Prepared In The Stomachs Of
The Nurse-Bees, With Which The Neuter Working Bees Are Fed, Might
Thus Acquire A Quasi-Seminal Character, And Be Made A Means Of
Communicating The Instincts And Structures In Question. {58} If
Assimilation Be Regarded As The Receiving By One Substance Of The
Rhythms Or Undulations From Another, The Explanation Just Referred To
Receives An Accession Of Probability.
If It Is Objected That Professor Hering's Theory As To Continuity Of
Vibrations Being The Key To Memory And Heredity Involves The Action
Of More Wheels Within Wheels Than Our Imagination Can Come Near To
Comprehending, And Also That It Supposes This Complexity Of Action As
Going On Within A Compass Which No Unaided Eye Can Detect By Reason
Of Its Littleness, So That We Are Carried Into A Fairy Land With
Which Sober People Should Have Nothing To Do, It May Be Answered That
The Case Of Light Affords Us An Example Of Our Being Truly Aware Of A
Multitude Of Minute Actions, The Hundred Million Millionth Part Of
Which We Should Have Declared To Be Beyond Our Ken, Could We Not
Incontestably Prove That We Notice And Count Them All With A Very
Sufficient And Creditable Accuracy.
"Who Would Not," {59a} Says Sir John Herschel, "Ask For Demonstration
When Told That A Gnat's Wing, In Its Ordinary Flight, Beats Many
Hundred Times In A Second? Or That There Exist Animated And Regularly
Organised Beings Many Thousands Of Whose Bodies Laid Close Together
Would Not Extend To An Inch? But What Are These To The Astonishing
Truths Which Modern Optical Inquiries Have Disclosed, Which Teach Us
That Every Point Of A Medium Through Which A Ray Of Light Passes Is
Affected With A Succession Of Periodical Movements, Recurring
Regularly At Equal Intervals, No Less Than Five Hundred Millions Of
Millions Of Times In A Second; That It Is By Such Movements
Communicated To The Nerves Of Our Eyes That We See; Nay, More, That
It Is The Difference In The Frequency Of Their Recurrence Which
Affects Us With The Sense Of The Diversity Of Colour; That, For
Instance, In Acquiring The Sensation Of Redness, Our Eyes Are
Affected Four Hundred And Eighty-Two Millions Of Millions Of Times;
Of Yellowness, Five Hundred And Forty-Two Millions Of Millions Of
Times; And Of Violet, Seven Hundred And Seven Millions Of Millions Of
Times Per
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