Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) by Samuel Butler (best novels ever .TXT) 📖
- Author: Samuel Butler
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Ravings Of Madmen Than The Sober Conclusions Of People In Their
Waking Senses? They Are, Nevertheless, Conclusions To Which Any One
May Most Certainly Arrive Who Will Only Be At The Pains Of Examining
The Chain Of Reasoning By Which They Have Been Obtained."
A Man Counting As Hard As He Can Repeat Numbers One After Another,
And Never Counting More Than A Hundred, So That He Shall Have No Long
Words To Repeat, May Perhaps Count Ten Thousand, Or A Hundred A
Hundred Times Over, In An Hour. At This Rate, Counting Night And
Day, And Allowing No Time For Rest Or Refreshment, He Would Count One
Million In Four Days And Four Hours, Or Say Four Days Only. To Count
A Million A Million Times Over, He Would Require Four Million Days,
Or Roughly Ten Thousand Years; For Five Hundred Millions Of Millions,
He Must Have The Utterly Unrealisable Period Of Five Million Years.
Yet He Actually Goes Through This Stupendous Piece Of Reckoning
Unconsciously Hour After Hour, Day After Day, It May Be For Eighty
Years, Often In Each Second Of Daylight; And How Much More By
Artificial Or Subdued Light I Do Not Know. He Knows Whether His Eye
Is Being Struck Five Hundred Millions Of Millions Of Times, Or Only
Four Hundred And Eighty-Two Millions Of Millions Of Times. He Thus
Shows That He Estimates Or Counts Each Set Of Vibrations, And
Registers Them According To His Results. If A Man Writes Upon The
Back Of A British Museum Blotting-Pad Of The Common Nonpareil
Pattern, On Which There Are Some Thousands Of Small Spaces Each
Differing In Colour From That Which Is Immediately Next To It, His
Eye Will, Nevertheless, Without An Effort Assign Its True Colour To
Each One Of These Spaces. This Implies That He Is All The Time
Counting And Taking Tally Of The Difference In The Numbers Of The
Vibrations From Each One Of The Small Spaces In Question. Yet The
Mind That Is Capable Of Such Stupendous Computations As These So Long
As It Knows Nothing About Them, Makes No Little Fuss About The
Conscious Adding Together Of Such Almost Inconceivably Minute Numbers
As, We Will Say, 2730169 And 5790135--Or, If These Be Considered Too
Large, As 27 And 19. Let The Reader Remember That He Cannot By Any
Effort Bring Before His Mind The Units, Not In Ones, But In Millions
Of Millions Of The Processes Which His Visual Organs Are Undergoing
Second After Second From Dawn Till Dark, And Then Let Him Demur If He
Will To The Possibility Of The Existence In A Germ, Of Currents And
Undercurrents, And Rhythms And Counter Rhythms, Also By The Million
Of Millions--Each One Of Which, On Being Overtaken By The Rhythm From
Without That Chimes In With And Stimulates It, May Be The Beginning
Of That Unsettlement Of Equilibrium Which Results In The Crash Of
Action, Unless It Is Timely Counteracted.
If Another Objector Maintains That The Vibrations Within The Germ As
Above Supposed Must Be Continually Crossing And Interfering With One
Another In Such A Manner As To Destroy The Continuity Of Any One
Series, It May Be Replied That The Vibrations Of The Light Proceeding
From The Objects That Surround Us Traverse One Another By The
Millions Of Millions Every Second Yet In No Way Interfere With One
Another. Nevertheless, It Must Be Admitted That The Difficulties Of
The Theory Towards Which I Suppose Professor Hering To Incline Are
Like Those Of All Other Theories On The Same Subject--Almost
Inconceivably Great.
Chapter 5 Pg 66
In "Life And Habit" I Did Not Touch Upon These Vibrations, Knowing
Nothing About Them. Here, Then, Is One Important Point Of
Difference, Not Between The Conclusions Arrived At, But Between The
Aim And Scope Of The Work That Professor Hering And I Severally
Attempted. Another Difference Consists In The Points At Which We
Have Left Off. Professor Hering, Having Established His Main Thesis,
Is Content. I, On The Other Hand, Went On To Maintain That If Vigour
Was Due To Memory, Want Of Vigour Was Due To Want Of Memory. Thus I
Was Led To Connect Memory With The Phenomena Of Hybridism And Of Old
Age; To Show That The Sterility Of Certain Animals Under
Domestication Is Only A Phase Of, And Of A Piece With, The Very
Common Sterility Of Hybrids--Phenomena Which At First Sight Have No
Connection Either With Each Other Or With Memory, But The Connection
Between Which Will Never Be Lost Sight Of By Those Who Have Once Laid
Hold Of It. I Also Pointed Out How Exactly The Phenomena Of
Development Agreed With Those Of The Abeyance And Recurrence Of
Memory, And The Rationale Of The Fact That Puberty In So Many Animals
And Plants Comes About The End Of Development. The Principle
Underlying Longevity Follows As A Matter Of Course. I Have No Idea
How Far Professor Hering Would Agree With Me In The Position I Have
Taken In Respect Of These Phenomena, But There Is Nothing In The
Above At Variance With His Lecture.
Another Matter On Which Professor Hering Has Not Touched Is The
Bearing Of His Theory On That View Of Evolution Which Is Now Commonly
Accepted. It Is Plain He Accepts Evolution, But It Does Not Appear
That He Sees How Fatal His Theory Is To Any View Of Evolution Except
A Teleological One--The Purpose Residing Within The Animal And Not
Without It. There Is, However, Nothing In His Lecture To Indicate
That He Does Not See This.
It Should Be Remembered That The Question Whether Memory Is Due To
The Persistence Within The Body Of Certain Vibrations, Which Have
Been Already Set Up Within The Bodies Of Its Ancestors, Is True Or
No, Will Not Affect The Position I Took Up In "Life And Habit." In
That Book I Have Maintained Nothing More Than That Whatever Memory Is
Heredity Is Also. I Am Not Committed To The Vibration Theory Of
Memory, Though Inclined To Accept It On A Prima Facie View. All I Am
Committed To Is, That If Memory Is Due To Persistence Of Vibrations,
So Is Heredity; And If Memory Is Not So Due, Then No More Is
Heredity.
Finally, I May Say That Professor Hering's Lecture, The Passage
Quoted From Dr. Erasmus Darwin On P. 26 Of This Volume, And A Few
Hints In The Extracts From Mr. Patrick Mathew Which I Have Quoted In
"Evolution, Old And New," Are All That I Yet Know Of In Other Writers
As Pointing To The Conclusion That The Phenomena Of Heredity Are
Phenomena Also Of Memory.
Chapter 6 Pg 67
Professor Ewald Hering "On Memory."
I Will Now Lay Before The Reader A Translation Of Professor Hering's
Own Words. I Have Had It Carefully Revised Throughout By A Gentleman
Whose Native Language Is German, But Who Has Resided In England For
Many Years Past. The Original Lecture Is Entitled "On Memory As A
Universal Function Of Organised Matter," And Was Delivered At The
Anniversary Meeting Of The Imperial Academy Of Sciences At Vienna,
May 30, 1870. {63} It Is As Follows:-
"When The Student Of Nature Quits The Narrow Workshop Of His Own
Particular Inquiry, And Sets Out Upon An Excursion Into The Vast
Kingdom Of Philosophical Investigation, He Does So, Doubtless, In The
Hope Of Finding The Answer To That Great Riddle, To The Solution Of A
Small Part Of Which He Devotes His Life. Those, However, Whom He
Leaves Behind Him Still Working At Their Own Special Branch Of
Inquiry, Regard His Departure With Secret Misgivings On His Behalf,
While The Born Citizens Of The Kingdom Of Speculation Among Whom He
Would Naturalise Himself, Receive Him With Well-Authorised Distrust.
He Is Likely, Therefore, To Lose Ground With The First, While Not
Gaining It With The Second.
The Subject To The Consideration Of Which I Would Now Solicit Your
Attention Does Certainly Appear Likely To Lure Us On Towards The
Flattering Land Of Speculation, But Bearing In Mind What I Have Just
Said, I Will Beware Of Quitting The Department Of Natural Science To
Which I Have Devoted Myself Hitherto. I Shall, However, Endeavour To
Attain Its Highest Point, So As To Take A Freer View Of The
Surrounding Territory.
It Will Soon Appear That I Should Fail In This Purpose If My Remarks
Were To Confine Themselves Solely To Physiology. I Hope To Show How
Far Psychological Investigations Also Afford Not Only Permissible,
But Indispensable, Aid To Physiological Inquiries.
Consciousness Is An Accompaniment Of That Animal And Human
Organisation And Of That Material Mechanism Which It Is The Province
Of Physiology To Explore; And As Long As The Atoms Of The Brain
Follow Their Due Course According To Certain Definite Laws, There
Arises An Inner Life Which Springs From Sensation And Idea, From
Feeling And Will.
Chapter 6 Pg 68
We Feel This In Our Own Cases; It Strikes Us In Our Converse With
Other People; We Can See It Plainly In The More Highly Organised
Animals; Even The Lowest Forms Of Life Bear Traces Of It; And Who Can
Draw A Line In The Kingdom Of Organic Life, And Say That It Is Here
The Soul Ceases?
With What Eyes, Then, Is Physiology To Regard This Two-Fold Life Of
The Organised World? Shall She Close Them Entirely To One Whole Side
Of It, That She May Fix Them More Intently On The Other?
So Long As The Physiologist Is Content To Be A Physicist, And Nothing
More--Using The Word "Physicist" In Its Widest Signification--His
Position In Regard To The Organic World Is One Of Extreme But
Legitimate One-Sidedness. As The Crystal To The Mineralogist Or The
Vibrating String To The Acoustician, So From This Point Of View Both
Man And The Lower Animals Are
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