'Did the rose-seed ever form part
of the identity of the rose-bush on which it grew?' Who can say that it
did not? Again I ask: 'Was this rose-bush ever linked by all those links
that we commonly consider as constituting personal identity, with the
seed from which it in its turn grew?' Who can say that it was not?
"Then, if rose-seed number two is a continuation of the personality of
its parent rose-bush, and if that rose-bush is a continuation of the
personality of the rose-seed from which it sprang, rose-seed number two
must also be a continuation of the personality of the earlier rose-seed.
And this rose-seed must be a continuation of the personality of the
preceding rose-seed--and so back and back _ad infinitum_. Hence it is
impossible to deny continued personality between any existing rose-seed
and the earliest seed that can be called a rose-seed at all.
"The answer, then, to our objector is not far to seek. The rose-seed did
what it now does in the persons of its ancestors--to whom it has been so
linked as to be able to remember what those ancestors did when they were
placed as the rose-seed now is. Each stage of development brings back
the recollection of the course taken in the preceding stage, and the
development has been so often repeated, that all doubt--and with all
doubt, all consciousness of action--is suspended.
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