"But an objector may still say, 'Granted that the linking between all
successive generations has been so close and unbroken, that each one of
them may be conceived as able to remember what it did in the persons of
its ancestors--how do you show that it actually did remember?'
"The answer is: 'By the action which each generation takes--an action
which repeats all the phenomena that we commonly associate with
memory--which is explicable on the supposition that it has been guided by
memory--and which has neither been explained, nor seems ever likely to be
explained on any other theory than the supposition that there is an
abiding memory between successive generations.'
"Will any one bring an example of any living creature whose action we can
understand, performing an ineffably difficult and intricate action, time
after time, with invariable success, and yet not knowing how to do it,
and never having done it before? Show me the example and I will say no
more, but until it is shown me, I shall credit action where I cannot
watch it, with being controlled by the same laws as when it is within our
ken. It will become unconscious as soon as the skill that directs it has
become perfected.
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