memories from our fathers and mothers, as they received
them from their fathers and mothers. Therefore there
must be a medium whereby these memories are transmitted
from generation to generation. This medium is what
Weismann terms the "germplasm." It carries the memories
of the whole evolution of the race. These memories are
dim and confused, and many of them are lost. But some
strains of germplasm carry an excessive freightage of
memories--are, to be scientific, more atavistic than
other strains; and such a strain is mine. I am a freak
of heredity, an atavistic nightmare--call me what you
will; but here I am, real and alive, eating three
hearty meals a day, and what are you going to do about
it?

And now, before I take up my tale, I want to anticipate
the doubting Thomases of psychology, who are prone to
scoff, and who would otherwise surely say that the
coherence of my dreams is due to overstudy and the
subconscious projection of my knowledge of evolution
into my dreams. In the first place, I have never been
a zealous student. I graduated last of my class. I
cared more for athletics, and--there is no reason I
should not confess it--more for billiards.

Further, I had no knowledge of evolution until I was at
college, whereas in my childhood and youth I had
already lived in my dreams all the details of that
other, long-ago life. I will say, however, that these
details were mixed and incoherent until I came to know