As this subdivided itself and transmitted its characteristics {80b}
to its descendants, these acquired new ones, and in their turn
transmitted them--all new germs transmitting the chief part of what
had happened to their predecessors, while the remaining part lapsed
out of their memory, circumstances not stimulating it to reproduce
itself.

An organised being, therefore, stands before us a product of the
unconscious memory of organised matter, which, ever increasing and
ever dividing itself, ever assimilating new matter and returning it
in changed shape to the inorganic world, ever receiving some new
thing into its memory, and transmitting its acquisitions by the way
of reproduction, grows continually richer and richer the longer it
lives.

Thus regarded, the development of one of the more highly organised
animals represents a continuous series of organised recollections
concerning the past development of the great chain of living forms,
the last link of which stands before us in the particular animal we
may be considering. As a complicated perception may arise by means
of a rapid and superficial reproduction of long and laboriously
practised brain processes, so a germ in the course of its development
hurries through a series of phases, hinting at them only. Often and
long foreshadowed in theories of varied characters, this conception
has only now found correct exposition from a naturalist of our own
time. {81} For Truth hides herself under many disguises from those
who seek her, but in the end stands unveiled before the eyes of him
whom she has chosen.

Not only is there a reproduction of form, outward and inner