them without knowing anything about it? And this raised another,
namely, how comes anybody to do anything unconsciously? The answer
"habit" was not far to seek. But can a person be said to do a thing
by force of habit or routine when it is his ancestors, and not he,
that has done it hitherto? Not unless he and his ancestors are one
and the same person. Perhaps, then, they ARE the same person after
all. What is sameness? I remembered Bishop Butler's sermon on
"Personal Identity," read it again, and saw very plainly that if a
man of eighty may consider himself identical with the baby from whom
he has developed, so that he may say, "I am the person who at six
months old did this or that," then the baby may just as fairly claim
identity with its father and mother, and say to its parents on being
born, "I was you only a few months ago." By parity of reasoning each
living form now on the earth must be able to claim identity with each
generation of its ancestors up to the primordial cell inclusive.

Again, if the octogenarian may claim personal identity with the
infant, the infant may certainly do so with the impregnate ovum from
which it has developed. If so, the octogenarian will prove to have
been a fish once in this his present life. This is as certain as
that he was living yesterday, and stands on exactly the same
foundation.

I am aware that Professor Huxley maintains otherwise. He writes:
"It is not true, for example, . . . that a reptile was ever a fish,
but it is true that the reptile embryo" (and what is said here of the
reptile holds good also for the human embryo), "at one stage of its
development, is an organism, which, if it had an independent
existence, must be classified among fishes." {17}