to date it accurately.

Though so occupied in Canada that writing a book was impossible, I
nevertheless got many notes together for future use. I left Canada
at the end of 1875, and early in 1876 began putting these notes into
more coherent form. I did this in thirty pages of closely written
matter, of which a pressed copy remains in my commonplace-book. I
find two dates among them--the first, "Sunday, Feb. 6, 1876"; and the
second, at the end of the notes, "Feb. 12, 1876."

From these notes I find that by this time I had the theory contained
in "Life and Habit" completely before me, with the four main
principles which it involves, namely, the oneness of personality
between parents and offspring; memory on the part of offspring of
certain actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers;
the latency of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence of
the associated ideas; and the unconsciousness with which habitual
actions come to be performed.

The first half-page of these notes may serve as a sample, and runs
thus:-


"Those habits and functions which we have in common with the lower
animals come mainly within the womb, or are done involuntarily, as
our [growth of] limbs, eyes, &c., and our power of digesting food,
&c. . . .

"We say of the chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it
is hatched, . . . but had it no knowledge before it was hatched?