thereby its vital mobility. Shrinking at first, but gradually
completely restored and reincorporated into the onward tide of life,
it was ready to take part again in the progressive flow of a new
ray." {56}


To return to the end of the last paragraph but one. If this is so--
but I should warn the reader that Professor Hering is not responsible
for this suggestion, though it seems to follow so naturally from what
he has said that I imagine he intended the inference to be drawn,--if
this is so, assimilation is nothing else than the communication of
its own rhythms from the assimilating to the assimilated substance,
to the effacement of the vibrations or rhythms heretofore existing in
this last; and suitability for food will depend upon whether the
rhythms of the substance eaten are such as to flow harmoniously into
and chime in with those of the body which has eaten it, or whether
they will refuse to act in concert with the new rhythms with which
they have become associated, and will persist obstinately in pursuing
their own course. In this case they will either be turned out of the
body at once, or will disconcert its arrangements, with perhaps fatal
consequences. This comes round to the conclusion I arrived at in
"Life and Habit," that assimilation was nothing but the imbuing of
one thing with the memories of another. (See "Life and Habit," pp.
136, 137, 140, &c.)

It will be noted that, as I resolved the phenomena of heredity into
phenomena of personal identity, and left the matter there, so
Professor Hering resolves the phenomena of personal identity into the
phenomena of a living mechanism whose equilibrium is disturbed by
vibrations of a certain character--and leaves it there. We now want