physical methods, while I reached mine, as I am told, by
metaphysical. I never yet could understand what "metaphysics" and
"metaphysical" mean; but I should have said I reached it by the
exercise of a little common sense while regarding certain facts which
are open to every one. There is, however, so far as I can see, no
difference in the conclusion come to.

The view which connects memory with vibrations may tend to throw
light upon that difficult question, the manner in which neuter bees
acquire structures and instincts, not one of which was possessed by
any of their direct ancestors. Those who have read "Life and Habit"
may remember, I suggested that the food prepared in the stomachs of
the nurse-bees, with which the neuter working bees are fed, might
thus acquire a quasi-seminal character, and be made a means of
communicating the instincts and structures in question. {58} If
assimilation be regarded as the receiving by one substance of the
rhythms or undulations from another, the explanation just referred to
receives an accession of probability.

If it is objected that Professor Hering's theory as to continuity of
vibrations being the key to memory and heredity involves the action
of more wheels within wheels than our imagination can come near to
comprehending, and also that it supposes this complexity of action as
going on within a compass which no unaided eye can detect by reason
of its littleness, so that we are carried into a fairy land with
which sober people should have nothing to do, it may be answered that
the case of light affords us an example of our being truly aware of a
multitude of minute actions, the hundred million millionth part of
which we should have declared to be beyond our ken, could we not
incontestably prove that we notice and count them all with a very