Volume II Part 21 (2/2)

The fact that he does very nearly do so is evidenced by the reappearance in his descendants of parental traits always invisible in hiht therefore to account for a larger ress than exists or could ever exist

Why doesn't it? Sioes on as in the vegetable world As out of 10,000,000 seeds scarcely one survives: so out of a million mental impressions scarcely one survives Indeed, not so le impressions It is only when an impression has been repeated times innumerable that it becomes transmissible,--that it affects the cerebral structure so as to becoanic memory The inheritance is of a very co either enormous time for development, or enormous experience There is reason to believe, however, that in the case of very highly organized brains,--such as those of the uist, or mathematician,--the multiple experiences of even one lifetime may produce structural modifications capable of transer than coer than an ant-hill And the reason is that such a brain can daily receive billions of impressions that co is of the constructive character,--the hly complex form possible; and the extreme sensitiveness of the structures renders habitual conceptions which represent combinations of conscious states never entered into before Measured by mere difference of force, the brain of the mathematician is to the brain of the ordinary man as the most powerful dynamo to the muscles of an ant

Happily forless than repetition Between these two extrey of le for the survival of the best or worst Here is where the environ which of a million tendencies shall have freest play or least play According to circulected The more used, the more powerful their active potentialities, and the more apt to increase by transmission But their vitality is racial--measurable only by millions of years They may lie dor again--sinister and e (Here is the point of the selective process)

Here comes in the consideration of a very terrible possibility Suppose we use integers instead of quintillions or centillions, and say that an individual represents by inheritance a total of 10--5 of impulses favourable to social life, 5 of the reverse (Such a balance would really occur in many cases) The child inherits, under favourable conditions, the father's balance plus thefavourable We have then a total which becoives preponderance to an accumulation of ancestral impulse incalculable for evil It would be like a pair of scales, each holding a e as Fuji If the balance were absolutely perfect, the weight of one hair would be enough to move a mass of nified Let the individual descend below a certain level, and countless dead suddenly seize and destroy him,--like the Furies

In all cases, however, except those of the very highest forical life consists of repetitions,--not of originalities And environment, chance, etc, simply influence the extent and voluination, on the other hand, there are totally new combinations made independently of environment or circumstances: there is almost creation, and in certain cases absolute faculty of prediction Instance the case of theever seen the Iceland Spar, but knowing its qualities, said: ”Cut it at such an angle, and you will see a coloured circle” They cut it, and the circle was seen for the first time by hu as an individual, but only a combination,--one balance of an infinite suhostliest of all conceivable experiences

For thebecome fifty, a hundred, two hundred different people--not in fancy, but in actual fact

Here the character of the ancestral experience has been so high and rare that a different part of the race's mental life is instantly resurrected at will to welcome and charm, or to master and repel, the various sorts of character encountered, haphazard, in the salon of the aristocratic milieu

It would be natural to ask: If the eher faculties inherited enis infinitely older than thinking, developedpowers have been grown out of the feelings--as trees from soil Those forms of consciousness most connected with the animal life of the race are, of course, the first to develop, and the first to becoher faculties will be also sihest possible for it, we find a whole volume is required for the ht took less than a second; to write all the thinking it involved requires years We take it to pieces by bundles of concepts and bundles of experiences,--which are changes in relations of compound states of consciousness The relations of those states of consciousness are resolvable into simpler ones, and those into simpler, and at last we come down to mere perceptions, and the perceptions are separated into ideas, and the ideas into compound sensations, and the compound sensations into sensations simple as those of the amba, or the humblest protozoa

Thus we can also trace up the history of any thought froht is resolvable into infinite coo The Universe may be sentient, but we don't know it All we know is sensation and cohest spiritual sentiment is based upon the lowest animal sensations But what is sensation? No one can tell On this subject very awful discoveries are perhaps awaiting us

Now heredity is the s, because it is utterly incomprehensible

A mathematical calculation has established beyond all question the fact that the nuerm-cell combined is totally insufficient to account for the nu a change in the ulti theory, we are obliged to use the term polarity,--which only means physical tendency to relationshi+ps But the mystery of the transmission of the impulse reree with you as to the statement of culture from outside, except in the poetical sense Scientifically the culture movement is internal,--the responses of innumerable dead to exterior influence,--the weirdest resurrections of buried faculties

As for evolution being caused by outer influences, I think the idea leads tothings We have no need of such a theory Pain is the chiefchely unstable, and theof the universal forces on such elees But the fact that there is no line between life and not-life, no line between the anietable world, no line between the visible and invisible, no assurance that matter has any existence in itself--that is a very awful truth It is otherwise incorrect to think of evolution being caused by outer influences, because the inner forces are the really direct ones,--answering to the outer Moreover, the thing evolved, and the power evolving, and the forces internal and external,--the visible and the non-visible,--are (so far as hue) all one and the sanizes ht that the Supreahostliness The individual substance is but a force coes are force combinations,--the powers outside are but force combinations,--the universe is a force co more than vibrations

Ever, LAFCADIO HEARN

P S I forgot to notice your stateh the physical fact of nerve-tissue,” etc

All thinking--all, without exception--is alteration of nerve-substance; either te by countless repetition alterations that are perht” is a very co whatever in science for ”thought” For ”thought” is a perception of relations in preexisting states of consciousness, and those are bundles of sensations What ”sensation” is, no man knows That is the dark spot in the retina of consciousness But there is no proof that sensation exists apart from cell-substance

To speak of an ”ideal process” outside of vibration in nervous substance is therefore like saying that 5 times 5 = 918 It is a total denial of all science on the subject An idea is a bundle of sensations, and a sensation is coincident with a movement in cerebral cells Without the movement there is no sensation,--not at least in the brain We do not know the ultihts and ideas only mean complex combinations of sensations impossible outside of nerve-substance so far as we know

Of course if you mean by culture from outside the transmission of civilization from one race to another,--then there has been enormous alteration of cerebral structure Such alteration is even now going on in japan, and causes yearly hundreds of deaths

The brain of the civilized e; and the brain of the 19th centuryfact of evolution is brain-growth The early mammals were remarkable for the smallness of their brains Man's nervous structure is, of course, the h, as a total, double that of a horse For nifies reater the forces evolved Perhaps the nervous systeh more than that of a man as a totalwith ress in the brain are chiefly visible in the direction of increasing complexity rather than in bulk The study of brain-casts pro facts

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, April, 1895

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--In one of your recent letters, which charh I did not dwell on the pleasure givenmy psychical hobby,--you asked me: ”How could I expect to hit the public more than I have done?”

Well, not with a book on japan, perhaps; but I e myself a dead failure I really think I have stored away in er than those I have yet been able to use Of course I don'tof that sort; but I believe I have some power to reach the public emotionally, if conditions allow