The great difficulty in Mr. Darwin's works is the fact that he starts with variations ready made, without trying, as a rule, to account for them, and then shows that if these varieties are beneficial the possessor has a better chance in the great struggle for existence, and the accumulation of such variations will give rise to new species. This is what he means by the title of his work, "The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." But this tells us nothing whatever about the origin of species. As Butler puts it, "Suppose that it is an advantage to a horse to have an especially broad and hard hoof: then a horse born with such a hoof will, indeed, probably survive in the struggle for existence; but he was not born with the larger and harder hoof _because of his subsequently surviving_. He survived because he was born fit--not he was born fit because he survived. The variation must arise first and be preserved afterwards."[3] Mr. Butler works out with admirable force the arguments, first, that habitual action begets unconsciousness; second, that there is a unity of personality between parent and offspring; third, that there is a memory of the oft-repeated acts of past existences, and, lastly, that there is a latency of that memory until it is re-kindled by the presence of associated ideas. As to the first point, we need say no more, for daily experience confirms it; but the other points must be dealt with more fully. Mr. Butler argues for the absolute identity of the parent and offspring; and, indeed, this is a necessity. Personal identity is a phrase, very convenient, it is true, but still only a provisional mode of naming something we cannot define. In our own bodies we say that our identity remains the same from birth to death, though we know that our bodily particles are ever changing, that our habits, thoughts, aspirations, even our features, change--that we are no more really the same person than the ripple over a pebble in a brook is the same from moment to moment, though its form remains. If our personal identity thus elude our search in active life, it certainly becomes no more tangible if we trace existence back into pre-natal states. We _are_, in one sense, the same individual; but, what is equally important, we _were_ part of our mother, as absolutely as her limbs are part of her. There is no break of continuity between offspring and parent--the river of life is a continuous stream. We judge of our own identity by the continuity which we see and appreciate; but that greater continuity reaching backwards beyond the womb to the origin of life itself is no less a fact which should be constantly kept in view. The individual, in reality, never dies; for the lamp of life never goes out. For a full exposition of this problem, Mr. Butler's "Life and Habit" must be consulted, where the reader will find it treated in a masterly way.