Fifthly, if heredity and memory are essentially the same, we should
expect that no animal would develop new structures of importance after
the age at which its species begins ordinarily to continue its race; for
we cannot suppose offspring to remember anything that happens to the
parent subsequently to the parent's ceasing to contain the offspring
within itself. From the average age, therefore, of reproduction,
offspring should cease to have any farther steady, continuous memory to
fall back upon; what memory there is should be full of faults, and as
such unreliable. An organism ought to develop as long as it is backed by
memory--that is to say, until the average age at which reproduction
begins; it should then continue to go for a time on the impetus already
received, and should eventually decay through failure of any memory to
support it, and tell it what to do. This corresponds absolutely with
what we observe in organisms generally, and explains, on the one hand,
why the age of puberty marks the beginning of completed development--a
riddle hitherto not only unexplained but, so far as I have seen, unasked;
it explains, on the other hand, the phenomena of old age--hitherto
without even attempt at explanation.
Sixthly, those organisms that are the longest in reaching maturity should
on the average be the longest-lived, for they will have received the most
momentous impulse from the weight of memory behind them. This harmonises
with the latest opinion as to the facts. In his article on Weismann in
the _Contemporary Review_ for May 1890, Mr. Romanes writes: "Professor
Weismann has shown that there is throughout the metazoa a general
correlation between the natural lifetime of individuals composing any
given species, and the age at which they reach maturity or first become
capable of procreation." This, I believe, has been the conclusion
generally arrived at by biologists for some years past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account