A living creature bereft of all memory dies. If bereft of a great part of memory, it swoons or sleeps; and when its memory returns, we say it has returned to life. Life and death, then, should be memory and forgetfulness, for we are dead to all that we have forgotten. Life is that property of matter whereby it can remember. Matter which can remember is living; matter which cannot remember is dead. _Life_, _then_, _is memory_. The life of a creature is the memory of a creature. We are all the same stuff to start with, but we remember different things, and if we did not remember different things we should be absolutely like each other. As for the stuff itself of which we are made, we know nothing save only that it is “such as dreams are made of.” * * * * * I am aware that there are many expressions throughout this book, which are not scientifically accurate. Thus I imply that we tend towards the centre of the earth, when, I believe, I should say we tend towards to the centre of gravity of the earth. I speak of “the primordial cell,” when I mean only the earliest form of life, and I thus not only assume a single origin of life when there is no necessity for doing so, and perhaps no evidence to this effect, but I do so in spite of the fact that the amœba, which seems to be “the simplest form of life,” does not appear to be a cell at all. I have used the word “beget,” of what, I am told, is asexual generation, whereas the word should be confined to sexual generation only. Many more such errors have been pointed out to me, and I doubt not that a larger number remain of which I know nothing now, but of which I may perhaps be told presently. I did not, however, think that in a work of this description the additional words which would have been required for scientific accuracy were worth the paper and ink and loss of breadth which their introduction would entail. Besides, I know nothing about science, and it is as well that there should be no mistake on this head; I neither know, nor want to know, more detail than is necessary to enable me to give a fairly broad and comprehensive view of my subject. When for the purpose of giving this, a matter importunately insisted on being made out, I endeavoured to make it out as well as I could; otherwise—that is to say, if it did not insist on being looked into, in spite of a good deal of snubbing, I held that, as it was blurred and indistinct in nature, I had better so render it in my work.