So much so that latterly, and partly to explain their prevalence, a theory has been advanced which may be worth while mentioning. It is called the "Theory of intra-uterine Blessedness," and, remote as it may at first appear, it certainly has some claim for attention. The theory is that in the minds of mature people there still remain certain vague memories of their pre-natal days in the maternal womb--memories of a life which, though full of growing vigor and vitality, was yet at that time one of absolute harmony with the surroundings, and of perfect peace and contentment, spent within the body of the mother--the embryo indeed standing in the same relation to the mother as St. Paul says WE stand to God, "IN whom we live and move and have our being"; and that these vague memories of the intra-uterine life in the individual are referred back by the mature mind to a past age in the life of the RACE. Though it would not be easy at present to positively confirm this theory, yet one may say that it is neither improbable nor unworthy of consideration; also that it bears a certain likeness to the former ones about the Eden-gardens, etc. The well-known parallelism of the Individual history with the Race-history, the "recapitulation" by the embryo of the development of the race, does in fact afford an additional argument for its favorable reception. These considerations, and what we have said so often in the foregoing chapters about the unity of the Animals (and Early Man) with Nature, and their instinctive and age-long adjustment to the conditions of the world around them, bring us up hard and fast against the following conclusions, which I think we shall find difficult to avoid. We all recognize the extraordinary grace and beauty, in their different ways, of the (wild) animals; and not only their beauty but the extreme fitness of their actions and habits to their surroundings--their subtle and penetrating Intelligence in fact. Only we do not generally use the word "Intelligence." We use another word (Instinct)--and rightly perhaps, because their actions are plainly not the result of definite self-conscious reasoning, such as we use, carried out by each individual; but are (as has been abundantly proved by Samuel Butler and others) the systematic expression of experiences gathered up and sorted out and handed down from generation to generation in the bosom of the race--an Intelligence in fact, or Insight, of larger subtler scope than the other, and belonging to the tribal or racial Being rather than to the isolated individual--a super-consciousness in fact, ramifying afar in space and time.