I had got to this point about the spring of 1874, and had begun to write, when I was compelled to go to Canada, and for the next year and a half did hardly any writing. The first passage in “Life and Habit” which I can date with certainty is the one on page 52, which runs as follows:—
“It is one against legion when a man tries to differ from his own past selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so as to lack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, and not to gratify them. It is more righteous in a man that he should ‘eat strange food,’ and that his cheek should ‘so much as lank not,’ than that he should starve if the strange food be at his command. His past selves are living in him at this moment with the accumulated life of centuries. ‘Do this, this, this, which we too have done, and found out profit in it,’ cry the souls of his forefathers within him. Faint are the far ones, coming and going as the sound of bells wafted on to a high mountain; loud and clear are the near ones, urgent as an alarm of fire.”
This was written a few days after my arrival in Canada, June 1874. I was on Montreal mountain for the first time, and was struck with its extreme beauty. It was a magnificent Summer’s evening; the noble St. Lawrence flowed almost immediately beneath, and the vast expanse of country beyond it was suffused with a colour which even Italy cannot surpass. Sitting down for a while, I began making notes for “Life and Habit,” of which I was then continually thinking, and had written the first few lines of the above, when the bells of Notre Dame in Montreal began to ring, and their sound was carried to and fro in a remarkably beautiful manner. I took advantage of the incident to insert then and there the last lines of the piece just quoted. I kept the whole passage with hardly any alteration, and am thus able to date it accurately.
Though so occupied in Canada that writing a book was impossible, I nevertheless got many notes together for future use. I left Canada at the end of 1875, and early in 1876 began putting these notes into more coherent form. I did this in thirty pages of closely written matter, of which a pressed copy remains in my commonplace-book. I find two dates among them—the first, “Sunday, Feb. 6, 1876”; and the second, at the end of the notes, “Feb. 12, 1876.”
From these notes I find that by this time I had the theory contained in “Life and Habit” completely before me, with the four main principles which it involves, namely, the oneness of personality between parents and offspring; memory on the part of offspring of certain actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers; the latency of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence of the associated ideas; and the unconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be performed.
The first half-page of these notes may serve as a sample, and runs thus:—
“Those habits and functions which we have in common with the lower animals come mainly within the womb, or are done involuntarily, as our [growth of] limbs, eyes, &c., and our power of digesting food, &c. . . .
“We say of the chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it is hatched, . . . but had it no knowledge before it was hatched?
“It knew how to make a great many things before it was hatched.
“It grew eyes and feathers and bones.
“Yet we say it knew nothing about all this.
“After it is born it grows more feathers, and makes its bones larger, and develops a reproductive system.
“Again we say it knows nothing about all this.
“What then does it know?
“Whatever it does not know so well as to be unconscious of knowing it.
“Knowledge dwells upon the confines of uncertainty.
“When we are very certain, we do not know that we know. When we will very strongly, we do not know that we will.”
I then began my book, but considering myself still a painter by profession, I gave comparatively little time to writing, and got on but slowly. I left England for North Italy in the middle of May 1876 and returned early in August. It was perhaps thus that I failed to hear of the account of Professor Hering’s lecture given by Professor Ray Lankester in Nature, July 13 1876; though, never at that time seeing Nature, I should probably have missed it under any circumstances. On my return I continued slowly writing. By August 1877 I considered that I had to all intents and purposes completed my book. My first proof bears date October 13, 1877.
At this time I had not been able to find that anything like what I was advancing had been said already. I asked many friends, but not one of them knew of anything more than I did; to them, as to me, it seemed an idea so new as to be almost preposterous; but knowing how things turn up after one has written, of the existence of which one had not known before, I was particularly careful to guard against being supposed to claim originality. I neither claimed it nor wished for it; for if a theory has any truth in it, it is almost sure to occur to several people much about the same time, and a reasonable person will look upon his work with great suspicion unless he can confirm it with the support of others who have gone before him. Still I knew of nothing in the least resembling it, and was so afraid of what I was doing, that though I could see no flaw in the argument, nor any loophole for escape from the conclusion it led to, yet I did not dare to put it forward with the seriousness and sobriety with which I should have treated the subject if I had not been in continual fear of a mine being sprung upon me from some unexpected quarter. I am exceedingly glad now that I knew nothing of Professor Hering’s lecture, for it is much better that two people should think a thing out as far as they can independently before they become aware of each other’s works but if I had seen it, I should either, as is most likely, not have written at all, or I should have pitched my book in another key.
Among the additions I intended making while the book was in the press, was a chapter on Mr. Darwin’s provisional theory of Pangenesis, which I felt convinced must be right if it was Mr. Darwin’s, and which I was sure, if I could once understand it, must have an important bearing on “Life and Habit.” I had not as yet seen that the principle I was contending for was Darwinian, not Neo-Darwinian. My pages still teemed with allusions to “natural selection,” and I sometimes allowed myself to hope that “Life and Habit” was going to be an adjunct to Darwinism which no one would welcome more gladly than Mr. Darwin himself. At this time I had a visit from a friend, who kindly called to answer a question of mine, relative, if I remember rightly, to “Pangenesis.” He came, September 26, 1877. One of the first things he said was, that the theory which had pleased him more than anything he had heard of for some time was one referring all life to memory. I said that was exactly what I was doing myself, and inquired where he had met with his theory. He replied that Professor Ray Lankester had written a letter about it in Nature some time ago, but he could not remember exactly when, and had given extracts from a lecture by Professor Ewald Hering, who had originated the theory. I said I should not look at it, as I had completed that part of my work, and was on the point of going to press. I could not recast my work if, as was most likely, I should find something, when I saw what Professor Hering had said, which would make me wish to rewrite my own book; it was too late in the day and I did not feel equal to making any radical alteration; and so the matter ended with very little said upon either side. I wrote, however, afterwards to my friend asking him to tell me the number of Nature which contained the lecture if he could find it, but he was unable to do so, and I was well enough content.