falsa immagine di coscienza dietro alla quale fantastica
senza fratto il psicologo, ma il cervello
che, come nota profondamente lo Spencer,1 è il
registro vivo di tutte le esperienze, per le quali
s’è fatta l’evoluzione organica della vita fino al
suo stato recente. Tuttavia l’educarsi dei centri
nervosi è arduo e pien di pericoli, e i germi delle
idee perirono a mille innanzi che si formasse quel
germe nel quale s’infuturava la vita storica. Il
- ↑ Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Psycology. London,
1870, T. I. pag. 468. seg.: «The human brain is an
organized register of infìnitely-numerous experiences receiving
during the evolution of life, or rather, during the evolution
of that series of organism throught which the human organism
has been reached. The effects of the most uniform and
frequent of these experiences have been successively bequeathed,
principal and interest; and have slowly amounted to
that high intelligence which lies latent in the brain of the
infant which the inlant, in after life exercises and perhapstrengthens
or further complicates, and which with minute
additions it bequeaths to future generations.» Anche W. Bagehot
(Physics and Politics. London, 173, pag. 3, seg.
nota acutamente: «Each nerve has a sort of memory of its
past life, is trained or not trained, dulled or quickened as
the case may be... I do not think any who do not acquire
an did takes a hard effort to acquire, this notion of a trasmitted
nerve demente, will ever understand «the connective
tissue» of civilisation. We have here the continuous
force which bind age to age, which enables each to begin
with some improvement on the Jast, if the last did itself improvement;
which make each civilisation not a set of detached
dots but a line of colour, surely enhancing shade by
shade.» Vedi pure E. Quinet, La Crèation ( Paris, 1870, T. I,
pag. 338, seg., e pag. 346, seg.); H. Taine, De l’Intelligence
(Paris, T. II, pag. 455, seg.)
