Nothing was so astonishing and significant in the discoveries of the
embryologists, nor anything so absurdly little appreciated, as this
recapitulation, as it is now called: this power of hurrying up into
months a process which was once so long and tedious that the mere
contemplation of it is unendurable by men whose span of life is
three-score-and-ten. It widened human possibilities to the extent of
enabling us to hope that the most prolonged and difficult operation of
our minds may yet become instantaneous, or, as we call it, instinctive.
It also directed our attention to examples of this packing up of
centuries into seconds which were staring us in the face in all
directions. As I write these lines the newspapers are occupied by the
exploits of a child of eight, who has just defeated twenty adult chess
players in twenty games played simultaneously, and has been able
afterwards to reconstruct all the twenty games without any apparent
effort of memory. Most people, including myself, play chess (when they
play it at all) from hand to mouth, and can hardly recall the last move
but one, or foresee the next but two.
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