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354 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
8. The fact that the phenomena produced by demographic events should be
endowed with memory is yet another handicap with important consequences
for observation and, more particularly, the analysis of such observations. It is
self-evident that a birth, for example, is an event which is lived in two individual
consciousnesses, the mother’s and the father’s, and that it is something which
can only be understood in relation to the past as experienced by those two con-
sciousnesses and to the idea they have formed as to the future.
But when this birth is announced to the socio-cultural groups to which the
parents belong, it becomes included in both the past and future history of those
groups and enters into the social memory.
9. We must pause here to define more clearly the notion of ‘history’ as applied
to demography, and, more generally, to the human sciences. The life of a human
being begins at the moment the spermatozoon has fertilized the ovum. Twenty-
three pairs of chromosomes have constituted themselves bearing information
which will make it possible for the individual to develop. This information takes
the form of a certain number of genes distributed over the 23 pairs of chromo-
somes. It can therefore be said that an individual is constituted ab initio by a
combination of genes drawn by lot, from a considerably greater number of
possible genes forming the genetic heritage of the human species.
Let us suppose that the synthesis of a given protein is dependent on the in-
formation contained in a number of genes. If these genes are carried by the
chromosomes of a single individual, that individual will manufacture the protein
in question. But if, in the following generation, the genes are distributed among
several individuals, none of these wil possess all the necessary information for
manufacturing the protein andno one will be able to effect its synthesis. Nonethe-
less, the recipe for this synthesis will not have been lost. In some later genera-
tion, through the operation of chance, and provided one is prepared to wait
long enough, one can be certain that the right combination of genes for pro-
ducing the synthesis will be found in a single individual who will then manufac-
ture the protein exactly as his remote forbear did.
A similar procedure exists in the world of matter. For instance, in order to
produce an atom of oxygen, a certain number of electrons have to be arranged
in a certain way around a proton. If this is done in a different way, then you
obtain something other than an atom of oxygen. It is possible that on certain
stars conditions are such that the combination for producing an atom of oxygen
will never exist. This does not mean that the matter composing that star has
lost the recipe for producing oxygen. A variation in the conditions would be
enough to enable oxygen to make its appearance.
In the world of animate nature, once a new being has been formed he posses-
ses an individuality, he is going to have a history in the course of which he wil
preserve the impression left by events in which he takes part. The combination
of genes which presided at his birth is his essence; subsequent events constitute
his existence. It is in this sense that we shall speak of his history.
IO. However, in the case of a living being, history is not simply an accumulation
of past events, it is also - and perhaps especially - the consciousness of such an