466 JAMES R. ANGELL 



getting some of our medical friends, appeal to belie v r e that the 

 psychology of common sense, the kind which supposedly comes 

 by nature, is all that is essential. It appears well-nigh incredible 

 that anyone unfamiliai with the intricacies of the memory pro- 

 cesses, as modern psychological analysis has revealed these, 

 should seriously propose to give an adequate physical or chem- 

 ical explanation of the memory function.' It is precisely the 

 peculiarities so disclosed which require explanation. If the 

 physico-chemical explanations of the future are to apply in a 

 vague general way to memory activities loosely conceived and 

 imperfectly analyzed and described, if they are not to afford us 

 an understanding of specific detail, we may find them interesting 

 and suggestive, but in effect we shall be substituting one set of 

 essentially metaphorical terms tor another, and our actual 

 advance over present conditions will be relatively slight. 



What is true of memory is equally true of auditory and visual 

 sensation, of emotion, of reasoning, of volition and all the rest 

 of the fundamental mental operations. The facts to be physico- 

 chemically explained themselves require an adequate technique 

 of discovery and description. To supply this must be the busi- 

 ness of psychology, or some more worthy successor by whatever 

 name known. Psychological facts are no more directly acces- 

 sible to physical and chemical analysis than they are to deep 

 sea soundings. 



What methods are to be accepted and developed for this 

 purpose remains to be determined. This is not the place to 

 discuss the matter. Suffice it to remark that the oldest of the 

 psychological methods, i.e., introspection, is at present under 

 severe fire. 



Dr. Loeb's widely quoted analysis of the activities of the 

 central nervous system raises a host of pregnant questions of 

 which only one may be touched upon here, to wit, the concep- 

 tion of "associative memory." "Consciousness is only a meta- 

 physical term for phenomena which are 'determined by associa- 

 tive memory. By associative memory I mean that mechanism 

 by which a stimulus brings about not only the effects which its 

 nature and the specific structure of the irritable organ call tor, 

 but by which it brings about also the effects of other stimuli, 

 which formerly acted upon the organism almost or quite simul- 

 taneously with the stimulus in question." (Pp. 73-4). 



