1901.] on Memory. 611 



to-night. Bring them up in the order in which they have been dealt 

 with. In this case the memories do not come up with the same 

 spontaneous vigour. They do not rise up with imperious clamour, and 

 demand and compel your attention. On the contrary, the attention 

 has to make the first advance. Before you can bring them before 

 your mind, you are conscious of putting forth some slight exertion. 

 You must go out a step to meet them. Now take another case, and 

 try to remember what it was you had for breakfast yesterday morning. 

 This is a much more serious affair. You have to put forth a very 

 sensible amount of effort, you have to concentrate upon the subject a 

 considerable grasp of attention before you can recall the experience 

 to your mind. And finally, let me ask you to put yourselves again 

 into the position in which doubtless every one of you has been at 

 one time or another, in which some word or some name with which 

 you are thoroughly familiar, of which you know quite well that you 

 possess the structural memory, yet cannot be recalled to mind. You 

 labour over it until you are weary, but you cannot remember it. 

 Your attention searches laboriously the whole field of consciousness, 

 lest peradventure the name should be lurking in some obscure corner, 

 but it is not to be found ; and presently the attention comes back, 

 weary and footsore, from going to and fro in the field of consciousness 

 and from walking up and down in it ; or perhaps it would be more 

 polite to say that it comes back like the dove into the ark, having 

 found no rest for the sole of its foot. If the memory of the word 

 is in the slightest degree active, if there is a presentation in any 

 part of the field of consciousness, however remote from its focus, we 

 can turn the glare of attention on it, and bring it into light ; but if 

 there be no active memory at all, then attention is powerless. Then 

 we must sit down passively and wait events. And usually we do not 

 have to wait long. Presently, when we least expect it, when we are 

 thinking of something else, when the whole subject has passed out of 

 our mind, and the attention is engaged elsewhere, the name jumps up 

 and strikes us. It bangs at the door and demands admission. Now 

 this I believe to be a very important mental phenomenon. Here is a 

 conscious memory which rises up spontaneously and clamours for 

 attention. It is not like the case of the smashing tumbler and the 

 cat, for those memories were violently dragged into consciousness by 

 their associations with states that were already present. But this 

 name is not dragged in. It is not invited. It has received no pro- 

 vocation ; but in it comes, and will not be denied. The importance 

 of this occurrence is that it is a conspicuous instance of what, I 

 believe, is very common in a less emphatic form. I altogether deny 

 that all memories arise by association. I believe that very many 

 memories arise spontaneously, and without any connection with what 

 is already in the mind. I know it is so in my own case, and I 

 believe that it is common with others. We are sitting thinking out 

 some problem, or thinking that we are thinking out a problem, and 

 suddenly, without any discernible provocation, some bit of doggerel 



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