96 Rey. James Wits on accidental Association. 
formed the chainwork, by which our references to the past are actually made. 
As we go on from day to day, a large compass of the ideas with which we are 
mainly concerned accompanies us; our present is somewhat analogous to the 
ship’s horizon, which still appears the same though the place is changed ; and 
thus, too, are we possessed of a broad expanse, from which to search back, and if 
we observe to how large an extent the ideas which exert our attention to-day are 
but a continuation of yesterday, and that life itself is actually an external realiza- 
tion of this internal series of the thoughts, it will be easy to see, by what marks 
and points of departure our reckonings and computations of past events can be 
made. It is not merely by a pure associative process, that the more important 
portion of these recollections are made, and it will materially tend to clear and 
confirm this theory, if, before going further, we briefly dwell upon the ordinary 
process of active recollection. 
Metaphysical writers have mostly adopted or admitted the division of memory 
into active and passive—remembrance and recollection. In each there is the 
same elementary process; each is the result of some suggestion of the present 
moment. In the passive, memory is awakened either by the present occurrence, 
or by the immediately prevalent tendency of the mind. In its vaguest reverie, 
the mind may be supposed to drift from state to state; and whatever be the 
aspect of thought, or however dim the apprehension, there must, while conscious- 
ness remains, be some gleam of thought; and there is no thought unconnected 
with suggestion. Such is the condition out of which the dream arises. 
In the active process, various means are resorted to for the purpose of recol- 
lection, and, as I have already observed, all the faculties are employed. A date 
is fixed by computation ; causes and effects are considered; to find what hap- 
pened, what may or may not have happened is examined ; the concurrences and 
combinations of the several lines of event are attentively traced; the means are 
various as the uses of reason. But these are not strictly the pure process of 
memory here to be considered. To make this process evident, it must be 
observed, that on any occasion whatever, before the will to recollect can be enter- 
tained, there must exist some present motive or reason for the inquiry ; and it 
cannot but be at once perceived, that this motive itself offers or involves the first 
link of the train of suggestion. However remote, there must be some con- 
nexion between the idea sought and a purpose originating the search for it. Nor 
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