244 



NATURE 



\yan. lo, 1889 



Second, we attempt by rewards to stimulate the minds of 

 our workmen directly to invention and to a continual 

 criticism of the methods of work, tools, and machines 

 employed by them. We have not tried yet to induce 

 them to attend technical classes, but a few of them do 

 attend such classes in the town, conducted under the 

 control of the Science and Art Department. 



" All our draughtsmen attend such classes, and in addi- 

 tion have from us the use of our offices, with paper, &c., 

 free, also of a very complete library of works on naval 

 architecture and cognate subjects, every evening excepting 

 Saturday and Sunday." 



Mr. Ward, the managing partner of the firm, reported, 

 in 1887, that, since the introduction, seven years before, of 

 the system of awards to workmen for inventions and im- 

 provements, " claims have been considered valuable and 

 worthy of award to the number of 196, while rather more 

 than three times that number have been considered 

 altogether." 



Want of space prevents our saying more respecting 

 the subject of this memoir, though much more might 

 be said with advantage. The early termination of Mr. 

 Denny's career is an irreparable loss to his profession 

 and to the cause of scientific progress in ship con- 

 struction. The last professional distinction conferred 

 upon him was that of being elected President of the 

 Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland; 

 but he did not live to deliver his Presidential address. 

 This circumstance in connection with his death is similar 

 to what happened in the case of a celebrated predecessor 

 in that office, also a Clyde shipbuilder. We refer to Mr. 

 John Elder, who died in the prime of life almost imrne- 

 diately after the members of the Institution elected him 

 as their President in 1869. Francis Elgar. 



MEMORY. 

 Memory : its Logical Relations and Cultivation. By F. 

 W. Edridge-Green, M.B., B.S. Durham. (London : 

 Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox, 1888.) 



THE title of this book is somewhat misleading. 

 " Memory : its physiological " or " organic con- 

 ditions," would be more pertinent, for "logical relations" 

 suggest a treatment of mental association more allied to 

 that offered, for instance, by Dr. Bradley in his " Prin- 

 ciples of Logic." This will probably appear a trifling 

 remark to the author, niceties of terminology seemingly 

 Iseing of small importance in his eyes. Throughout his 

 work the writer lightly passes from the corporeal to the 

 mental sphere with a serene indifference to the needs 

 of clear conception. 



The author's stand-point may be understood from the 

 following paragraphs of the introduction : — 



"What is memory? It is the process by means of 

 which impressions of the external world and ideas are 

 retained for use on future occasions. . . . 



" Memory must be clearly distinguished from remem- 

 brance and recollection. Recollection is the power of 

 voluntarily recaUing impressions. Remembrance is the 

 term applied when the process is involuntary. Memory 

 is the innate power to have an impression recalled if a 

 proper stimulus be applied. . . . 



"All the above appears at first sight to be strongly 

 against the view that memory is a definite faculty occu- 

 pying a limited portion of the brain. But in the follow- 



ing pages I shall endeavour to prove that memory is a 

 definite faculty, and has its seat in the basal ganglion of 

 the brain, separate from, but associated with, all the other 

 faculties of the mind." 



Mr. Edridge-Green evidently does not fear the reproach 

 of heresy, for there is hardly a sentence of the foregoing 

 that would not be condemned by the authorities of the 

 day. Whether memory be defined as " the process by 

 means of which impressions and ideas are retained," 

 or " the innate power to have an impression recalled " 

 (we leave it to the author to reconcile his own language), 

 — ^to mark it off from " remembrance and recollection " 

 would, by most psychologists, be regarded as making a 

 distinction without a difference. And, further, to main- 

 tain that " memory is a definite faculty occupying a 

 limited portion of the brain," with " its seat in the 

 basal ganglion," undoubtedly is a proof of independent 

 opinion, if not of scientific discretion. 



We are treated in chapters v. and vi. to an account, 

 at some length, of " the faculties of the mind," as well as 

 — although we had been told that memory is a definite 

 faculty occupying a limited portion of the brain — of " the 

 special memories " appertaining to the same. The facul- 

 ties turn out to be thirty-seven, the number being five 

 short of those alleged in " the phrenological system," the 

 items of which are in part rechristened, and also re- 

 arranged. Regarded as conformity to popular descrip- 

 tion, there may be no great harm in all this ; but 

 something more than language is at fault in the state- 

 ment that "the mind is made up of a number of faculties, 

 each of which responds to certain impressions, and in- 

 fluences the mind as a whole to seek after these impres- 

 sions, and to avoid their negatives." Indeed, many of 

 the author's perplexities, and much of the reader's diffi- 

 culty in comprehending him, are clearly traceable to the 

 adoption of this somewhat antiquated and crude way of 

 regarding the mental constitution. The topic, however, 

 must not detain us, and we proceed to consider the 

 author's refutation of " the hypothesis that the perception 

 and memory of any impression occupy the same portion 

 of the brain." 



Eight reasons are apparently offered. No. i had 

 perhaps best be given in the author's own words : — 



" They \i.e. perception and memory] are totally distinct 

 functions ; thus, the eye receives the impression in the 

 first place, but no one supposes for an instant that the 

 eye is the seat of the memory of impressions of sight. . . . 

 Why should the brain, having manufactured ideas, &c., 

 remember them 1 The cerebral hemispheres bear exactly 

 the same relation to the basal ganglia as the external 

 senses do, and there is no evidence to support the theory 

 that the cerebral hemispheres are the seat of memory." 



The reasoning apparently is : the cerebral hemispheres 

 (which possess the property of manufacturing ideas) stand 

 " exactly in the same relation to the basal ganglia as the 

 external senses." Now it is admitted that the eye, or 

 external sense, remembers nothing, therefore neither can 

 the cerebral hemispheres. Is this meant for reasoning, 

 or mere dogmatism .? No one who has not a theory to 

 support would press the analogy of the eye and the cere- 

 bral hemispheres ; resting as it does on nothing better 

 than a vague resemblance of the minute structure of 

 retina and cortex ; rather, if analogy is to count for any- 

 thing, it is the " basal ganglia " that should be likened to 



