Heredity of the Memory. 5 1 



to the saying that memory is only a form of habit a proposition 

 which, with some restrictions, is true. 



On the one hand, it is certain that the association of ideas (a 

 current expression, but inexact, for association occurs also between 

 perceptions, sentiments, motions, etc.) is the indispensable condi- 

 tion of memory. On the other hand, habit consists of automatic 

 associations : an act does not become a habit until the various 

 terms of the series which compose it are perfectly fused and 

 integrated, so that one necessitates the others (as drilling, 

 dancing, playing the piano). Not to inquire here whether associa- 

 tion is to be referred to habit, or habit to association, it is clear that 

 he who does not see the fundamental identity of these two modes 

 of activity, and consequently of habit and memory, must be totally 

 without the faculty of generalization. 



But to confound them absolutely appears to us incorrect, for 

 the following reasons. Habit is altogether unconscious and 

 automatic ; memory is so only in part. We do not attribute to 

 memory those psychic states which are so well organized, and so 

 incorporated in us,^as to constitute a part of ourselves. We do 

 not say we remember that an effect has a cause, that a body 

 possesses extension, that a self-moving body is an animal. It 

 would, therefore, be more exact to say that memory is an incipient 

 habit If we trace the evolution of mind going from instinct, 

 which is automatic, to reason, which is so no longer we may say 

 that memory is the transition from perfect to imperfect automatism. 

 If we trace it in the reverse direction, then memory indicates the 

 moment when what was free and conscious tends to become 

 unconscious. ' Memory, then, appertains to that class of psychical 

 states which are in process of being organized. It continues so 

 long as the organizing of them continues, and disappears when 

 the organization of them is complete. In the advance of the 

 correspondence, each more complex cluster of attributes and 

 relations which a creature acquires the power of recognizing is 

 responded to, at first irregularly and uncertainly; and there is 

 then a weak remembrance. By multiplication of experiences this 

 remembrance is made stronger the internal cohesions are better 

 adjusted to the external persistences ; and the response is rendered 

 more appropriate. By further multiplication of experiences, the 



