AUTOMATIC ACTION OF MEMORY. 69 



daily life, and especially in powerful volition, additional 

 blood flows through the brain, and currents of nerve-force 

 are supposed to flow from cell to cell, and from part to 

 part, of the cortical grey matter of the cerebrum, and 

 thus excite ideas, thought, and reflection ; and ever and 

 anon, as occasion requires or stimulates, a portion of 

 nervous power discharges outwards, either volitionally 

 or automatically, and produces muscular or other action, 

 whilst the ideas themselves become weaker. 



Memory being in its chief action purely automatic, we 

 cannot by mere effort of will directly recall any idea. All 

 that we can do towards such an effect by means of voli- 

 tion is to excite to a higher or reduce to a lower degree of 

 intensity any idea that is already awakened in the mind ; 

 and if that idea happens to be connected by mental asso- 

 ciation with the one we are in search of, the excitement 

 extends sufficiently to the latter to make it observable. 



The will, ' by concentrating the mental gaze (so to 

 speak) upon any object that may be within its reach, can 

 make use of this to bring in other objects by associative 

 suggestion.' l ' The process ' of volitional recollection 

 6 really consists in the fixation of the attention upon one 

 or more of the ideas already present to the mind, which 

 may directly recall, by suggestion, that which is desi- 

 derated ; the very act of thus attending to a particular 

 idea serving not only to intensify the idea itself, but also 

 to strengthen the associations by which it is connected 

 with others.' Even familiar ideas are recollected thus. If 

 ' the desiderated idea does not at once recur suggestively,' 

 4 we then apply the same process to other ideas which 

 successively come before us, selecting those- which we 

 recognise as most likely to suggest that which we require,' 



1 Carpenter's Mental Physiology, p. 26v. 



