i.) DURATION 5 



for a faculty works intermittently, when it will or when it 

 can, whilst the piling up of the past upon the past goes on 

 without relaxation. In reality, the past is preserved by 

 itself, automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows 

 us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and 

 willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the 

 present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals 

 of consciousness that would fain leave it outside. The 

 cerebral mechanism is arranged just so as to drive back into 

 the unconscious almost the whole of this past, and to admit 

 beyond the threshold only that which can cast light on 

 the present situation or further the action now being pre- 

 pared — in short, only that which can give useful work. 

 At the most, a few superfluous recollections may succeed 

 in smuggling themselves through the half-open door. 

 These memories, messengers from the unconscious, remind 

 us of what we are dragging behind us unawares. But, 

 even though we may have no distinct idea of it, we feel 

 vaguely that our past remains present to us. What are 

 we, in fact, what is our character, if not the condensation 

 of the history that we have lived from our birth — nay, 

 even before our birth, since we bring with us prenatal 

 dispositions? Doubtless we think with only a small 

 part of our past, but it is with our entire past, including 

 the original bent of our soul, that we desire, wi'l and act. 

 Our past, then, as a whole, is made manifest to us in its 

 impulse; it is felt in the form of tendency, although a 

 small part of it only is known in the form of idea. 



From this survival of the past it follows that conscious- 

 ness cannot go through the same state twice. The cir- 

 cumstances may still be the same, but they will act no 

 longer on the same person, since they find him at a new 

 moment of his history. Our personality, which is being 

 built up each instant with its accumulated experience, 



