Memory. 675 



the old ones). Until he does this, he does not know the things he sees, 

 although he might have been familiar with them before his mutilation. 

 He has to learn anew what a gun is, and what birds are, and how the 

 latter may be affected by the former. He will have to learn distances, 

 because at first all things will appear to be immediately in contact with 

 his eyes. 



If all the sight area in the cortex be destroyed, the dog will still not 

 be sightless, but he will not remember an} T thing he sees, and never be 

 able to acquire a conscious sight memory. His sense of sight will be 

 good only while his eyes are fixed upon an object, such as an obstruc- 

 tion in his path, and the influence of the stimulation will pass into such 

 motor, reflex or automatic muscular combinations as will cause him to 

 avoid the obstruction. But the moment his e}'es are off from the ob- 

 ject, it will be forgotten. 



In the above action of the lower ganglionic centers, we are bound to 

 recognize the unconscious memory function which they possess. The 

 avoidance of an obstruction implies a habit of previous avoidance, and 

 such an adjustment of the machinery concerned, that when the stimulus 

 is applied at the initial point, each part is successively brought into ac- 

 tion by the stimulus as it may have been modified and transmitted by 

 the part going before. The peculiar constitution of the machine, which 

 insures the repetition of its former action when it is restimulated, is its 

 memory. In short, its memory does not differ from that of a dynamo, 

 or a threshing machine. It is a better memory than that of the cere- 

 brum which arouses consciousness^ because the parts concerned are fewer 

 in number, more definitely and exclusively fitted to each other, and of 

 less delicate adjustments. The organs of the cerebrum .show the re- 

 verse state of facts; the parts related to each other are vastly numerous, 

 and connected in a vast number of ways, with great delicacy of adjust- 

 ment. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to ever reproduce a for- 

 mer action of cerebral organs, with precision. In fact, almost every 

 restimulation of the cerebral machine, alters it more or less, which 

 alone insures a change in its memory. Thus, the most accurate cere- 

 bral memories are unreliable, and every time the machine is started, it 

 is liable to run in a more or less different manner. The essential feat- 

 ures of memory are the same in the lower brain centers and the cere- 

 brum. The element of consciousness, which appears in connection with 

 it in the cerebrum, does not contribute to the perfection of its action ; 

 on the contrary, it is an indication of its imperfection, because friction 

 is a measure of force lost in the operation of an imperfect machine, and 

 it is also a measure of consciousness. 



As before observed, the inference that the principal cortical organs 

 are located in man in the same parts of the brain as in the higher mam- 



