CHAP. XIV.] PSYCHOPHYSIK. 455 



wounds may remind us of impressions made years ago, and 

 ocular spectra remind us of impressions made seconds ago. 

 Even in quiet meditation we sometimes find the ideas of 

 visible objects accompanied with sensations hardly less vivid 

 than those produced by real objects, and the memory of 

 spoken words passes in a continuous manner, as the condi- 

 tion of our nerves becomes more exalted, first into a silent 

 straining of the organs of speech, and then into an audible 

 voice. 



Beginners in music may practise on a dumb piano, and 

 there is a silent process by which we may improve our pro- 

 nunciation of foreign words. 



We can thus trace a continuous series of the instruments 

 of memory, beginning at the tables of stone and going on to 

 the tables of the heart ; and we are tempted to ask whether 

 all memorials are not of the same kind a physical impres- 

 sion on a material system. 



The last American invention of the past year is Edison's 

 Talking Phonograph. This instrument has an ear of its own, 

 into which you may say your lesson, and a mouth of its 

 own, which at any future time is ready to repeat that lesson. 



The memory of this machine consists of tinfoil thin 

 enough to be impressionable by the metal style which is set 

 in motion by the voice, and yet thick enough to be retentive 

 of these impressions, and at a proper time to communicate a 

 corresponding motion to the style of the talking part of the 

 machine. 



Such is the heart of this instrument, by which it gets its 

 speeches. Are our own hearts essentially different ? We 

 know what damage can be done to our memory by physical 

 disturbances. We find ourselves quite unable to recall 

 what we had often perused and reperused on the pages of 

 memory. The page is lost out of our consciousness. Time 

 goes on, and some day we find that the page with all that it 

 contained has been restored to its place. Where was that 

 page when it was out of our consciousness ? Not surely in 

 the Ego, unless there be an unconscious Ego. It must be 

 out of the Ego, and therefore an Object. If this be so, it is 



