Physiological Effects of Memories 325 



We need not recall here all the innumerable examples 

 which show that the motor or secretory or in general 

 the physiological effects of the mnemonic reawakening 

 of a given sensation or impression are quite identical 

 with those of the real sensation or impression: for 

 example, the recollection of a certain dish produces the 

 same salivation as is provoked by the dish itself; the 

 memory of the beloved person can cause each time the 

 same reddening of the countenance, the same brightening 

 of the eyes, the same acceleration of the pulse as the 

 direct view of that person; every time that a mother 

 thinks of her nursing child there comes a flow of milk 

 into the breasts. 241 These are some examples which show 

 the substantial identity of the functional and mnemonic 

 stimulus. 



Here we should like to cite just the following experi- 

 ment of Wundt mentioned by Ribot: "If, after looking 

 for a long time at a picture with very vivid colors, we 

 keep the picture before our minds with the eyes closed 

 and after that suddenly open the eyes and fix them upon 

 a white surface, we see there the picture which we had 

 kept in our minds, but in the complementary colors. This 

 fact, remarks Wundt, proves that the nervous operation 

 is the same in the two cases, in the perception and in the 

 memory." 242 According to our view this indicates that 

 the nerve current which corresponds to the color, let 

 us say red, of the picture, and reproduced, together with 

 all other currents corresponding to the other special 

 characters of this picture, by the mnemonic center 

 recalling it again, is equal but opposite in direction to 

 that current which the red rays coming from the white 



241 Lewes: The physical basis of mind. P. 288. 

 242 Ribot: Ibid. P. ii. 



