326 The Mnemonic Phenomenon 



surface send toward the center: Consequently only the 

 currents sent by complementary rays from this white 

 surface can reach that center, and these combined with 

 the currents corresponding to the other characters of 

 the picture must give it the same aspect as before only 

 with a complementary color. 



If the preservation of each memory is due to deposits 

 exactly equal in number to the specific elementary ner- 

 vous currents which the sensation or complex impression 

 had provoked in the nervous system, we are then in a 

 position to comprehend also the phenomenon known 

 under the name of abridgment. "Every memory," says 

 Ribot, "however clear it may be, undergoes an enormous 

 abridgment. The farther the present recedes into the 

 past, the more do the states of consciousness diminish 

 and disappear. Reviewed at several days distance there 

 remains little or nothing of them,; for the most part 

 they have darkened into a nothingness from which they 

 will never again emerge and have taken with them the 

 time duration inherent in them. Consequently a diminu- 

 tion of the states of consciousness is a diminution in 

 time." 243 



This disappearance of the elementary states of con- 

 sciousness producing the abbreviation of memory will 

 be due then, according to our view, to the disappearance 

 of the secondary mnemonic elements, that is to say those 

 provided with a minimum quantity of the respective 

 substance, (and of the potential energy which is the con- 

 sequence of it), from the series which constitutes the 

 entire memory. Possibly this disappearance can be 

 caused by the fact that the nutritive fluid has come 



248 Ribot: Ibid. P. 44, 45. 



