330 The Mnemonic Phenomenon 



the persistence of conditions latent in memory. Let us 

 note further, that these last two cases present in a very 

 striking form one of those "revivifications of memory 

 through contiguity in space," as Ribot would call them. 



This reawakening of memory through contiguity in 

 space is only a particular case of the general law of the 

 association or succession of ideas. They indicate that 

 the mnemonic center becomes active only when the sight 

 of the same place induces in the environment of that 

 center almost the same state of distribution of nervous 

 energy as was present at the former time when it received 

 the impression. That is exactly, as we have seen in 

 the preceding chapter, the immediate result of the hypoth- 

 esis of specific elementary accumulators there advanced. 



In the mnemonic phenomena properly so called, it 

 is the infinitely diverse and constantly changing condi- 

 tions of the outer world and the corresponding sensa- 

 tions following in the individual which call forth like 

 a phantasy such and such an association or succession 

 of ideas. But in the development of the embryo which 

 is removed from the action of every external perturbing 

 influence and above all, which is provoked by the acti- 

 vation of different specific germinal elements from one 

 and the same complex mnemonic center constituted by 

 the germinal substance, the succession of mnemonic states 

 of this latter called into activity one after the other and 

 of the corresponding stages of ontogeny must inevitably 

 proceed in an uninterrupted series, always the same for 

 all individual ontogenies of the same species. For to 

 reawaken each mnemonic element of this germinal sub- 

 stance there must again concur exactly and exclusively 

 those conditions of distribution of nervous energy in 



