Specific Mnemonic Elements 319 



blance which appears to exist between some of the 

 essential properties of these three phenomena may be 

 explained by a still more general and more simple 

 phenomenon which would form the common basis of all 

 three categories of phenomena; the ontogenetic, the 

 mnemonic properly so called or psycho-mnemonic, and 

 the vital. 



We have already shown that this common phe- 

 nomenon might perhaps be implied in the hypothesis 

 set forth above, in which we regarded the specific potential 

 elements as accumulators of specific nervous energy or 

 as specific elementary accumulators. In just this capacity 

 of restoring again the same specificity of nervous current 

 as that by which each element had been deposited one 

 would look for the cause of the mnemonic faculty in the 

 widest sense, which all living matter possesses. And 

 further the very essence of the mnemonic faculty would 

 consist entirely in this restitution. 



It may be remarked here that the specific potential 

 elements which as we saw in the preceding chapter could 

 be called also specific elementary accumulators are thus 

 susceptible now of receiving a third name, namely that 

 of mnemonic elements. 



According to this definition, ordinary electric accumu- 

 lators, which are as we saw merely generic accumulators, 

 represent, one may say, only very imperfect mnemonic 

 elements. On the contrary the more capable they were 

 of storing up each a single one of the innumerable minute 

 specific variations of such an energy and of reproducing 

 it identically at each discharge, the more perfect 

 mnemonic elements they would become. 



As of all the vital phenomena the psycho-mnemonic 

 are those which present most distinctly the mnemonic 



