214 ANIMAL ATTOMATISM v 



explain what happens when one tries to recollect 

 something : 



"Thus when the soul wills to remember anything, this 

 volition, causing the [pineal] gland to incline itself in dilfcreiit 

 directions, drives the [animal] spirits towards different regions 

 of the brain, until they reach that part in which are the ti 

 which the object which it desires to remember has left. These 

 traces are produced thus : those pores of the brain through 

 which the [animal] spirits have previously been driven, by 

 reason of the presence of the object, have thereby acquired a 

 tendency to be opened by the animal spirits which return towards 

 them more easily than other pores, so that the animal spirits, 

 impinging on these pores, enter them more readily than 

 others. By this means they excite a particular movement in 

 the pineal gland, which represents the object to the soul, and 

 causes it to know what it is which it desired to recollect." * 



That memory is dependent upon some condition 

 of the brain is a fact established by many con- 

 siderations among the most important of which 

 are the remarkable phenomena of aphasia. And 

 that the condition of the brain on Avhich memory 

 depends, is largely determined by the repeated 

 occurrence of that condition of its molecules, which 

 gives rise to the idea of the thing remembered, is 

 no less certain. Every boy who learns his ! 

 by repeating it exemplifies the fact. Descartes, 

 as we have seen, supposes that the pores of a 

 given part of the brain are stretched by the 

 animal spirits, on the occurrence of a sensation, 

 and that the part of the brain thus stretched. 



1 Lcs Passions de I' AIM, xlii. 



