The Memory Idea 273 



That ideas occur in far less profusion and with far less free- 

 dom of play in the animal mind that possesses them at all 

 than in the human mind ; that even the highest animal below 

 man lives far more completely absorbed in present stimula- 

 tions than does the average man, seems also practically cer- 

 tain. In the lack of more definite knowledge on the subject, 

 we may discuss a few related questions that suggest them- 

 selves with regard to, first, the primitive function of ideas; 

 secondly, the relation of ideas to qualitative differences in 

 sensation; and thirdly, the nature and possible origin of 

 "movement ideas." 



93. The Primitive Function of Ideas 



(i) What would be the most obvious and fundamental 

 use of ideas to an animal ? In our own experience, ideas of 

 absent objects have, among the various functions they sub- 

 serve, two that are rather definitely contrasted, which may be 

 termed the backward and the forward reference of ideas. 

 On the one hand, we recall past experiences purely as such; 

 we indulge in "the pleasures of memory," letting the at- 

 tention wander over trains of ideas recognized as belonging 

 to the past. On the other hand, we form ideas of experiences 

 we expect to have in the future, ideas which are derived, it 

 is true, from what has happened in the past, but which in- 

 volve a very different attitude on our part from that required 

 by mere retrospection, the attitude, namely, of anticipation, 

 of preparing to act appropriately to the situation present in 

 idea. Now if we ask which of these two functions of the idea 

 is practically the more important, we cannot hesitate to say 

 that the second is. To recall the past, except for the pur- 

 pose of anticipating the future, is an intellectual luxury. As 

 Bentley remarks, "The primary use of the image, we surmise, 

 was to carry the organism beyond j;he limits of the immediate 



