NATURE 



2 17 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1902. 



ANAL YSIS OF MEMOR Y. 

 Memory : an Inductive Study. By F. W. Colegrove, 

 Ph.D., D.D., Professor of Philosophy in the University 

 of Washington. With an introduction by G. Stanley 

 Hall, LL.D. Pp. xi + 369. (London : G. Bell and 

 Sons. New York : Henry Holt and Co., igoi.) Price 

 6.f. net. 



THE title of this book — "An Inductive Study" — leads 

 us to expect an exposition of fundamental and 

 derivative generalities based on a logical arrangement 

 of thoroughly criticised facts. Facts and generalities 

 there are in plenty, but the criticism is not adequate, neither 

 is the arrangement conspicuously logical. The result 

 is that, in spite of Dr. Stanley Hall's commendation, the 

 book as a whole leaves on one an impression of chapters 

 loaded with detail yet not adding much to the scientific 

 study of memory. Prof. Colegrove has taken great pains, 

 but he has attempted too much in a small book, and 

 his standpoint is neither frankly scientific nor frankly 

 popular. In Chapter i. — "Historical Orientation" — he 

 makes a rapid sweep from the Greeks to the moderns, 

 indicating the transit from the unsystematic aperi^us of 

 the earlier schools to the positive methods of the later. 

 The conception is good, but the space available makes 

 even a tolerable sketch impossible. Even the character- 

 isations given are sometimes more than doubtful. It is 

 quite inaccurate, for instance, to say that in contrast with 

 Kant's " masterly analysis of mind," " Reid, Stewart 

 and Hamilton are wholly metaphysical " (p. 10). Then, 

 the account of Bain's formula for the nervous seat of 

 reproduced feelings — " the renewed feeling occupies the 

 very same parts, and in the same manner, as the 

 original feeling, and no other parts, nor in any other 

 assignable manner" — becomes "mental impressions 

 depend upon the renewal of the feeling which accom- 

 panies the same part and in the same manner as the 

 original feeling" (p. 14), which is practically unintelligible. 

 Badly done summaries are worse than none, and the 

 above — which involves a fundamental doctrine — does not 

 alone suffer by the compression. The references, how- 

 ever, are, as a rule, given ; the student will therefore not 

 be misled, but the general reader also would prefer 

 accuracy in his " orientation." 



In Chapter ii. — "Biological Orientation" — we have a 

 mass of facts, partly anecdotal, about animal intelligence 

 generally, instincts, habits, natural selection, memory 

 and some other things. The purpose is to lead up to 

 the general theory of " organic memory" (Hering) and 

 "racial memory" (p. 89). We are left without any clear 

 conception as to whether "racial memory" implies {a) 

 cumulative use-inheritance (Spencer), or [b) selected 

 variations (Weismann). The difference is said to be " in 

 part a war of words" i p. 87). Possibly, but the words 

 are of Sibylline importance. " Organic memories refer 

 to the ability to conserve racial experiences by a con- 

 genital modification of the organism" (p. 90) leaves the 

 question very much an open one, even if the wording 

 were unexceptionable. The use made of '• racial 

 ineinory " and " organic memory " elsewhere ina',<es one 

 NO. 1 6 So, VOL. 65] 



long to have Locke's onslaught on " innate ideas " written 

 up to date. 



In Chapter iii. — " Diseases of Memory "—Prof. Cole- 

 grove recapitulates familiar clinical facts regarding word- 

 blindness, word-deafness and other forms of aphasia. He 

 adds one or two striking records of traumatic loss of 

 memory with gradual recovery (pp. 126 et sqq.), and 

 illustrates the theory of "inhibition" amnesia. His 

 general conclusion that Ribot's "law of regression" de- 

 mands modification, if, indeed, it holds at all, is not borne 

 out by the cases he records. There is as much difference 

 between the physiological sequence in normal memory 

 decay and the shattering due to gross lesions like cerebral 

 hemorrhage as there is between progressive muscular 

 atrophy and a broken leg. To make the sporadic dis- 

 sociations correlated with ha-morrhage illustrate the 

 normal sub-involution of progressive senility requires 

 much more minute evaluation of clinical facts than we get 

 here. The work of M. Pierre Janet would have assisted 

 Prof. Colegrove to what we mean, but he nowhere refers 

 to Janet. 



The next chapter— " Brain and Mind "—could not, per- 

 haps, be avoided, but it should have been reduced. 

 Prof. Colegrove, however, takes the " correct " attitude 

 towards the metaphysical theories he mentions, namely, 

 that they are not in the province of psychology. The 

 formula of "genetic parallelism," which simply means 

 that mind and body emerge together and develop to- 

 gether, and "functional interaction," which means that 

 now the physical, now the psychical, is uppermost, may 

 be accepted as a variant on the " double-faced unity " 01 

 "parallelism" theory; but in Chapter v. the mode of 

 expounding this relationship frequently lapses, verbally 

 if not in content, from its presuppositions. On p. 176, 

 where it is held that {a) the " neural discharge" and (*) 

 the "conscious element" may, each on occasion, "take 

 the initiative," the language seems to imply that the 

 "conscious element" is wholly divorced from any 

 "neural discharge." This transit in terminology from 

 physical to psychical and vice versa is made again and 

 again. The general result of the chapter is that there 

 are " memories," not a " memory " (p. 198). This, how- 

 ever, is only to say that the various grades of the nervous 

 system have each their appropriate variety of retentive- 

 ness and reproduction. In his exposition the author 

 plays off "organic memory" against the more limited 

 psychological " memory." He does not maintain much 

 order in his sequence of "memories." Nor is his 

 language always exact. That "muscular memories 

 depend chiefly wpoxi the nervous system " (p. 198) sug- 

 gests a question that is not solved by the following 

 sentence : — 



" By exercise a muscle acquires new power, which is 

 due in part to a change in the muscles themselves, but 

 such memories are associated with the nervous system. 

 This is possible because the motor nerve terminates in the 

 centre of the muscles and throws off branches in all 

 directions " (p. 199)- 



There is not much "orientation" here. Prof. 



Colegrove would have profited by a more intensive study 



of the good " psjchologies," which would have enabled 



him to use the matter of this chapter to more purpose. 



In Chapter \ i. — " Indi\idual .Memories "—we have the 



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