654 PSYCHOLOGY. 



an association between the idea of the thing to be remembered, and 

 some sensation, or some idea, which they know beforehand will occur at 

 or near the time when they wish the remembrance to be in their minds. 

 If this association is formed, and the association or idea with which it haa 

 been formed occurs ; the sensation, or idea, calls up the remembrance; 

 and the object of him who formed the association is attained. To use a 

 vulgar instance : a man receives a commission from his friend, and, that 

 he may not forget it, ties a knot in his handkerchief. How is this fact to 

 be explained ? First of all, the idea of the commission is associated with 

 the making of the knot. Next, the handkerchief is a thing which it is 

 known beforehand will be frequently seen, and of course at no great 

 distance of time from the occasion on which the memory is desired. 

 The handkerchief being seen, the knot is seen, and this sensation re- 

 calls the idea of the commission, between which and itself the associ- 

 ation had been purposely formed." * 



In short, we make searcli iu our memory for a forgotten 

 idea, just as we rummage our house for a lost object. In 

 both cases we visit what seems to us the probable neighbor- 

 hood of that which we miss. We turn over the things under 

 which, or within which, or alongside of which, it may 

 possibly be ; and if it lies near them, it soon comes to view. 

 But these matters, in the case of a mental object sought, 

 are nothing but its associates. The machinery of recall is 

 thus the same as the machinery of association, and the 

 machinery of association, as we know, is nothing but the 

 elementary law of habit in the nerve-centres. 



And this same law of habit is the machinery of retention 

 also. Eetention means liability to recall, and it means noth- 

 ing more than such liability. The only proof of there being 

 retention is that recall actually takes place. The retention 

 of an experience is, in short, but another name for the 2>os- 

 sibility of thinking it again, or the tendency to think it again, 

 ■with its past surroundings. Whatever accidental cue may 

 turn this tendency into an actuality, the permanent ground 

 of the tendency itself lies in the organized neural paths by 

 which vhe cue calls up the experience on the proper occa- 

 sion, together with its past associates, the sense that the 

 self was there, the belief that it really happened, etc., etc., 

 just as previously described. When the recollection is of 

 the * ready ' sort, the resuscitation takes place the instant 



* Analysis, chap. x. 



