656 PSYCHOLOGY. 



of explicitly assimilatiug them to channels of association. 

 Dr. Maudsley, for example, writes: 



" When an idea which we have once had is excited again, there is a 

 reproduction of the same nervous current, with the conscious addition 

 that it is a reproduction — it is tlie same idea plus the consciousness that 

 it is the same. The question then suggests itself, What is the physical 

 condition of this consciousness ? What is the modification of the anatomi- 

 cal substrata of fibres and cells, or of their physiological activity, which 

 is the occasion of this plus element in the reproduced idea ? It may be 

 supposed that the first activity did leave behind it, when it subsided, 

 some after-effect, some modification of the nerve-element, whereby the 

 nerve-circuit was disposed to fall again readily into the same action ; 

 such disposition appearing in consciousness as ?"ecognition or memory. 

 Memory is, in fact, the conscious phase of this physiological disposition 

 when it becomes active or discharges its functions on the recurrence of 

 the particular mental experience. To assist our conception of what 

 may happen, let us suppose the individual nerve-elements to be en- 

 dowed with their own consciousness, and let us assume them to be, as 

 I have supposed, modified in a certain way by the first experience ; it 

 is hard to conceive that when they fall into the same action on another 

 occasion they should not recognize or remember it ; for the second 

 action is a reproduction of the first, with the addition of what it con- 

 tains from the after-effects of the first. As we have assumed the process 

 to be conscious, this reproduction with its addition would be a memory 

 or remembrance. " * 



In this passage Dr. Maudsley seems to mean by the 

 * nerve-element,' or 'anatomical substratum of fibres and 

 cells,' something that corresponds to the N of our diagram. 

 And the * modification ' he speaks of seems intended to be 

 understood as an internal modification of this same particu- 

 lar group of elements. Now the slightest reflection will con- 

 vince anyone that there is no conceivable ground for suppos- 

 ing that with the mere re-excitation of N there should arise 

 the ' conscious addition ' that it is a re-excitation. The two 

 excitations are simply two excitations, their consciousnesses 

 are two consciousnesses, they have nothing to do with each 

 other. And a vague 'modification,' supposed to be left 

 behind by the first excitation, helps us not a whit. For, 

 according to all analogy, such a modification can only result 

 in making the next excitation more smooth and rapid. This 

 might make it less conscious, perhaps, but could not endow 



* H. Maudsley, The Physiology of Miud (London, 1876), p 513, 



