MEMORY. 659 



Bome time, and surrounds itself with new details. ' When I saw him he 

 was bare-headed, with a working-Jacket on, painting in a studio ; he is 

 Bo-and-so, of such-and-such a street. But when was it ? It was not 

 yesterday, nor this week, nor recently. I have it : he told me that he 

 was waiting for the first leaves to come oat to go into the country. It 

 was before 'he spring. But at what exact date ? I saw, the same day, 

 people carrying branches in the streets and omnibuses : it was Palm 

 Bunday ! ' Observe the travels of the internal figure, its various shift- 

 ings to front and rear along the line of the past ; each of these mental 

 sentences has been a swing of the balance. When confronted with 

 the present sensation and with the latent swarm of indistinct images 

 which repeat our recent life, the figure first recoiled suddenly to an 

 indeterminate distance. Then, completed by precise details, and con- 

 fronted with all the shortened images by which we sum up the proceed- 

 ings of a day or a week, it again receded beyond the present day, be- 

 yond yesterday, the day before, the week, still farther, beyond the 

 ill-defined mass constituted by our recent recollections. Then some- 

 thing said by the painter was recalled, and it at once receded again 

 beyond an almost precise limit, which is marked by the image of the 

 green leaves and denoted by the Avord spring. A moment afterwards, 

 thanks to a new detail, the recollection of the branches, it has shifted 

 again, but forward this time, not backward; and, by a reference to tlie 

 calendar, is situated at a precise point, a week further back than Easter, 

 and five weeks nearer than the carnival, by the double effect of the 

 contrary impulsions, pushing it, one forward and the other backward, 

 and which are, at a particular moment, annulled by one another." * 



THE CONDITIONS OF GOODNESS IN MEMORY. 



The remembered fact being n, tlieu, the path N — O is 

 what arouses for n its setting -when it is recalled, and makes 

 it other than a mere imagination. The path M — N, on the 

 other hand, gives the cue or occasion of its being recalled 

 at all. Memory being thus altogether conditioned on brain- 

 paths, its excellence in a given individual ivill depend partly on 

 the number and partly on the persistence of these paths. 



The persistence or permanence of the paths is a physi- 

 ological property of the brain-tissue of the individual, whilst 

 their number is altogether due to the facts of his mental 

 experience. Let the quality of permanence in the paths be 

 called the native tenacity, or physiological reteutiveness. 

 This tenacity differs enormously from infancy to old age, 

 and from one person to another. Some minds are like wax 



* On Intelligence, I. 3o8-9. 



