688 PSYCUOLOGY. 



suggest an explanation for conscious memory, in so far as it is memory 

 — that is, in so far as it most imperatively calls for explanation, . , . 

 The very essence of the act of memory consists in the ability to say: 

 This after-image is the image of a percept I had a moment since ; or 

 this image of memory is the image of the percept I had at a certain 

 time— I do not remember precisely how long since. It would, then, be 

 quite contrary to the facts to hold that, when an image of memory ap- 

 peal's in consciousness, it is recognized as belonging to a particular 

 original percept on account of its perceived resemblance to this percept. 

 The original percept does net exist and will never be reproduced. Even 

 more palpably false and absurd would it be to hold that any similarity 

 of the impressions or processes in end organs or central organs ex- 

 plains the act of conscious memory. Consciousness knows nothing of 

 such similarity ; knows nothing even of the existence of nervous im- 

 pressions and processes. Moreover, we could never know two impres- 

 sions or processes that are separated in time to be similar, without 

 involving the same inexplicable act of memory. It is a fact of con- 

 sciousness on which all possibility of connected experience and of 

 recorded and cumulative human knowledge is dependent that certain 

 phases or products of consciousness appear with a claim to stand for 

 (to represent)* past experiences to which they are regarded as in some 

 respect similar. It is this peculiar claim in consciousness which con- 

 stitutes the essence of an act of memory ; it is this which makes the 

 memory wholly inexplicable as a mere persistence or recurrence of 

 similar impressions. It is this which makes conscious memory a 

 spiritual phenomenon, the explanation of which, as arising out of nerv- 

 ous processes and conditions, is not simply undiscovered in fact, but 

 utterly incapable of approach by the imagination. When, then, we 

 speak of a physical basis of memory, recognition must be made of the 

 complete inability of science to suggest any physical process which can 

 be conceived of as correlated with that peculiar and mysterious actus 

 of the mind, connecting its present and its past, which constitutes the 

 essence of memory." 



This passage seems to me characteristic of the reigning 

 half-way modes of thought. It puts the difficulties in the 

 wrong places. At one moment it seems to admit with the 

 cruder sensationalists that the material of our thoughts is 

 independent sensations reproduced, and that the ' putting 

 together ' of these sensations would be knowledge, if it 

 could only be brought about, the only mystery being as to 

 the what ' actu^s ' can bring it about. At another moment it 

 seems to contend that even this sort of ' combining ' would 

 not be knowledge, because certain of the elements con- 



* Why not say ' know '?— W. J. 



