318 The Mnemonic Phenomenon 
and Cope. Only it may be noted once again that the 
absence of any analysis, however conjectural, of the 
nature of the phenomena of memory makes the explana- 
tion of development which Hering tried to give in this 
way, not only quite indefinite and nebulous, but alsa 
gives it the appearance of a quite artificial comparison 
between processes much too unlike. 
The same is true ina yet greater degree of the general 
theory of Hering of which development is a particular 
case, and which considers memory a general function 
of all living organized matter. Ribot accepts this theory 
and modifies it in that he expresses the view that “mem- 
ory is essentially a biological phenomenon and only 
accidentally a psychological one.” ?% 
This extension of the mnemonic faculty over every 
vital phenomenon without exception, though it contains 
much truth, cannot by itself constitute any explanation 
of either one phenomenon or the other, but rather helps 
to plunge both into greater obscurity; for while by this 
comparison the obscure fundamental peculiarities com- 
mon to both become in no wise clearer, one loses sight 
of those most familiar and characteristic properties which 
are different in the two phenomena, and which are the 
ones which have served to give, up to the present day, 
the most correct idea possible of both. 
The mnemonic phenomenon can serve then neither 
as an explanation of the phenomena of development nor 
of vital phenomena in general, because it is as we said 
a phenomenon even more special and more complex than 
those which it has been summoned to explain. Never- 
theless there may yet be the possibility that the resem- 
*°Ribot: Les maladies de la mémoire. Paris, Alcan, root. P. 1. 
