Specific Mnemonic Elements 319 
blance which appears to exist between some of the 
essential properties of these three phenomena may be 
explained by a still more general and more simple 
phenomenon which would form the common basis of all 
three categories of phenomena; the ontogenetic, the 
mnemonic properly so called or psycho-mnemonic, and 
the vital. 
We have already shown that this common phe- 
nomenon might perhaps be implied in the hypothesis 
set forth above, in which we regarded the specific potential 
elements as accumulators of specific nervous energy or 
as specific elementary accumulators. In just this capacity 
of restoring again the same specificity of nervous current 
as that by which each element had been deposited one 
would look for the cause of the mnemonic faculty in the 
widest sense, which all living matter possesses. And 
further the very essence of the mnemonic faculty would 
consist entirely in this restitution. 
It may be remarked here that the specific potential 
elements which as we saw in the preceding chapter could 
be called also specific elementary accumulators are thus 
susceptible now of receiving a third name, namely that 
of mnemonic elements. 
According to this definition, ordinary electric accumu- 
lators, which are as we saw merely generic accumulators, 
represent, one may say, only very imperfect mnemonic 
elements. On the contrary the more capable they were 
of storing up each a single one of the innumerable minute 
specific variations of such an energy and of reproducing 
it identically at each discharge, the more perfect 
mnemonic elements they would become. 
As of all the vital phenomena the psycho-mnemonic 
are those which present most distinctly the mnemonic 
