Physiological Effects of Memories 325 
We need not recall here all the innumerable examples 
which show that the motor or secretory or in general 
the physiological effects of the mnemonic reawakening 
of a given sensation or impression are quite identical 
with those of the real sensation or impression: for 
example, the recollection of a certain dish produces the 
same salivation as is provoked by the dish itself; the 
memory of the beloved person can cause each time the 
same reddening of the countenance, the same brightening 
of the eyes, the same acceleration of the pulse as the 
direct view of that person; every time that a mother 
thinks of her nursing child there comes a flow of milk 
into the breasts.241 These are some examples which show 
the substantial identity of the functional and mnemonic 
stimulus. 
Here we should like to cite just the following experi- 
ment of Wundt mentioned by Ribot: “If, after looking 
for a long time at a picture with very vivid colors, we 
keep the picture before our minds with the eyes closed 
and after that suddenly open the eyes and fix them upon 
a white surface, we see there the picture which we had 
kept in our minds, but in the complementary colors. This 
fact, remarks Wundt, proves that the nervous operation 
is the same in the two cases, in the perception and in the 
memory.” 242 According to our view this indicates that 
the nerve current which corresponds to the color, let 
us say red, of the picture, and reproduced, together with 
all other currents corresponding to the other special 
characters of this picture, by the mnemonic center 
recalling it again, is equal but opposite in direction to 
that current which the red rays coming from the white 
2417 ewes: The physical basis of mind. P. 288. 
242Ribot: Ibid. P. 11. 
