Translation from Hering 69 



suddenly to our consciousness with all the force and 

 freshness of the original sensation. A whole group of 

 sensations is sometimes reproduced in its due sequence 

 as regards time and space, with so much reality that it 

 illudes us, as though things were actually present which 

 have long ceased to be so. We have here a striking proof 

 of the fact that after both conscious sensation and percep- 

 tion have been extinguished, their material vestiges yet 

 remain in our nervous system by way of a change in its 

 molecular or atomic disposition,^ that enables the nerve 

 substance to reproduce all the physical processes of the 

 original sensation, and with these the corresponding 

 psychical processes of sensation and perception. 



Every hour the phenomena of sense-memory are present 

 with each one of us, but in a less degree than this. We 

 are all at times aware of a host of more or less faded 

 recollections of earlier impressions, which we either summon 

 intentionally or which come upon us involuntarily. Visions 

 of absent people come and go before us as faint and fleeting 

 shadows, and the notes of long-forgotten melodies float 

 around us, not actually heard, but yet perceptible. 



Some things and occurrences, especially if they have 

 happened to us only once and hurriedly, will be repro- 

 ducible by the memory in respect only of a few conspicuous 

 qualities ; in other cases those details alone will recur to 

 us which we have met with elsewhere, and for the reception 

 of which the brain is, so to speak, attuned. These last 

 recollections find themselves in fuller accord with our 

 consciousness, and enter upon it more easily and energeti- 

 cally; hence also their aptitude for reproduction is en- 

 hanced ; so that what is common to many things, and is 

 therefore felt and perceived with exceptional frequency, 

 becomes reproduced so easily that eventually the actual 

 presence of the corresponding external stimuli is no longer 

 necessary, and it will recur on the vibrations set up by 



' See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume. 



