yo Unconscious Memory 



faint stimuli from within. ^ Sensations arising in this way 

 from within, as, for example, an idea of whiteness, are 

 not, indeed, perceived with the full freshness of those 

 raised by the actual presence of white light without us, 

 but they are of the same kind ; they are feeble repetitions 

 of one and the same material brain process — of one and 

 the same conscious sensation. Thus the idea of whiteness 

 arises in our mind as a faint, almost extinct, sensation. 



In this way those qualities which are common to many 

 things become separated, as it were, in our memory from 

 the objects with which they were originally associated, 

 and attain an independent existence in our consciousness 

 as ideas and conceptions, and thus the whole rich super- 

 structure of our ideas and conceptions is built up from 

 materials supplied by memory. 



On examining more closely, we see plainly that memory 

 is a faculty not only of our conscious states, but also, and 

 much more so, of our unconscious ones. I was conscious 

 of this or that yesterday, and am again conscious of it 

 to-day. Where has it been meanwhile ? It does not 

 remain continuously within my consciousness, neverthe- 

 less it returns after having quitted it. Our ideas tread 

 but for a moment upon the stage of consciousness, and 

 then go back again behind the scenes, to make way for 

 others in their place. As the player is only a king when 

 he is on the stage, so they too exist as ideas so long only 

 as they are recognised. How do they live when they are 



^ Professor Hering is not clear here. Vibrations (if I understand 

 his theory rightly) should not be set up by faint stimuli from within. 

 Whence and what are these stimuli ? The vibrations within are 

 already existing, and it is they which are the stimuli to action. On 

 having been once set up, they either continue in sufficient force 

 to maintain action, or they die down, and become too weak to 

 cause further action, and perhaps even to be perceived within the 

 mind, until they receive an accession of vibration from without. 

 The only " stimulus from within " that should be able to generate 

 action is that which may follow when a vibration already established 

 in the body runs into another similar vibration already so established. 

 On this consciousness, and even action, might be supposed to follow 

 without the presence of an external stimulus. 



