154 Unconscious Memory 



the moment of his beginning to feel hungry onward, 

 though in other respects sound in mind and body, and un- 

 changed generally. At half-past twelve he would begin 

 to be hungry ; but his beginning to be hungry cannot be 

 connected with his remembering having begun to be 

 hungry yesterday. He would begin to be hungry just as 

 much whether he remembered or no. At one o'clock he 

 again takes down his hat and leaves the office, not because 

 he remembers having done so yesterday, but because he 

 wants his hat to go out with. Being again in the street, 

 and again ignorant of the neighbourhood (for he remem- 

 bers nothing of yesterday), he sees the same policeman at 

 the comer of the street, and asks him the same question 

 as before ; the policeman gives him the same answer, and 

 money being still an object to him, the cheapest eating- 

 house is again selected ; he goes there, finds the same 

 menu, makes the same choice for the same reasons, eats, 

 is satisfied, and returns. 



What similarity of action can be greater than this, and 

 at the same time more incontrovertible ? But it has 

 nothing to do with memory ; on the contrary, it is just 

 because the clerk has no memory that his action of the 

 second day so exactly resembles that of the first. As long 

 as he has no power of recollecting, he will day after day 

 repeat the same actions in exactly the same way, until 

 some external circumstances, such as his being sent away, 

 modify the situation. TiU this or some other modffication 

 occurs, he will day after day go down into the street with- 

 out knowing where to go ; day after day he wUl see the 

 same policeman at the corner of the same street, and (for 

 we may as well suppose that the policeman has no memory 

 too) he win ask and be answered, and ask and be answered, 

 tiU he and the policeman die of old age. This similarity 

 of action is plainly due to that — whatever it is — ^which 

 ensures that like persons or things when placed in like 

 circumstances shall behave in Uke manner. 



Allow the clerk ever such a httle memory, and the simi- 



