When the energy of attention is exhausted or withdrawn the idea also
disappears, but it may be revived by bringing the energised Self in
contact with the imprint again, and this operation can be repeated
indefinitely. The power of exciting ideas of past experience is
Memory; any particular exercise of memory is Recollection.
The imprint of an object is not absolutely permanent and is probably
never quite true. It begins to lose sharpness at once, but if the
object be frequently observed and much remembered, it will retain
its general character for years. The exercise of memory, instead of
wearing out the imprint as would be the case with a material negative
or engraved plate, keeps the channels open[6]. Persons of little
experience remember well, for their energy of attention is not
distributed over many different ideas; it travels continuously round
a small circuit. One hears ignorant persons recounting events that
happened years ago, with as much detail and with almost as much
sentiment as if they had taken place the day before. A 'good
memory' is no proof that the quality of mind or thought is good. All
experience is not worth remembering. One of the most difficult things
in moral culture is to get rid of the imprints of ideas that are out
of harmony with our improved sentiment.
Although the imprints in our mind may close up and leave scarce a
cicatrice, the part that has been once disturbed is never the same as
the virgin plasm. It remains a little more tender. It may not reopen
to ordinary stimuli, but an extra agitation of the plasm will rip up
the closed furrows, and give us back scenes in our life that had long
ceased to be recollected. A great agitation in all parts of the mind
may revive what appears to be the whole of our past experience in a
simultaneous recollection. So I explain the extraordinary lucidity
that sometimes occurs in fevers and in moments of extreme terror.
It is also conceivable that the egoistic energy may be so strong as
to destroy outright the moulds of thought, as a flood sweeps away the
banks of a river. 'We sometimes find a disease quite strip the mind
of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever in a few days calcine all
those images to dust and confusion which seemed to be as lasting as if
graved in marble'[7].
What is called 'decay of the mind' in old age is merely the loss of
the plasmic images. Since intellect would not have been formed in the
first instance if it had not been wanted, it is to be expected that it
will fade out of the mind when it is no longer wanted. So far as the
realistic intellect is concerned, we return to 'second childhood' and
the uniform sensibility we had at birth.
No philosophy but the substantial explains memory. Idealists and
metaphysicians, who recognise only consciousness, are utterly unable
to account for the revival of a shadowy sort of objects in the absence
of their original causes. Here is the melancholy confession of John
Stuart Mill on the subject:--
'If we speak of the Mind as a series of feelings, we are
obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of
feelings which is aware of itself as past and future: and we
are reduced to the alternative of believing that the Mind, or
Ego, is something different from any series of feelings,
or possibilities of them, or of accepting the paradox that
something which _ex hypothesi_ is but a series of feelings,
can be aware of itself as a series.
'The truth is that we are here face to face with that final
inexplicability at which, as Sir W. Hamilton observes, we
inevitably arrive when we reach ultimate facts; and in general
one mode of stating it only appears more incomprehensible than
another, because the whole of human language is accommodated
to the one, and is so incongruous with the other, that it
cannot be expressed in any terms which do not deny its truth.
The real stumbling-block is perhaps not in any theory of the
fact, but in the fact itself. The true incomprehensibility
perhaps is, that something which has ceased, or is not yet in
existence, can still be, in a manner, present: that a series
of feelings, the infinitely greater part of which is past or
future, can be gathered up as it were into a single present
conception, accompanied by a belief of reality. I think, by
far the wisest thing we can do is to accept the inexplicable
fact, without any theory of how it takes place; and when we
are obliged to speak of it in terms which assume a theory, to
use them with a reservation as to their meaning[8].'
Memory an ultimate fact! It is the first that stares us in the face on
beginning to philosophise, and it haunts us through all our subsequent
speculations. It is the 'dweller on the threshold' of philosophy,
which unless we overcome will overcome us, and frustrate our magic.
The passage quoted does not show Mill's usual candour and consistency.
His philosophy has broken down on an essential point, and he is
reluctant to admit it. He tries to throw the blame on other things,
and recommends that those who think with him should maintain a
discreet silence on the subject of memory, or if obliged to speak
of it do so in ambiguous language. That is hardly honest, and is bad
philosophical practice. What we know or think we know we may leave
alone--it will not run away; it is what we are conscious of not
knowing that should receive our persistent attention.
Materialism presents at first sight the data out of which to construct
a theory of memory, for it recognises the dependent character of
consciousness and takes body to be its substance. Does the body show
any marks or traces of thought that may serve to revive ideas in the
absence of objects? None have yet been discovered. Nerves are used in
objective observation, but they do not appear to be essential either
to recollection in general or to any of the more elaborate forms of
internal thought. The brain is used only when giving expression to
thought.
Memory is noticed by everyone, even the least metaphysical. Persons
who are incapable of understanding the difference between object and
subject or general and particular, are yet perfectly well aware of the
difference between remembering and forgetting. The phrases relating
to this distinction are the commonest in every language. Memory is
conspicuous--notorious--palpable. It is the pivot on which the whole
mental system revolves. It cannot be gainsaid or ignored. There is no
profit in boycotting it in the manner recommended by Mill--it must be
faced and explained. 'How do you account for memory?' should be the
first question addressed to one who pretends to have a science of
mind. If he has no plausible answer to give, his system is not
worth discussion. A philosophy without a theory of memory is like an
astronomy without gravitation.