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idea is perceived all the more vividly in proportion as the mind is less occupied at the same moment with anything elsę. When a person is deeply occupied, a new idea makes little impression on his mind, because before it can lay hold of the consciousness it has expended all its force. On the other hand, it is well known that persons who are altogether idle interest themselves much about trifling details, and that an empty mind breeds hypochondria.

An idea that has passed away from the consciousness is not destroyed, but only transformed. Instead of being a present idea, it becomes a residuum, representing a certain tendency of the mind exactly proportioned to the energy of the original idea. The existence of ideas in the unconscious state might, therefore, be regarded as a state of perfect equilibrium. 'Forgetfulness means that the idea of a thing is in equilibrium with other ideas, and recollection that this idea quits the state of equilibrium, and enters the state of motion. No idea is lost; and every operation of the mind in virtue of which a latent idea passes to the active state is a state of recollection.'1

Amid all these hypotheses, which the future, perhaps, will show to be truths, this remains certain and unquestionable, that the phenomena of recollection are to be referred to the grand law of the conservation of force, of which it is only a particular case. If, now, we pass from this very general law to one that is less general— from a formula embracing all changes which occur in the universe to a formula restricted to the domain of life-we shall see memory under another aspect.

This biological law is habit. In the first place, habit, considered in its essence, is referable to the law of the conservation of force, for its cause is the primordial law or form of being—that is, the tendency of beings to persevere in the act which constitutes them. As has been already seen, every act leaves in our physical and mental constitution a tendency to reproduce itself, and whenever this reproduction occurs the tendency is strengthened; and thus a tendency, often repeated, becomes automatic. This automatism is the link between memory and habit, and gave rise

1 Müller, Psychologie, ii. p. 517.

to the saying that memory is only a form of habit—a proposition which, with some restrictions, is true.

On the one hand, it is certain that the association of ideas (a current expression, but inexact, for association occurs also between perceptions, sentiments, motions, etc.) is the indispensable condition of memory. On the other hand, habit consists of automatic associations: an act does not become a habit until the various terms of the series which compose it are perfectly fused and integrated, so that one necessitates the others (as drilling, dancing, playing the piano). Not to inquire here whether association is to be referred to habit, or habit to association, it is clear that he who does not see the fundamental identity of these two modes of activity, and consequently of habit and memory, must be totally without the faculty of generalization.

But to confound them absolutely appears to us incorrect, for the following reasons. Habit is altogether unconscious and automatic; memory is so only in part. We do not attribute to memory those psychic states which are so well organized, and so incorporated in us, as to constitute a part of ourselves. We do not say we remember that an effect has a cause, that a body possesses extension, that a self-moving body is an animal. It would, therefore, be more exact to say that memory is an incipient habit. If we trace the evolution of mind-going from instinct, which is automatic, to reason, which is so no longer-we may say that memory is the transition from perfect to imperfect automatism. If we trace it in the reverse direction, then memory indicates the moment when what was free and conscious tends to become unconscious. Memory, then, appertains to that class of psychical states which are in process of being organized. It continues so long as the organizing of them continues, and disappears when the organization of them is complete. In the advance of the correspondence, each more complex cluster of attributes and relations which a creature acquires the power of recognizing is responded to, at first irregularly and uncertainly; and there is then a weak remembrance. By multiplication of experiences this remembrance is made stronger-the internal cohesions are better adjusted to the external persistences; and the response is rendered more appropriate. By further multiplication of experiences, the

internal relations are at last structurally registered in harmony with the external ones; and so conscious memory passes into unconscious or organic memory."

II.

The foregoing remarks are all within our subject, though they may not seem so; for, having now referred memory to habit, we will endeavour, in the conclusion of the work, to refer heredity also to habit, and to show that both are but one form of the universal mechanism—of that inflexible necessity which rules the world of life and even of thought, and of which memory itself is but one aspect. Without forestalling this conclusion, of which the value can only be appreciated when we have first studied the facts, the laws, and the causes, heredity may at least be compared with memory. Heredity, indeed, is a specific memory: it is to the species what memory is to the individual. Facts will hereafter

show that this is no metaphor, but a positive truth. If these considerations seem too theoretical, it must be at least admitted that, memory being as closely and perhaps even more closely connected with the organism than any other faculty, the heredity of memory is implied in physiological heredity. Some recent authors, among them Dr. Maudsley, attribute a memory to every nerve-cell, to every organic element of the body. 'The permanent effects of a particular virus, such as that of variola or of syphilis, in the constitution, show that the organic element remembers, for the remainder of its life, certain modifications it has received. The manner in which a cicatrix in a child's finger grows with the growth of the body proves, as has been shown by Paget, that the organic element of the part does not forget the impression it has received. What has been said about the different nervous centres of the body demonstrates the existence of a memory in the nervecells diffused through the heart and the intestines; in those of the spinal cord; in the cells of the motor ganglia, and in the cells of the cortical substance of the cerebral hemispheres.'

72

Still, when we search history or medical treatises for facts to

1 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, 2nd Edition, § 202.
2 Maudsley, Physiology of Mind, ch. ix.

establish the heredity of the memory in its individual form, we meet with little success.. While such facts are numerous in reference to the imagination, the intellect, the passions, we find very few in favour of heredity of memory.

There is a mental disorder, however-idiocy-which presents some instances. This infirmity—an hereditary one, as we shall see, at least in the shape of atavism-presents, among other characteristics, an excessive weakness of memory. Idiots generally recollect only what concerns their tastes, their propensities, their passions. But, as this is doubtless the result of the feebleness of their sensorial impressions, this heredity is the effect of a more general hereditary transmission.

Aphasia, which is nearly always connected with paralysis of the right side, is produced by lesion of the anterior lobes of the brain. (the third frontal convolution of the left side, according to Broca). Its psychological cause appears to be amnesia, or a loss of memory, an inability to find words in general, or some particular words. Although this disease has been studied with much care, no cases of heredity are cited.

History shows the same scarcity of instances. The almost fabulous powers of memory that are recorded (Mithradates, Hadrian, Clement VI., Pico de la Mirandola, Scaliger, Mezzofanti, etc.) seem isolated cases; at least, we cannot trace them up or down in the genealogical line. Yet some facts may be noted. The two Senecas were famed for their memory: the father, Marcus Annæus, could repeat 2000 words in the order in which he heard them; the son, Lucius Annæus, was also, though less highly, gifted in this respect. According to Galton, in the family of Richard Porson, one of the Englishmen most distinguished as a Greek scholar, this faculty was so extraordinary as to become proverbial -the Porson memory. The case may also be noticed of Lady Hester Stanhope, the daughter of one of the most illustrious English families, who, under the name of the Sibyl of the Libanus,' led so strange and adventurous a life. Among many points of resemblance between herself and her grandfather she herself cites memory. 'I possess my grandfather's eyes, and his memory of places. If he saw a stone on the road he remembered it-it is the same with me; his eye, which usually was dull and lustreless,

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lighted up, like mine, with a wild gleam under the influence of passion.'

It may be remarked that certain determinate forms of memory are hereditary in artist-families. It will be seen that the talents for painting and for music are very often transmitted. Now and then they persist through four or five consecutive generations; and it is evident that no one can be a good painter without possessing a memory for forms and colours, or be a good musical composer without memory of sounds.

To sum up, it must be admitted that there are not many facts to show the heredity of memory; but the conclusion is not thereby justified that this form of heredity is rarer than others. The opposite opinion is still tenable, and the lack of evidences can be explained.

Memory, with all its undoubted usefulness, plays in human life, and consequently in history, only a secondary and obscure part. It produces no works, like the intellect and the imagination; nor does it perform any brilliant actions, like the will. It does not give material evidence of itself, like a defect of the senses. It does not come under the ken of the law, like the passions; nor does it enter the domain of medicine, like mental disease. Since, then, it is so little tangible, the lack of evidences need not surprise us; and there is still reason to hope that, in proportion as the subject of mental heredity, hitherto much overlooked, is better studied, attention will be directed to this matter, and will abundantly show that here, as elsewhere, heredity is the rule.

CHAPTER IV.

HEREDITY OF THE IMAGINATION.

I.

ALL psychologists distinguish two kinds of imagination: one reproductive, the other creative. Both of these are alike subject to the law of heredity; perhaps, indeed, apart from instinct and perception, there is no faculty of which the transmission is so common. This is not surprising, if we remember the close relation

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