TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY J. FITZGERALD, A. M. COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY J. FITZGERALD. PREFACE. My purpose in this work has been to present a psychological monograph of the diseases of memory, and, so far as the state of our knowledge permits, to deduce therefrom a few conclusions. The memory has often been studied, but hardly on its pathological side; and it has seemed to me that it might be profitable to view the subject | under that aspect. I have endeavored to restrict myself to that, and have spoken of normal memory only so far as was necessary for clearness. I have cited many facts, and in this respect my method is not the literary one; but I hold it to be the only one for conveying nstruction. To describe in general terms the disordered states of the memory, without giving instances of each, appears to me to be labor thrown away, because it is important that the author's conclusions be capable of verification at every step. I beg the reader to note that what is offered to him here is an essay in descriptive psychology, i. e., a chapter in natural history, and nothing more; and that, if it possesses no other merit, this litt.e volume will acquaint him with a mass of curious observations and cases scattered through all sorts of compilations, and now for the first time collected together. January, 1881. T. R MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. Memory essentially a biological fact, incidentally a psychic fact-Organic memoryModifications of nerve-elements; dynamic associations between these elements-Conscious memory-Conditions of consciousness: intensity; duration-Unconscious cerebration-Nerve action is the fundamental condition of memory; consciousness is only an accessory-Localization in the past, or recol lection-Mechanism of this operation-It is not a simple and instantaneous act; it consists of the addition of secondary states of consciousness to the principal state of consciousness-Memory is a vision in time -Localization, theoretical and practicalReference points-Resemblance and differ ence between localization in the future and in the past-All memory an illusion-Forgetfulness a condition of memory-Return to the starting point: conscious memory tends little by little to become automatic. The descriptive study of memory has been very well performed by divers authors, especially by the Scotch, and hence it is not designed to revert to it. I propose to inquire what we may learn from the new method in psychology as to the nature of memory; to show that the teachings of psychology combined with those of consciousness lead us to state this problem much more broadly; to prove that memory, as popularly understood, and as usually described by psychologists, so far from being memory in its entirety, is only one particular phase of it, though the highest and most complex, and that this, taken by itself and studied apart, cannot be fully understood; that it is the final term of a long evolution and, as it were, an efflorescence, whose root is found far back in organic life in short, that memory is essentially a biological fact, and only by accident a fact of psychology. Thus understood, our study involves a general physiology and psychology of memory, and at the same time its pathology. The disorders and diseases of this faculty, when classified and interpreted, are no longer an assemblage of curious facts and amusing anecdotes to be mentioned only incidentally: on the contrary, they are seen to be subject to certain laws which constitute the very groundwork of memory and which reveal its mechanism. I. In the common acceptation of the word, memory includes three things, viz.: the retention of certain states; their reproduction; their localization in the past. This, however, is only one kind of memory, and it may be designated perfect. These three elements are of unequal value: the first two are necessary, indispensable; the third, that which, in the language of the schools, i called "recollection," gives completeness to memory, but does not constitute it. Do away with the first two, and memory is abolished: suppress the third, and memory ceases to exist for itself, without ceasing to exist in itself. Hence this third element, which is purely psychological, appears as superadded to the others: they are permanent; it is instable, appearing and disappearing; it represents what consciousness may claim as its own in the fact of memory, and nothing more. be considered later; let us reduce the prob lem to its simplest terms, and see how, quite apart from consciousness, a new state is implanted in the organism, how it is retained. and how reproduced: in other words, how, apart from consciousness, a fact of memory has its rise. Before we come to organic memory itself, we must note certain phenomena that have sometimes been compared to it. Authors have found ana ogues of memory in the inorganic world, and particularly in the property possessed by light-vibrations, whereby they may be stored up on a sheet of paper, and there persist, for a longer or shorter time, in the state of latent vibrations, ready to reappear at the summons of a developing agent. Engravings exposed to the sun's rays and then kept in a dark place, can months afterward, by the aid of appropriate reagents, reveal persistent traces of the photographic action of the sun upon their surface. Lay a key upon a sheet of white paper, and expose the two to the direct rays of the sun; then lay the paper away in a drawer, and years afterward the spectral image of the key will be visible. In our opinion these and other like facts bear too remote analogy to memory to merit being cited. In them we hnd the first condition of all recollection, namely, the retention of the impression, but that is all we find, for here the reproduction of the impression is in such a degree passive, and depe dent on the intervention of an outside agency, that it bears no resemblance to the natural reproduction of memory. Furthermore, with regard to the matter before us, we must never forget that we have to do with the laws of life, not with physical laws, and that the foundations of memory must be sought in the properties of organized matter and not elsewhere. It will be seen later that they who overlook this fall into errors. an Neither will I dwell upon certain habits of plants, that have been compared to memory: I hasten to deal with facts of a more decisive character.‡ *Luys, "The Brain and its Functions." +G. H. Lewes, "Problems of Life and Mind." Third Series, p. 57. In the animal kingdom muscle tissue roughIf we study memory as it has been studied ly illustrates the acquisition of new propdown to our time, as a "faculty of the soul," erties, their retention and their automatic rewith the aid of the sensus intimus (conscious-production. "Daily experience," says Hering, ness) alone, we must of necessity recognize "shows that a muscle becomes stronger the in this perfect and conscious phase all that there is in memory; nevertheless that were, under the influence of a faulty method, to take a part for the whole, or rather the species for the genus. Some authors of our day-Huxley, Clifford, Maudsley, and others, -by maintaining that consciousness is only the accompaniment of some nervous processes, and that it is as incapable of reacting upon them as is a shadow of reacting on the footsteps of the wayfarer that it accompamies, have opened the way for the new theory which is here essayed. Let us set aside for the moment the psychic element, which will A mass Two facts observed by the Translator may, perhaps, serve to illustrate the persistence of impressions through diversified physical changes of beeswax that had been employed again and again, melted and re-melted, in an electrotype foundry: which was all blackened with graphite, and had, apparently, lost forever the cell-structure of the honeycomb, was found to present on its surface, with great distinctness, the outlines of the polygonal cells. Again, a jar of raspberry conserve-the juice of the raspberry boiled, with the addition of sugar, presented the forms of the berries so distinctly that, with care, it was possible to separate one from the mass. oftener it works. The muscle fiber which | tute the apprenticeship of all manual trades, at first makes feeble response to the excita- games of skill, various bodily exercises, etc. tion transmitted by the motor nerve, re- If we inquire how these primary automatic sponds more energetically the more frequently it is excited, pauses and rests being of course presupposed. After each action it is more fitted for action again, better prepared for the repetition of the same work, better adjusted for the reproduction of the organic process. It wins more by activity than by long repose. Here we have, in its simplest form,-in that which comes nearest to purely physical conditions-that faculty of reproduction which is found under so complex a form in nerve substance. And what we see in muscular tissue we see in greater or less degree in the substance of the other organs. We everywhere observe that an enhanced functional power of organs accompanies an increase of activity, with sufficient intervals of rest. movements are acquired, fixed and reproduced, we see that the first step consists in forming associations. The raw material, so to speak, is supplied by the primary reflex actions; these are to be grouped in a certain way, and some combined together, to the exclusion of others. Sometimes this period of formation is simply a long continued experimentation. Acts which no seem to us to be entirely natural, were originally acquired by most laborious effort. When the babe's eyes for the first time see the light, we notice an incoherent fluctuation of movements; a few weeks later coordination of the movements is effected, and the eyes can adjust themselves, can locate a luminous point, and follow its every movement. When a child is learning to write, observes Lewes, he cannot The most highly developed tissue of the move the hand by itself, but must also move organism, nerve tissue, presents in the high-the tongue, the muscles of the face and even est degree this two-fold property of retention those of the feet.* But in time he learns to and reproduction Still, we will not seek in suppress these useless movements Any the most simple form of its activity, reflex one, on essaying for the first time any musaction, the type of organic memory. Reflex cular act, expends a large amount of superaction, indeed, whether it consists of an ex. fluous energy, which he afterward by degrees citation followed by one contraction or by learns to restrict to what is simply necessary. many, is a result of an anatomical arrange- The appropriate motions become fixed by ment. And it might be asserted, not without exercise, to the exclusion of the others. probability, that this anatomical arrangement, There are formed in the nerve elements cornow innate in animals, is the product of he- responding to the motor organs, secondary redity, that is to say, of a specific memory; dynamic associations more or less stable (that that some time it was acquired, and then be- is to say, a memory), and these are added to came fixed and organic through innumerable the primary and permanent anatomical assorepetitions. We will not employ this argu- ciations. ment in favor of our thesis, for there are many others far less open to question. The true type of organic memory-and here we come to the very core of our subject -must be sought in that group of phenomena which Hartley so well named secondary automatic actions, as opposed to primary or innate automatic acts. These secondary automatic actions, or acquired movements, are the very groundwork of our daily life. Thus, locomotion, which in many lower species is an innate property, in Man has to be acquired especially that power of coördination which maintains the body's equilibrium at each step we take, by combining tactual impressions with visual. It may be generally affirmed that in an adult the members and the sensorial organs act so freely as they do, only because of the sum of acquired and coördinated movements which constitute for each separate part of the body its special memory-the accumulated capital on which it lives, and by which it acts, just as the mind lives and acts by reason of its past experiences. To the same class belong those groups of movements of a more artificial character, which consti *Hering," Ueber das Gedächtniss als allgemeine Function der organisirten Materie.' ze. Auflage. Wien: Gerold's Sohn, 1876, p. 13. If the reader will observe for a moment these secondary automatic actions, which are very numerous and fall under the cognizance of every one, he will see that this organic memory is like psychological memory in all respects, save one, viz., the absence of consciousness. If we sum up the characteristics of organic memory, the perfect resemblance between the two memories will clearly appear: Acquisition, now instantaneous; again slow. Repetition of the act in some cases necessary, in others of no use. Inequality of organic memory in different persons: in some quick, in others slow or altogether refractory: awkwardness is the result of defective organic memory. In some persons there is permanence of associations that have once been formed: in others these are readily lost, forgotten. Arrangement of these acts in simultaneous or in successive series, just as in the case of conscious memory. A fact worthy of note in this connection is that each member of a series suggests the next following: this is what occurs when we walk without reflecting on the act. Soldiers on foot, and even horsemen in the saddle, overcome by sleep, have been able to keep on the march, *Op. Cit. p. 51. . though the latter have continually to preserve their equilibrium. This organic suggestion is exhibited more strikingly still in the case mentioned by Dr. Carpenter* of an accomplished pianist, who executed a piece of music while asleep-a feat which we must credit less to the sense of hearing than to the muscular sense which suggested the succession of movements. But not to go in search of extraordinary cases, we find in our daily actions organic series, both complex and well-defined, that is, wherein the beginning and the end are fixed, and wherein the terms, all differing from one another, follow in a constant order, as in going up or down a stairway with which we are familiar. Our psychological memory takes no note of the number of steps; our organic memory notes it after its own fashion, as also the division by landings, the arrangement of the banisters and other details: it makes no mistake. May we not say that, for the organic memory, these welldefined series are strictly the analogues of a phrase, a couplet of verses, or an air in music for the psychological memory. movements is definitively organized. Here We The first point to be established is that regarding the seat of memory. This question cannot now-a days give occasion for any seriThus, then, in its mode of acquiring, pre- ous controversy. We must regard it as serving and reproducing impressions we find well nigh demonstrated," says Bain, “that organic memory identical with psychological. the renewed feeling occupies the very same Consciousness alone is wanting. At first con- parts and in the same manner, as the original sciousness accompanied the motor activity, feeling." To cite a striking example of this, then it gradually disappeared. Sometimes— experience shows that the persistent idea of and such cases are the most instructive-the a bright color fatigues the optic nerve. disappearance of consciousness is abrupt. A know that the perception of a colored object certain man subject to temporary suspense of is often followed by a consecutive sensation consciousness would continue, while this con- which presents the object with the same condition lasted, any movement he might have tours, but in a color complementary to the begun. One day he walked straight into a real color. The same may occur in regard body of water. Often-for he was a shoe- to the idea (the recollection). That, too, maker he would prick his fingers with his leaves, though with a less degree of intensity, awl and go on with the movements of stab- a consecutive image. If, with closed eyes, bing the awl through the leather. In the we keep for a length of time an image of epileptic vertigo called the "petit mal" such very lively colors before the imagination, and occurrences are of every day observation. A then opening the eyes suddenly we fix them certain musician while playing the violin in upon a white surface, we see thereon for an an orchestra, was often seized with epileptic instant the image contemplated in imaginavertigo (momentary loss of consciousness) tion, but in the complementary color. This during the performance of a piece-never- fact, as is observed by Wundt, from whom theless he would keep on playing, and though we borrow it, proves that the nerve action is absolutely unconscious of all around him, the same in the two cases-in the sense-perneither seeing nor hearing the musicians who ception and in the memory.* accompanied him, he followed the measure." It is as though consciousness were teaching us just what part it plays, and showing its real value, and by disappearing suddenly, were proving that in the mechanism of memory it is a superadded element. The number of facts and inductions that go to confirm this thesis is so great as to make it almost a certitude; and it would require weighty reasons indeed to refute it. In truth there is no such thing as memory but only memories; there is no one seat of memory, but special seats for each memory in particular. Memory is not, as the vague phrase of common speech has it, "in the soul;" it is fixed in its birth place, in a part of the nervous system. This premised, we begin to see our way more clearly through the problem of the physiological conditions of memory. These conditions we conceive to be as follows: *For further details upon this point, see Bain, The Senses and the Intellect." |