The Memory

Through the gateways of the five senses streams of impressions from the external world are constantly pouring into the mind; and it is from these accumulations that knowledge or experience is gradually built up. But there could be no building-up of knowledge unless the images, thus transmitted to the mind, were retained in it; and the power by which they are retained is what we call Memory. If, when I see a thing to-day which I have often seen before, I were unable to identify it as the same thing which I had seen yesterday, and the day before, and a score of times before that, I could never know it. At least there are many things which can only be known by piecing together all we have learned about them through many successive observations. Without memory we should not even know ourselves: it is only because I, who am perceiving things at the present moment, remember perceiving things yesterday, and all the

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yesterdays of my past life, that I know myself to be the person I am.

By the term memory two powers are popularly designated, which differ considerably from each other. For example, I may be asked the Latin for “door,” and I say Janua; that is, I bring the Latin word janua into my mind at this moment. This is called remembering it; but, if I be a Latin scholar, there are thousands of other Latin words in my mind somewhere, though they are not so in the sense of being at the moment present to thought; and these also I am said to remember. All the Latin I am thinking of at the moment may be this word janua; yet, if it were required, I could bring any of the other words in the same way into consciousness. Thus, both the power of bringing past experiences into present consciousness and the power of retaining things in the mind out of consciousness are called by the same name. Perhaps the two ought to be distinguished by different words: the summoning of images into present consciousness might be called Recollection, while the term Memory might be restricted to the retention in the mind of images out of present consciousness.^

^” All highly psychological languages have recognised the distinction between active and merely passive reproduction.

In some respects the power of retaining in the mind things of which we are not at the moment thinking is the most remarkable phenomenon of psychology. It is tolerably easy to understand how the mind holds an object of which it is at the moment thinking; but how does it keep hold of things about which it has not thought for years? Consider the memory of a cultivated man well advanced in age — what enormous quantities of things it contains! There are the events of his own life; the lives of his family and his friends; the history of his country and of the world, as far as it has come within the range of his observation or reading; the languages he may have mastered; the sciences with which he may be familiar; and a thousand other things far too varied to mention. Now, where are all these possessions treasured up? By what kind of action does the mind retain its hold on them? It is as if in every mind, receding backwards from the sphere of present consciousness, there stretched a magazine, in which the acquisitions of the past

For example, we find in Plato, and still more in Aristotle, the distinction between avdjxvrycn<i and fxvrifxr], in Latin between reminiscor and memini, in modern German between Erinnerung and Gedachtniss, in French between souvenir and m6moire.” Ladd, “Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory,” p. 394.

are stored and kept in silence and unconsciousness. In some persons this depositary is smaller, in others larger; in some it may be well in others ill arranged. Scott compares the mind of Dominie Sampson, the voracious bookworm, to a pawnshop, in which nearly everything can be found somewhere, but nothing is in a place of its own, so as to be found immediately. I am told, however, that a modern pawnshop, in a great city, is the very reverse of this — a place in which order reigns, and every article can be found the moment it is wanted. There are some memories, then, like a pawnshop as Scott supposed it to be, and there are others like what it really is; unless this be too humble an illustration for so dignified a subject. But, again one asks, where is this treasure-house? has it any local habitation? is it in the brain? or where is it?

Nothing else perhaps is so baffling to any materialistic theory of the mind. Materialism makes thought to be merely a modification of the matter in the brain. But, if so, in what shape do the modifications survive, so as to be remembered? Any additions to the matter of the brain would soon utterly exceed the holding capacity of the skull. Any marks, like footprints or tracks, would soon be so buried beneath others as to be

THE MEMORY loy

quite undiscoverable. Everyone can recollect such an experience as the following: a gentleman not seen or heard-of for a score of years encounters you on the street; you and he pull suddenly up, and he asks, “Do you know me”? you have the luck to be able to answer instantly that you do; whereupon you pour forth numerous details about himself and his family. Now, is it conceivable that the image of this man, presented thus before your eyes, could so instantaneously have found the former impressions of him, left in the material of the brain, as it must have done, if thought be material? It may be replied, But what explanation do you offer yourself? confessedly the materialistic theory of mind stands here before a formidable difficulty, but does the spiritual theory make it any more intelligible? Perhaps it does not; but at least it refrains from offering as an explanation that which is palpably none. Spirit is itself a mystery; and, when we refer memory to it, we are referring it to a mysterious domain. This is obviously where it belongs. While it cannot be denied, that, in remembering, as in every other mental act, the spirit makes use of the brain as an organ, yet the brain is no more to be identified with the thinking subject than a musical instrument is to be identified with the performer. “Great,” says St. Augustine, in his ‘’ Confessions,” “is this power of memory, exceeding great, O my God — an inner chamber large and boundless. Who has plumbed the depths thereof? Men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the extent of the ocean and the courses of the stars, and omit to wonder at themselves.”

The other power which goes by the name of Memory is the bringing of past experiences into present consciousness; and, in comparison with

1 This retention of past experience out of consciousness is the most important and the most easily comprehended instance of what has of late been much in the mouth of the public under the name of the Subconscious or the Subliminal Self. Below the threshold of consciousness certain activities of the self must be assumed as taking place in unconsciousness, in order to account for other phenomena which enter into full consciousneas. A good deal that has been written on this subject has been rather obscure; but everybody can understand that memory out of consciousness is an essential presupposition of memory in consciousness; though whether this hold upon past experiences can be properly described as a form of mental activity may be called in question. In reply to Sanday and others, who perhaps make too much of the Subconscious, it has been said, by my colleague, Principal Iverach, that memory is not the workshop but the warehouse of the mind.

the almost boundless dimensions of memory in the other sense, this action of the mind takes place on a very limited stage. It is as if, at the entrance to the magazine or treasury already described, there were erected a platform, to which the objects within can be summoned forth, as they are wanted.

Sometimes the summons is very slight: a thought has only to be passing, when at once a former thought comes forth and joins it. Perhaps, indeed, a whole bevy of these may come. Suppose, for instance, during the holiday-season, you are back in your native village and chance to visit some scene of natural beauty, which was a favourite walk in the days of the past. At every step images will, unasked, come pouring out of the storehouse of memory — the faces and forms of old companions and their tender or witty remarks. You will say, ‘’On this bench I sat on such-and-such a day with So-and-so by my side; at this turn of the road I was meditating on suchand-such a subject; across the ravine I heard So-and-so calling and, on looking in that direction, saw his smiling face “. The whole of the past comes pouring on you in a tumult of images; and you are astonished at the minuteness and life-likeness of the reproduction.

At other times the summons must be louder and more urgent. You seek an image of the past, but it does not come. At your summons other images come; but they are not the right ones, and you have to order them back to their places. Perhaps you have to wait long, to see whether the right one will appear; or you have to enter the magazine and turn things over and rummage in remote corners. Ah, there it is at last! and you exclaim with delight, “Now I remember ‘M Or perhaps you cannot find it notwithstanding all your searching, and you exclaim, baffled, ‘’It has escaped me; I cannot remember “.

The question has often been raised by philosophers, whether there is any absolute and final forgetfulness, or whether the memory retains all the images which have ever entered it. It is no answer to this to say, that at any moment we may utterly fail to recall something; because everyone has observed that, while at one time you search in vain in the memory for a forgotten fact — say, someone’s name — at another time this very fact will come sauntering into your recollection, when you are not thinking about it. Sir William Hamilton tells of a woman who, in a fever, was heard to pour forth words which to those living in the house were unintelligible; but a learned man, having gone, on hearing of the circumstance, to listen to her ravings, testified that the sounds were words and sentences in foreign languages. It seemed an inexplicable mystery, until it was discovered that, in youth, she had been servant in the house of a man of science, who indulged in the practice of reciting aloud, as he walked up and down a passage contiguous to the kitchen. The girl had heard the words so often that she had been in the habit of repeating them. No doubt she had subsequently forgotten them; but, in the excitement of fever, they were revived. In other abnormal conditions people have often shown that they remembered things which even they themselves believed they had entirely forgotten; and owing to such incidents the belief has been suggested — and it has been warmly espoused by certain thinkers — that we really forget nothing absolutely; but that, when our consciousness is abnormally intensified, as it may be, for example, in a future state, our own entire past may stand out before our vision in unabridged completeness, as invisible writing is brought into distinctness by the proximity of fire.

However this may be, it is certain that, for the uses of the present world, innumerable experiences of the past are forgotten; they may still exist in us in some form, but meantime they have gone out of reach and cannot be recovered. Perhaps, indeed, this is a necessity: if the mind retained all the images of the past, it would be embarrassed with its own riches, and it has to forget some things in order that it may the better remember others. As a rule, older impressions are displaced by newer ones; although in old age this law is reversed, and although in all minds there are some memories which can never be dimmed: —

Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.

The rate at which impressions grow dim or sink out of sight and beyond recovery varies extremely in different persons; and one of the excellences of what is called a ‘’ good” memory is the area of reminiscence it can permanently command. All persons of outstanding ability hold sway thus over a wide domain of acquisition or experience.

Another excellence of memory is rapidity in committing things to heart. This also varies exceedingly in different persons. In some it is almost miraculous. Thus, the famous scholar Scaliger is said to have learned the Iliad by heart in three weeks and the entire corpus of the Greek poets in two years; and feats even more astonishing have been related of persons not gifted except in this one direction. Some have the power of permanently retaining what is thus rapidly acquired; but, as a rule, what comes quickly goes quickly. Thus, the advocate who has got up the details of a case, and perhaps, along with these, the facts of a science, for a particular occasion, forgets the whole as soon as his speech is delivered; and the student who is crammed for an examination with similar rapidity generally exhibits a like facility in getting rid of his acquisitions.

The most enviable excellence of memory is the prompt and easy delivery of its contents as occasion requires. This enables the historian, as he writes, to illustrate events by parallel incidents; it pours into the mind of a speaker, as he stands before an audience, facts and principles, from which he can select whatever is most profitable or acceptable to his hearers; it makes the fortune of the copious and brilliant conversationalist, whereas the talker who lacks this quality of memory makes the best remark of the evening to himself on the way home, after the opportunity of shining is past.

There exist numerous systems for the improvement of the memory; and everyone knows what it is to make use of such an artificial aid to memory as tying a knot on a handkerchief; but the conditions on which memory depends are far from difficult to enumerate. It depends on the amount of attention bestowed on objects as they enter the mind: the more we attend to them at this stage the better shall we remember them afterwards. It depends on frequency of observation: the frequent repetition of the act of observation deepens the impression on the memory. It depends, also, on the recency of impressions. It depends most of all on emotion. All are aware how the shock of a great bereavement stands out in the memory so clearly that, at the distance of years, the mourner will, on the slightest encouragement, describe the incidents from hour to hour and minute to minute; and there are many other experiences which make the same ineffaceable impression. In all such cases it will, on close investigation, be found that there has been strong emotion, painful or pleasurable; and, in general, it may be laid down as a rule, that anything will be remembered in proportion to the number and the strength of its connexions with different parts of the inner man.

Mnemosyne, or Memory, was called by the ancients the mother of the Muses; because all the arts and the sciences depend on memory for their existence and progress. If human beings could not retain their impressions and accumulate these in the internal treasure-house, they would never be able to stir from the bit. As was remarked above, even the consciousness of self depends on this: it is because I remember what I have been doing ever since consciousness began that I am aware of myself as the centre of all my experiences. This is personality, which would dissolve if the power of recollection were lost.^

There is one religious sentiment of a very peculiar kind which is the offspring of memory. This is the sense of guilt. Guilt is the identification of an evil action in the past as the property of the author, who is still responsible. The sin may be very old, and it may have been long forgotten, but the reappearance of an accomplice, or some incident of similar character, may bring

1 As early as Plotinus memory is adduced as proof of the continuity of personality.

it up again with perfect vividness, and he by whom it has been committed cannot deny that it is his own. In every life there are certain past actions which can never be remembered without awakening this shameful and disquieting feeling. Others, however, may require to be sought for among the records of the past, because at the time of commission they made little impression, the conscience not having been sensitive at the time. Sins of omission require specially to be thus sought for, because they are easily overlooked. Our fathers used to appoint days of fasting for the purpose of thus looking backwards and recalling the evil past; and it might be salutary to have stated private occasions for realising how little we have made of opportunities, how little we have grown spiritually, how little good we have done, how seldom we have prayed. It is no pleasant exercise, indeed, thus to revive the memory of our sins and shortcomings; but it is better to remember these now than to remember them when it is too late. To the rich man in the parable the first word of Abraham was, “Son, remember “. Memory is the worm that dieth not.

Another religious sentiment closely connected with the sense of guilt and, therefore, with memory is the sense of forgiveness. Forgiveness refers entirely to sin past; sin present — that is, the power of sin as a corruption of the nature — is a different problem; but past sins can be instantaneously and permanently forgiven. He who forgives is God, who has been offended, and who cannot but condemn and hold liable to punishment. There may be such a thing as human beings forgiving themselves; but to substitute this for the divine forgiveness is a mere trick of the fancy and a confusion of ideas. It was the merit of the Reformers to appreciate the greatness of this gift of God and to separate it, on this account, from all the other acts of salvation. The theologians of the Council of Trent, on the contrary, hopelessly mixed together justification and sanctification; and not a few Protestant theologians in our day, by doing the same thing consciously or unconsciously, are losing the ethical impulse which springs from forgiveness.

It is out of the sense of forgiveness that the sense of gratitude springs; and this is the mother of praise, which holds so prominent a place in Christian worship, producing psalmody and hymnody, as well as inspiring the music of the human voice and the gtave sweet harmonies of instrumental accompaniments. Forgiveness is not, indeed, the only inspiration from which thanksgiving proceeds. There are hundreds of other subjects, belonging to the region over which memory holds sway, which enter into praise. But in the one-hundred-and-third Psalm — that grandest utterance of gratitude in the entire repertory of praise — the very first thing said of God is, “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities “; and, further down, occur the tender words, into which the saints of all the ages have poured their penitence, ‘’ As far as the East is from the West, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us “. A piety which does not know what penitence is, and which has not felt the impulse to gratitude and to duty derived from pardon, may be said to have missed the secret altogether.

While it is with the memory we remember, it is also with the memory we forget; and this, also, is of no small consequence in religion. In Holy Scripture, God often complains of being forgotten. And to be forgotten may sometimes afford the justest ground for complaint. Were a husband, away from home, to become sensible that, for days on end, he had not once remembered his wife or children, would he not have the best cause to feel ashamed? If days can pass without our thoughts once turning to God, we may be certain that we do not love Him; for emotion quickens memory, and the heart that loves much will remember often. Jesus also, in the miracle of the Ten Lepers, when He asked, “Where are the nine “? indicated both how He felt ingratitude and what value He placed on gratitude. There could be no more convincing evidence of the function of memory in religion than that sacrament at the institution of which He said, “This do in remembrance of Me “.

The question has been sometimes raised, whether in the other world the redeemed will remember their sins. There have been teachers who have thought it so impossible to be happy while seeing the sins of a lifetime in the light of eternity that they have taught that a sponge of oblivion will pass over this part of the tablets of memory and blot out its records forever. But the truth is far greater and grander than this: such is the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the mercy of God that the memory of their own sins will not perish in the redeemed, yet it will be allowed to yield to them not the poison of remorse but only the honey of gratitude; and to all eternity it will infuse an inimitable sweetness into the songs they sing to Him who hath loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood.

In the great chapter on Memory in the “Confessions” of St. Augustine the profoundest thought is, that memory is not entirely of the facts of past terrestrial experience, but embraces movements and suggestions coming from a greater distance. This is an idea much older than even St. Augustine; for Plato sometimes spoke of knowledge as being reminiscence, eternity being filled with types of which human beings are reminded by the actual experiences of time. In all lives there are hints of the same truth; for we encounter sometimes a face, of rare loveliness or peace, which makes on us the impression that we have often seen it before, though in fact we have not; and a few minutes spent with a kindred spirit may awaken the sense of having known him for a lifetime. That on which St. Augustine fixes as haunting the mind with some antenatal vision is the conception of happiness. This is found in the minds of all, even in those of the most miserable. None have ever enjoyed happiness in perfection, and yet all are aware of it as a perfect thing, for the comfort and sunshine of which they are craving at every moment. By St. Augustine this is interpreted as a craving for a happiness once enjoyed but now lost. It is, in short, the sense of God, in whom alone resides our blessedness.