Section 52. (a) The Essence of Memory.
Our ignorance concerning memory is as great as its universal
importance, and as our indebtedness to it for what we are and possess.
At best we have, when explaining it, to make use of images.
Plato accounts for memory in the "Theaetetus" by the image
of the seal ring which impresses wax; the character and duration
of the impression depends upon the size, purity, and hardness of the
wax. Fichte says, "The spirit does not conserve its products,—
the single ideas, volitions, and feelings are conserved by the mind
and constitute the ground of its inexhaustibly retentive memory.
. . . The possibility of recalling what has once been independently
done, this remains in the spirit." James Sully compares the
receptivity of memory with the infusion of dampness into an old
MS. Draper also brings a physical example: If you put a flat
object upon the surface of a cold, smooth metal and then breathe
on the metal and, after the moisture has disappeared, remove the
object, you may recall its image months after, whenever you breathe
on the place in question. Another has called memory the safe of the
mind. It is the opinion of E.
Hering[1] that what we once were
conscious of and are conscious of again, does not endure as
image but as echo such as may be heard in a tuning fork
when it is properly struck. Reid asserts that memory does
not have present ideas, but past things for its object, Natorp
explains recollection as an identification of the unidentical, of
not-now with now. According to Herbart and his
school,[2] memory
consists in the possibility of recognizing the molecular arrangements
which had been left by past impressions in the ganglion
cells, and in reading them in identical fashion. According to
Wundt and his pupils, the problem is one of the disposition of the
central organs. And it is the opinion of James Mill that the content
of recollection is not only the idea of the remembered object, but
also the idea that the object had been experienced before. Both
ideas together constitute the whole of that state of mind which we
denote as memory. Spinoza
[3] deals
freely with memory, and asserts
that mankind does not control it inasmuch as all thoughts, ideas,
resolutions of spirits, are bare results of memories, so that human
freedom is excluded.
Uphues
[4] distinguishes
between memory and the
conception which is presupposed in the recognition of an object
different from that conception. This is the theory developed by
Aristotle.
According to Berkeley and Hume recognition is not directed upon
a different object, nor does it presuppose one; the activity of recognition
consists either in the exhibition or the creation of the object.
Recognition lends the idea an independence which does not belong
to it and in that way turns it into a thing, objectifies it, and posits
it as substantial. Maudsley makes use of the notion that it is possible
to represent any former content of consciousness as attended
to so that it may again come into the center of the field of consciousness.
Dorner[5] explains
recognition as follows: "The possible
is not only the merely possible in opposition to the actual; it is
much more proper to conceive being as possible, i. e., as amenable
to logical thinking; without this there could be no recognition."
Külpe[6] concerns
himself with the problem of the difference between
perceptive images and memory images and whether the latter are
only weaker than the former as English philosophers and psychologists
assert. He concludes that they are not so.
When we take all these opinions concerning memory together
we conclude that neither any unity nor any clear description of
the matter has been attained. Ebbinghaus's sober statement may
certainly be correct: "Our knowledge of memory rises almost
exclusively from the observation of extreme, especially striking
cases. Whenever we ask about more special solutions concerning
the detail of what has been counted up, and their other relations of
dependence, their structure, etc., there are no answers."
Nobody has as yet paid attention to the simple daily events
which constitute the routine of the criminalists. We find little
instruction concerning them, and our difficulties as well as our
mistakes are thereby increased. Even the modern repeatedly
cited experimental investigations have no direct bearing upon our
work.
We will content ourselves with viewing the individual conceptions
of memory and recollection as occurring in particular cases and with
considering them, now one, now the other, according to the requirements
of the case. We shall consider the general relation of "reproduction"
to memory. "Reproduction" we shall consider in a
general sense and shall subsume under it also the so-called involuntary
reproductions which rise in the forms and qualities of past
events without being evoked, i. e., which rise with the help of unconscious
activity through the more or less independent association
of ideas. Exactly this unconscious reproduction, this apparently
involuntary activity, is perhaps the most fruitful, and we therefore
unjustly meet with unexceptionable distrust the later sudden "occurrence,"
especially when these occurrences happen to defendant
and his witnesses. It is true that they frequently deceive us because
behind the sudden occurrence there often may be nothing more than
a better training and instruction from experienced cell-mates;
though very often the circumstances are such that the suspect
has succeeded through some released prisoner, or by a blackened
letter, in sending a message from his prison, by means of which false
witnesses of alibi, etc., are provided. Distrust is in any event justified,
when his most important witnesses suddenly "occur" to the
accused. But this does not always happen, and we find in our
own experience evidence of the fact that memory and the capacity
to recall something often depend upon health, feeling, location,
and chance associations which can not be commanded, and happen
as accidentally as anything in life can. That we should remember
anything at all depends upon the point of time. Everybody knows
how important twilight may be for memory. Indeed, twilight has
been called the visiting-hour of recollection, and it is always worth
while to observe the situation when anybody asserts that some
matter of importance occurred to him in the twilight. Such an
assertion merits, at least, further examination. Now, if we only
know how these occurrences constitute themselves, it would not be
difficult to study them out and to estimate their probability. But
we do not know, and we have to depend, primarily, on observation
and test. Not one of the theories applied is supported by experience
altogether.
They may be divided into three essential groups.
1. What is received, fades away, becomes a "trace," and is
more or less overlaid by new perceptions. When these latter are
ever set aside, the old trace comes into the foreground.
2. The ideas sink, darken, and disintegrate. If they receive
support and intensification they regain complete clearness.
3. The ideas crumble up, lose their parts. When anything occurs
that reunites them and restores what is lost, they become whole
again.
Ebbinghaus maintains, correctly enough, that not one of these
explanations is universally satisfactory, but it must be granted
that now one, now another is useful in controlling this or that particular
case. The processes of the destruction of an idea, may be
as various as those of the destruction and restoration of a building.
If a building is destroyed by fire, I certainly can not explain the
image given by merely assuming that it was the victim of the
hunger of time. A building which has suffered because of the
sinking of the earth I shall have to image by quite other means
than those I would use if it had been destroyed by water.
For the same reason when, in court, somebody asserts a sudden
"occurrence," or when we want to help him and something occurs
to him, we shall have to proceed in different fashion and determine
our action empirically by the conditions of the moment. We shall
have to go back, with the help of the witness, to the beginning of the
appearance of the idea in question and study its development as
far as the material permits us. In a similar manner we must make
use of every possibility of explanation when we are studying the
disappearance of ideas. At one point or another we shall find certain
connections. One chief mistake in such reconstructive work lies
in overlooking the fact that no individual is merely passive when he
receives sensations; he is bound to make use of a certain degree of
activity. Locke and Bonnet have already mentioned this fact, and
anybody may verify it by comparing his experiments of trying to
avoid seeing or hearing, and trying actively to see or to hear. For
this reason it is foolish to ask anybody how it happened that he
perceived less than another, because both have equally good senses
and were able to perceive as much. On the other hand, the grade of
activity each has made use of in perception is rarely inquired into,
and this is the more unfortunate because memory is often proportionate
to activity. If, then, we are to explain how various statements
concerning contemporaneous matters, observed a long time ago,
are to be combined, it will not be enough to compare the memory,
sensory acuteness, and intelligence of the witnesses. The chief
point of attention should be the activity which has been put in
motion during the sense-perception in question.
[[ id="n52.1"]]
E. Hering: Über das Gedächtnis, etc. Vienna 1876.
[[ id="n52.2"]]
Cf. V. Hensen: Über das Gedächtnis, etc. Kiel 1877.
[[ id="n52.3"]]
Ethics. Bk. III, Prop. II, Scholium.
[[ id="n52.4"]]
G K. Uphues: Über die Erinnerung. Leipzig 1889.
[[ id="n52.5"]]
H Dorner: Das menschliche Erkennen. Berlin 1877.
[[ id="n52.6"]]
O. Külpe: Grundriss der Psychologie. Leipzig 1893.