Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind

by James Mill

Now, in this last-mentioned part of the compound, it is easy to perceive two important elements; the idea of my present self, the remembering self; and the idea of my past self, the remembered or witnessing self. These two ideas stand at the two ends of a portion of my being; that is, of a series of my states 331 of consciousness. That series consists of the successive states of my consciousness, intervening between the moment of perception, or the past moment, and the moment of memory, or the present moment. What happens at the moment of memory? The mind runs back from that moment to the moment of perception. That is to say, it runs over the intervening states of consciousness, called up by association. But “to run over a number of states of consciousness, called up by association,” is but another mode of saying, that “we associate them;” and in this case we associate them so rapidly and closely, that they run, as it were, into a single point of consciousness, to which the name MEMORY is assigned.

If this explanation of the case in which we remember sensations is understood, the explanation of the case in which we remember ideas cannot occasion much of difficulty. I have a lively recollection of Polyphemus’s cave, and the actions of Ulysses and the Cyclops, as described by Homer. In this recollection there is, first of all, the ideas, or simple conceptions of the objects and acts; and along with these ideas, and so closely combined as not to be separable, the idea of my having formerly had those same ideas. And this idea of my having formerly had those ideas, is a very complicated idea; including the idea of myself of the present moment remembering, and that of myself of the past moment conceiving; and the whole series of the states of consciousness, which intervened between myself remembering, and myself conceiving.

If we contemplate forgetfulness, not memory, we shall see how completely the account of it confirms the account we have just rendered of memory. Every 332 case of forgetfulness, is a case of weakened, or extinct, association. Some years ago, I could repeat a certain discourse with accuracy and ease, from beginning to end; attempting it, the other day, I was unable to repeat more than a few sentences. The reason is obvious. The last of the words and ideas which occurred to me failed to suggest the following; that is to say, the association which formerly existed between them was dissolved.

A remarkable piece of natural scenery, composed of mountains, woods, rivers, lakes, ocean, flocks, herds, cultivated fields, gay cottages, and splendid palaces, of which I had a lively recollection many years ago, presents itself to me now very much faded: in other words, a great variety of the circumstances, which make up the detail and minute features of the scene, were formerly remembered by me, but are now forgotten. And how forgotten? The manner is obvious. The greater features, which I still remember, had formerly the power of calling up the smaller along with them, and the whole scene was revived; the association gradually declining, the great objects have no longer the power to excite the idea of the small; and they are therefore gone from me for ever.

There are things of which I have so entirely lost the recollection, that it never can be revived. The meaning is, that the associations which were formed between the ideas of them, and other ideas, are so completely dissolved, that none of my present ideas has the power of exciting them.

It is observable, that sensations have a stronger power to excite recollections than is possessed by 333 ideas.[92] A man, after an absence of many years, revisits the scenes of his infancy: a variety of circumstances crowd into his memory, which, but for the scene before him, would never have been remembered again. These are the circumstances between which, and the perception of the pristine objects, the association is not yet dissolved. There are other circumstances, without number, which (the association being completely dissolved) not even that perception can revive, and which never can be remembered more.

[⁹²] This is for no other reason than the superior intensity or impressiveness of the actual as compared with the ideal. Although as a rule, the sensation has a greater hold of the mind, than the corresponding idea, there are exceptions. An idea may sometimes be accompanied with an intensity of mental occupation and excitement, surpassing the reality: what we have looked at with indifference when it occurred, may take on an extraordinary importance in the retrospect; in which case its power of resuscitating collateral circumstances will be far greater than the power of the original sensation.—B.

We have seen that there are two cases of memory; that in which sensations are remembered, and that in which ideas.

It is said, that there are men, who, by often telling a mendacious story as true, come at last to believe it to be true. When this happens, the fact is, that a case of the memory of ideas, comes to be mistaken for a case of the memory of sensations.

How did the man know at first that it was a fictitious story; and how did he afterwards lose that knowledge?