[110] The reader will note that this impulse is complementary to the other impulse to view all mental states as analogous to impressions produced by external things, on which I touched in the last chapter.
[111] Errors of memory have sometimes been called "fallacies," as, for example, by Dr. Carpenter (Human Physiology, ch. x.). While preferring the term "illusion," I would not forget to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Carpenter, who first set me seriously to consider the subject of mnemonic error.
[112] From this it would appear to follow that, so far as a percept is representative, recollection must be re-representative.
[113] The relation of memory to recognition is very well discussed by M. Delbœuf, in connection with a definition of memory given by Descartes. (See the article "Le Sommeil et les Rêves," in the Revue Philosophique, April, 1880, p. 428, et seq.)
[114] A very interesting account of the most recent physiological theory of memory is to be found in a series of articles, bearing the title, "La Mémoire comme fait biologique," published in the Revue Philosophique, from the pen of the editor, M. Th. Ribot. (See especially the Revue of May, 1880, pp. 516, et seq.) M. Ribot speaks of the modification of particular nerve-elements as "the static base" of memory, and of the formation of nerve-connections by means of which the modified element may be re-excited to activity as "the dynamic base of memory" (p. 535).
[115] What constitutes the difference between such a progressive and a retrogressive movement is a point that will be considered by-and-by.
[116] It is not easy to say how far exceptional conditions may serve to reinstate the seemingly forgotten past. Yet the experiences of dreamers and of those who have been recalled to consciousness after partial drowning, whatever they may prove with respect to the revivability of remote experiences, do not lead us to imagine that the range of our definitely localizing memory is a wide one.
[117] Der Zeitsinn nach Versuchen, p. 36, et seq.
[118] Physiologische Psychologie, p. 782.
[119] Wundt refers these errors to variations in the state of preadjustment of the attention to impressions and representations, according as they succeed one another slowly or rapidly. There is little doubt that the effects of the state of tension of the apparatus of attention, are involved here, though I am disposed to think that Wundt makes too much of this circumstance. (See Physiologische Psychologie, pp. 782, 783. I have given a fuller account of Wundt's theory in Mind, No. i.)