Others (far less numerous) recall the circumstances plus the revived condition of feeling. It is these who have the true “affective memory”; they correspond to those who have good visual or good auditory memories. This is the case with the majority of emotional temperaments. As we here touch on the most obscure and disputed part of our subject, it will be convenient to give some examples.
Irascible subjects, on hearing the name of their enemy, at the mere thought can revive the rising feelings of anger. The timid person shudders and turns pale when recalling the danger once incurred. The lover, thinking of his mistress, completely revives the state of love. If we compare the recollection of an extinct passion with the occurrence to the mind of a passion still existing, we shall clearly perceive the difference between intellectual and affective memory, between the mere recollection of the circumstances and the recollection of the emotion as such. It is a serious error to assert that only the conditions of the emotion can be revived, not the emotional state itself. I now only touch on this question, to which I shall return.
Several of my correspondents affirm that the memory of an emotion affects them as strongly as the emotion itself, which I have no difficulty in believing. Does not the recollection of a foolish action make one blush? One asserts that “her representation of emotions is more acute than the emotions themselves, and that she can recall them much better than visual, auditive, and other sensations.” But a few detailed observations will make the nature of true affective memory clearer.
Littré relates that, at the age of ten, he lost a young sister under very painful circumstances. He felt acute grief at the time; “but a boy’s sorrow does not last long.” At an advanced age this grief suddenly returned, without apparent cause. “Suddenly, without wish or effort on my part, by some phenomenon of affective automnesia, this same event reproduced itself with feelings no less painful, certainly, than those I had experienced at the moment of its occurrence, and which went so far as to bring tears into my eyes.” It was several times repeated in the course of the following days; then it ceased and gave place to the habitual recollection, i.e., to the purely intellectual form of memory.[[103]]
It is natural to suppose that emotional revival must be of frequent occurrence in poets and artists. M. Sully-Prudhomme, whose philosophical aptitudes are well known, has favoured me with a written communication on this subject, from which I extract some passages, with his permission.
"... It is my habit to separate myself from the verses I have written before finishing them, and to leave them for some time in the drawers of my writing-table. I even forget them sometimes, when the piece has seemed to me a failure, and it may happen to me to find them again several years after. I then re-write them; and I have the power of calling up again, with great clearness, the feeling which had suggested them. This feeling I pose, so to speak, in my inner consciousness, like a model which I am copying by means of the palette and brush of language. This is the exact opposite of improvisation. It seems to me that at such times I am working on the recollection of an affective state.
"When I remember the emotions aroused in me by the entry of the Germans into Paris after our last defeats, I find it impossible not to experience this same emotion afresh, simultaneously and indivisibly; while the mnemonic image of the Paris of that day remains in my memory very distinct from any actual perception. When I remember the kind of affection which, in my childhood, I felt for my mother, I find it impossible not to become, in some sort, a child again, at the very moment when I call up this memory—not to allow my heart of to-day to participate in the former tenderness due to recollection. I am almost inclined to ask myself if every recollection of feeling does not take on the character of a hallucination.
“When a student, I formed a connection in which I was grossly deceived; so everyday an occurrence that the correctness of my observations can probably be tested by most men from their own recollections. There was nothing very deep in my love, imagination being the principal factor, and I have long ago forgiven the injury, which, after all, chiefly concerned my vanity. Both rancour and affection vanished long ago. Under these circumstances, if I call up the recollection, I recognise at the outset that I am now a stranger to the feelings which I can remember; but I soon notice that I only remain a stranger to them so long as the memories are vague and confused. As soon as, by an effort of recollection, I make them more precise, they cease ipso facto to be memories only, and I am quite surprised to feel the movements of youthful passion and angry jealousy renewed in me. It is indeed only this revival which could enable me to retouch the verses which this little adventure of long-past years induced me to perpetrate, and to allow the expression of my former feelings to benefit by the experience acquired in my art.”
Case 5. H—— (20 years). On the memory of the feeling of ennui experienced on the first day in barracks.—"In order to represent to myself thoroughly this feeling of ennui, which was very intense, and lasted a whole afternoon, I shut my eyes and abstract my thoughts. I feel, first, a slight shiver down my back, a certain malaise, a feeling of something unpleasant which I should prefer not to feel over again. After this first moment comes a certain uncomfortable state, a slight oppression of the throat; this feeling is connected with vague representations which do not fix themselves. In the experiment here described, I first picture to myself the barrack-yard, where I used to walk; then this picture of the yard is replaced by that of the dormitory on the third floor. I see myself seated at a window, looking at the view, of which I can see all the details. This, however, does not last; the picture soon disappears; there remains only a vague idea of being seated at a window, and then a feeling of oppression, weariness, dejection, and a certain heaviness in the shoulders. At this point I break off the experiment and open my eyes, still experiencing a general sense of uneasiness, which soon passes off."
The whole experiment lasts a little more than ten minutes. To sum up, we have, first, a feeling of weight and oppression, a shudder in the back, but no clear representation of surrounding objects; then a feeling of discomfort becoming more and more intense, visual representations varying either in their nature or their intensity; and finally, the total disappearance of these visual representations, the feeling of ennui being persistent throughout.