I have simply applied to an almost unexplored region of memory the methods of research inaugurated for objective sensations by Taine and Galton, continued by many others, and successful in their hands. It will, perhaps, be objected that the complete emotional type is rarely found; but neither is it certain that the visual, auditory, and motor types are of very frequent occurrence in a pure state. This, however, is of little consequence, the essential point being to determine its existence. Those who belong to this type will easily recognise it. I foresee that those whose memories are of the opposite type will refuse to admit it; but the members of the Royal Society and the Académie des Sciences,—being for the most part possessed of non-visual memories,—when questioned by Galton, failed to understand his queries, and would probably have rejected his conclusions. Many men have an incurable tendency to wish that every one were constituted like themselves, and to refuse to admit the existence of any departures from their type. Yet in psychology, even more than elsewhere, we must be distrustful of too extensive generalisations.
2. There exists not only a general emotional type; it admits of varieties, and it is even probable that partial types are the most frequent. Here I note a resemblance between my researches and those made with regard to impressions of objective origin. It is known that some persons have an excellent memory for faces, figures, concrete objects, but not for colours or visual signs, such as printing and writing. Others have an excellent memory for languages but none for music, or inversely. Moreover, have not numerous pathological phenomena demonstrated the fact that, in a determinate category of images, a whole group may disappear, without appreciable injury to the rest?
I have not at present a sufficient supply of documents to enter on the study of the varieties of the affective type; but it is certain that they exist; that, for some, a clear and frequent revival only takes place in the case of pleasurable impressions; in others, of gloomy or of erotic images. I have obtained conclusive affirmative answers on this point, but will only transcribe a case which deals with fear.
Case 7. "I am not what would be called a general emotional type, but I have a special emotional memory—that of fear, which in me is very pronounced.... I have had in my life, like every one else, many joyful moments; I will frankly say that, when I remember those incidents in my life which have caused me great joy, I feel no joy whatever. Besides, it is very difficult to recall the moments in which I felt joyful, or even the incidents which produced my joy—probably because the representative memory has not been reinforced by the emotional memory. I do not know how this may be, and do not attempt to draw any inferences from my own case. I am only speaking of myself.
"I have tried to recall one of the moments in my life when I had the acutest sense of joy—it was in April 1888. [Here follows a long description of honours obtained by the author at the age of twenty, and the applause—unexpected at his age—of a numerous public assembly.] I have a clear and very accurate recollection of the incidents I have just been describing; I can remember the cause to which, rightly or wrongly, I attributed my success; I could repeat nearly every word I said on that occasion; I could remember (though not so easily) the hall and the faces of the audience; but I find, to-day, no joy whatever in thinking of all this.
"As regards my capacity for reviving sad recollections the same may be said as in the case of joyfulness.
"To return to fear. I have two very conclusive examples of special emotional memory. When a boarder at the S—— lycée at Bucharest, I dreaded all the staff of the institution on account of a punishment they were in the habit of inflicting on me—that of confinement to the schoolroom on holidays. I remember having such a fear of this imprisonment that, once I had left the building, it was with great difficulty I could bring myself to pass the gateway, for fear of being stopped. In later years, having finished my studies, and kept up friendly relations with all persons concerned, I used sometimes to return on a visit to the Lycée, but never without feeling a kind of terrified shudder on my entrance.
"More than this: having remained three years at Paris, without visiting my own country, I returned to Bucharest, and went to see a new director, with whom I was on friendly terms. Even then, when approaching the door of the institution, I felt a sort of uneasiness which was nothing else but my old dread in an attenuated form.
"In the first year of my stay at Paris I entered my name for the more advanced lectures of the Lycée L——. I only attended them for a week. In the class-room I was conscious of an uneasy feeling; I feared something without knowing what it was; I felt a horror of all the staff, though they were full of consideration for me, and at my age (twenty-two) I was no longer on the footing of a schoolboy. What could I have been afraid of? for I might have left whenever I wished it. Though accustomed to work for many hours together in libraries, I could do nothing in this class-room. I believe this state to have been a reminiscence of my old fear—that of the Bucharest lycée.... Long afterwards, when a student attending the lectures of the Faculté de Droit, I had every day to pass the Lycée L——. I would hurry past it as quickly as I could, feeling the same dread as at the time when I used to pass the gateway of the Bucharest lycée.
“I have a good motor, no visual, and a very slight auditory memory.”