Diseases of Memory, Diseases of the Will, and Diseases of Personality (Classic Reprint)
Description:... Excerpt from Diseases of Memory, Diseases of the Will, and Diseases of Personality Before we come to organic memory itself, we must note certain phenomena that have sometimes been compared to it. Authors have found analogues of memory in the inor ganic world, and particularly in the prop erry possessed by light-vibrations, whereby they may be stored up on a sheet of paper, and there persist, for a longer or shorter time, in the state of. Latent vibrations, ready to reappear at the summons of a developing agent. Engravings exposed to the sun's'ra s and then kept in a dark place, can mont s afterward, by the aid of appropriate re agents, reveal persistent traces of the photo graphic action of the sun upon their surface. Lay a key upon a sheet of white paper, and expose the two to the direct rays of the sun; then lay the paper away in a drawer, and years afterward the spectral image of the key will be visible} In our opinion these and other like facts bear too remote an analogy to memory to merit being cited. In them we find the first condition of all recollection, namely, the retention of the im pression, but that is all we find, for here the reproduction of the impression is in such a degree passive, and dependent on the inter vention of an outside agency, that it bears no resemblance to the natural reproduction of memory. Furthermore, with regard to the matter before us, we must never forget that we have to do with the laws of life, not with physical laws, and that the foundations of memory must be sought in the properties of organized matter and not elsewhere. It will be seen later that they who overlook this fall into errors.
Neither will I dwell upon certain hab its of plants, that have been compared to memory: I hasten to deal with facts of a more decisive character.1.
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