Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) by Samuel Butler (best novels ever .TXT) 📖
- Author: Samuel Butler
Book online «Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) by Samuel Butler (best novels ever .TXT) 📖». Author Samuel Butler
Within, As, For Example, An Idea Of Whiteness, Are Not, Indeed,
Perceived With The Full Freshness Of Those Raised By The Actual
Presence Of White Light Without Us, But They Are Of The Same Kind;
They Are Feeble Repetitions Of One And The Same Material Brain
Process--Of One And The Same Conscious Sensation. Thus The Idea Of
Whiteness Arises In Our Mind As A Faint, Almost Extinct, Sensation.
In This Way Those Qualities Which Are Common To Many Things Become
Separated, As It Were, In Our Memory From The Objects With Which They
Were Originally Associated, And Attain An Independent Existence In
Our Consciousness As Ideas And Conceptions, And Thus The Whole Rich
Superstructure Of Our Ideas And Conceptions Is Built Up From
Materials Supplied By Memory.
On Examining More Closely, We See Plainly That Memory Is A Faculty
Not Only Of Our Conscious States, But Also, And Much More So, Of Our
Unconscious Ones. I Was Conscious Of This Or That Yesterday, And Am
Again Conscious Of It To-Day. Where Has It Been Meanwhile? It Does
Not Remain Continuously Within My Consciousness, Nevertheless It
Returns After Having Quitted It. Our Ideas Tread But For A Moment
Upon The Stage Of Consciousness, And Then Go Back Again Behind The
Chapter 6 Pg 72Scenes, To Make Way For Others In Their Place. As The Player Is Only
A King When He Is On The Stage, So They Too Exist As Ideas So Long
Only As They Are Recognised. How Do They Live When They Are Off The
Stage? For We Know That They Are Living Somewhere; Give Them Their
Cue And They Reappear Immediately. They Do Not Exist Continuously As
Ideas; What Is Continuous Is The Special Disposition Of Nerve
Substance In Virtue Of Which This Substance Gives Out To-Day The Same
Sound Which It Gave Yesterday If It Is Rightly Struck. {71}
Countless Reproductions Of Organic Processes Of Our Brain Connect
Themselves Orderly Together, So That One Acts As A Stimulus To The
Next, But A Phenomenon Of Consciousness Is Not Necessarily Attached
To Every Link In The Chain. From This It Arises That A Series Of
Ideas May Appear To Disregard The Order That Would Be Observed In
Purely Material Processes Of Brain Substance Unaccompanied By
Consciousness; But On The Other Hand It Becomes Possible For A Long
Chain Of Recollections To Have Its Due Development Without Each Link
In The Chain Being Necessarily Perceived By Ourselves. One May
Emerge From The Bosom Of Our Unconscious Thoughts Without Fully
Entering Upon The Stage Of Conscious Perception; Another Dies Away In
Unconsciousness, Leaving No Successor To Take Its Place. Between The
"Me" Of To-Day And The "Me" Of Yesterday Lie Night And Sleep, Abysses
Of Unconsciousness; Nor Is There Any Bridge But Memory With Which To
Span Them. Who Can Hope After This To Disentangle The Infinite
Intricacy Of Our Inner Life? For We Can Only Follow Its Threads So
Far As They Have Strayed Over Within The Bounds Of Consciousness. We
Might As Well Hope To Familiarise Ourselves With The World Of Forms
That Teem Within The Bosom Of The Sea By Observing The Few That Now
And Again Come To The Surface And Soon Return Into The Deep.
The Bond Of Union, Therefore, Which Connects The Individual Phenomena
Of Our Consciousness Lies In Our Unconscious World; And As We Know
Nothing Of This But What Investigation Into The Laws Of Matter Teach
Us--As, In Fact, For Purely Experimental Purposes, "Matter" And The
"Unconscious" Must Be One And The Same Thing--So The Physiologist Has
A Full Right To Denote Memory As, In The Wider Sense Of The Word, A
Function Of Brain Substance, Whose Results, It Is True, Fall, As
Regards One Part Of Them, Into The Domain Of Consciousness, While
Another And Not Less Essential Part Escapes Unperceived As Purely
Material Processes.
The Perception Of A Body In Space Is A Very Complicated Process. I
See Suddenly Before Me, For Example, A White Ball. This Has The
Effect Of Conveying To Me More Than A Mere Sensation Of Whiteness. I
Deduce The Spherical Character Of The Ball From The Gradations Of
Light And Shade Upon Its Surface. I Form A Correct Appreciation Of
Its Distance From My Eye, And Hence Again I Deduce An Inference As To
The Size Of The Ball. What An Expenditure Of Sensations, Ideas, And
Inferences Is Found To Be Necessary Before All This Can Be Brought
About; Yet The Production Of A Correct Perception Of The Ball Was The
Work Only Of A Few Seconds, And I Was Unconscious Of The Individual
Processes By Means Of Which It Was Effected, The Result As A Whole
Being Alone Present In My Consciousness.
The Nerve Substance Preserves Faithfully The Memory Of Habitual
Chapter 6 Pg 73Actions. {72} Perceptions Which Were Once Long And Difficult,
Requiring Constant And Conscious Attention, Come To Reproduce
Themselves In Transient And Abridged Guise, Without Such Duration And
Intensity That Each Link Has To Pass Over The Threshold Of Our
Consciousness.
We Have Chains Of Material Nerve Processes To Which Eventually A Link
Becomes Attached That Is Attended With Conscious Perception. This Is
Sufficiently Established From The Standpoint Of The Physiologist, And
Is Also Proved By Our Unconsciousness Of Many Whole Series Of Ideas
And Of The Inferences We Draw From Them. If The Soul Is Not To Ship
Through The Fingers Of Physiology, She Must Hold Fast To The
Considerations Suggested By Our Unconscious States. As Far, However,
As The Investigations Of The Pure Physicist Are Concerned, The
Unconscious And Matter Are One And The Same Thing, And The Physiology
Of The Unconscious Is No "Philosophy Of The Unconscious."
By Far The Greater Number Of Our Movements Are The Result Of Long And
Arduous Practice. The Harmonious Cooperation Of The Separate
Muscles, The Finely Adjusted Measure Of Participation Which Each
Contributes To The Working Of The Whole, Must, As A Rule, Have Been
Laboriously Acquired, In Respect Of Most Of The Movements That Are
Necessary In Order To Effect It. How Long Does It Not Take Each Note
To Find Its Way From The Eyes To The Fingers Of One Who Is Beginning
To Learn The Pianoforte; And, On The Other Hand, What An Astonishing
Performance Is The Playing Of The Professional Pianist. The Sight Of
Each Note Occasions The Corresponding Movement Of The Fingers With
The Speed Of Thought--A Hurried Glance At The Page Of Music Before
Him Suffices To Give Rise To A Whole Series Of Harmonies; Nay, When A
Melody Has Been Long Practised, It Can Be Played Even While The
Player's Attention Is Being Given To Something Of A Perfectly
Different Character Over And Above His Music.
The Will Need Now No Longer Wend Its Way To Each Individual Finger
Before The Desired Movements Can Be Extorted From It; No Longer Now
Does A Sustained Attention Keep Watch Over The Movements Of Each
Limb; The Will Need Exercise A Supervising Control Only. At The Word
Of Command The Muscles Become Active, With A Due Regard To Time And
Proportion, And Go On Working, So Long As They Are Bidden To Keep In
Their Accustomed Groove, While A Slight Hint On The Part Of The Will,
Will Indicate To Them Their Further Journey. How Could All This Be
If Every Part Of The Central Nerve System, By Means Of Which Movement
Is Effected, Were Not Able {74a} To Reproduce Whole Series Of
Vibrations, Which At An Earlier Date Required The Constant And
Continuous Participation Of Consciousness, But Which Are Now Set In
Motion Automatically On A Mere Touch, As It Were, From Consciousness-
-If It Were Not Able To Reproduce Them The More Quickly And Easily In
Proportion To The Frequency Of The Repetitions--If, In Fact, There
Was No Power Of Recollecting Earlier Performances? Our Perceptive
Faculties Must Have Remained Always At Their Lowest Stage If We Had
Been Compelled To Build Up Consciously Every Process From The Details
Of The Sensation-Causing Materials Tendered To Us By Our Senses; Nor
Could Our Voluntary Movements Have Got Beyond The Helplessness Of The
Child, If The Necessary Impulses Could Only Be Imparted To Every
Chapter 6 Pg 74Movement Through Effort Of The Will And Conscious Reproduction Of All
The Corresponding Ideas--If, In A Word, The Motor Nerve System Had
Not Also Its Memory, {74b} Though That Memory Is Unperceived By
Ourselves. The Power Of This Memory Is What Is Called "The Force Of
Habit."
It Seems, Then, That We Owe To Memory Almost All That We Either Have
Or Are; That Our Ideas And Conceptions Are Its Work, And That Our
Every Perception, Thought, And Movement Is Derived From This Source.
Memory Collects The Countless Phenomena Of Our Existence Into A
Single Whole; And As Our Bodies Would Be Scattered Into The Dust Of
Their Component Atoms If They Were Not Held Together By The
Attraction Of Matter, So Our Consciousness Would Be Broken Up Into As
Many Fragments As We Had Lived Seconds But For The Binding And
Unifying Force Of Memory.
We Have Already Repeatedly Seen That The Reproductions Of Organic
Processes, Brought About By Means Of The Memory Of The Nervous
System, Enter But Partly Within The Domain Of Consciousness,
Remaining Unperceived In Other And Not Less Important Respects. This
Is Also Confirmed By Numerous Facts In The Life Of That Part Of The
Nervous System Which Ministers Almost Exclusively To Our Unconscious
Life Processes. For The Memory Of The So-Called Sympathetic
Ganglionic System Is No Less Rich Than That Of The Brain And Spinal
Marrow, And A Great Part Of The Medical Art Consists In Making Wise
Use Of The Assistance Thus Afforded Us.
To Bring, However, This Part Of My Observations To A Close, I Will
Take Leave Of The Nervous System, And Glance Hurriedly At Other
Phases Of Organised Matter, Where We Meet With The Same Powers Of
Reproduction, But In Simpler Guise.
Daily Experience Teaches Us That A Muscle Becomes The Stronger The
More We Use It. The Muscular Fibre, Which In The First Instance May
Have Answered But Feebly To The Stimulus Conducted To It By The Motor
Nerve, Does So With The Greater Energy The More Often It Is
Stimulated, Provided, Of Course, That Reasonable Times Are Allowed
For Repose. After Each Individual Action It Becomes More Capable,
More Disposed Towards The Same Kind Of Work, And Has A Greater
Aptitude For Repetition Of The Same Organic Processes. It Gains Also
In Weight, For It Assimilates More Matter Than When Constantly At
Rest. We Have Here, In Its Simplest Form, And In A Phase Which Comes
Home
Comments (0)