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present, can only be represented by images, not by those
intermediate stages, between sensations and images, which occur
during the period of fading.
* See Semon, “Die mnemischen Empfindungen,” chap. vi.
Immediate memory is important both because it provides experience
of succession, and because it bridges the gulf between sensations
and the images which are their copies. But it is now time to
resume the consideration of true memory.
Suppose you ask me what I ate for breakfast this morning.
Suppose, further, that I have not thought about my breakfast in
the meantime, and that I did not, while I was eating it, put into
words what it consisted of. In this case my recollection will be
true memory, not habit-memory. The process of remembering will
consist of calling up images of my breakfast, which will come to
me with a feeling of belief such as distinguishes memory-images
from mere imagination-images. Or sometimes words may come without
the intermediary of images; but in this case equally the feeling
of belief is essential.
Let us omit from our consideration, for the present, the memories
in which words replace images. These are always, I think, really
habit-memories, the memories that use images being the typical
true memories.
Memory-images and imagination-images do not differ in their
intrinsic qualities, so far as we can discover. They differ by
the fact that the images that constitute memories, unlike those
that constitute imagination, are accompanied by a feeling of
belief which may be expressed in the words “this happened.” The
mere occurrence of images, without this feeling of belief,
constitutes imagination; it is the element of belief that is the
distinctive thing in memory.*
* For belief of a specific kind, cf. Dorothy Wrinch “On the
Nature of Memory,” “Mind,” January, 1920.
There are, if I am not mistaken, at least three different kinds
of belief-feeling, which we may call respectively memory,
expectation and bare assent. In what I call bare assent, there is
no time-element in the feeling of belief, though there may be in
the content of what is believed. If I believe that Caesar landed
in Britain in B.C. 55, the time-determination lies, not in the
feeling of belief, but in what is believed. I do not remember the
occurrence, but have the same feeling towards it as towards the
announcement of an eclipse next year. But when I have seen a
flash of lightning and am waiting for the thunder, I have a
belief-feeling analogous to memory, except that it refers to the
future: I have an image of thunder, combined with a feeling which
may be expressed in the words: “this will happen.” So, in memory,
the pastness lies, not in the content of what is believed, but in
the nature of the belief-feeling. I might have just the same
images and expect their realization; I might entertain them
without any belief, as in reading a novel; or I might entertain
them together with a time-determination, and give bare assent, as
in reading history. I shall return to this subject in a later
lecture, when we come to the analysis of belief. For the present,
I wish to make it clear that a certain special kind of belief is
the distinctive characteristic of memory.
The problem as to whether memory can be explained as habit or
association requires to be considered afresh in connection with
the causes of our remembering something. Let us take again the
case of my being asked what I had for breakfast this morning. In
this case the question leads to my setting to work to recollect.
It is a little strange that the question should instruct me as to
what it is that I am to recall. This has to do with understanding
words, which will be the topic of the next lecture; but something
must be said about it now. Our understanding of the words
“breakfast this morning” is a habit, in spite of the fact that on
each fresh day they point to a different occasion. “This morning”
does not, whenever it is used, mean the same thing, as “John” or
“St. Paul’s” does; it means a different period of time on each
different day. It follows that the habit which constitutes our
understanding of the words “this morning” is not the habit of
associating the words with a fixed object, but the habit of
associating them with something having a fixed time-relation to
our present. This morning has, to-day, the same time-relation to
my present that yesterday morning had yesterday. In order to
understand the phrase “this morning” it is necessary that we
should have a way of feeling time-intervals, and that this
feeling should give what is constant in the meaning of the words
“this morning.” This appreciation of time-intervals is, however,
obviously a product of memory, not a presupposition of it. It
will be better, therefore, if we wish to analyse the causation of
memory by something not presupposing memory, to take some other
instance than that of a question about “this morning.”
Let us take the case of coming into a familiar room where
something has been changed—say a new picture hung on the wall.
We may at first have only a sense that SOMETHING is unfamiliar,
but presently we shall remember, and say “that picture was not on
the wall before.” In order to make the case definite, we will
suppose that we were only in the room on one former occasion. In
this case it seems fairly clear what happens. The other objects
in the room are associated, through the former occasion, with a
blank space of wall where now there is a picture. They call up an
image of a blank wall, which clashes with perception of the
picture. The image is associated with the belief-feeling which we
found to be distinctive of memory, since it can neither be
abolished nor harmonized with perception. If the room had
remained unchanged, we might have had only the feeling of
familiarity without the definite remembering; it is the change
that drives us from the present to memory of the past.
We may generalize this instance so as to cover the causes of many
memories. Some present feature of the environment is associated,
through past experiences, with something now absent; this absent
something comes before us as an image, and is contrasted with
present sensation. In cases of this sort, habit (or association)
explains why the present feature of the environment brings up the
memory-image, but it does not explain the memory-belief. Perhaps
a more complete analysis could explain the memory-belief also on
lines of association and habit, but the causes of beliefs are
obscure, and we cannot investigate them yet. For the present we
must content ourselves with the fact that the memory-image can be
explained by habit. As regards the memory-belief, we must, at
least provisionally, accept Bergson’s view that it cannot be
brought under the head of habit, at any rate when it first
occurs, i.e. when we remember something we never remembered
before.
We must now consider somewhat more closely the content of a
memory-belief. The memory-belief confers upon the memory-image
something which we may call “meaning;” it makes us feel that the
image points to an object which existed in the past. In order to
deal with this topic we must consider the verbal expression of
the memory-belief. We might be tempted to put the memory-belief
into the words: “Something like this image occurred.” But such
words would be very far from an accurate translation of the
simplest kind of memory-belief. “Something like this image” is a
very complicated conception. In the simplest kind of memory we
are not aware of the difference between an image and the
sensation which it copies, which may be called its “prototype.”
When the image is before us, we judge rather “this occurred.” The
image is not distinguished from the object which existed in the
past: the word “this” covers both, and enables us to have a
memory-belief which does not introduce the complicated notion
“something like this.”
It might be objected that, if we judge “this occurred” when in
fact “this” is a present image, we judge falsely, and the
memory-belief, so interpreted, becomes deceptive. This, however,
would be a mistake, produced by attempting to give to words a
precision which they do not possess when used by unsophisticated
people. It is true that the image is not absolutely identical
with its prototype, and if the word “this” meant the image to the
exclusion of everything else, the judgment “this occurred” would
be false. But identity is a precise conception, and no word, in
ordinary speech, stands for anything precise. Ordinary speech
does not distinguish between identity and close similarity. A
word always applies, not only to one particular, but to a group
of associated particulars, which are not recognized as multiple
in common thought or speech. Thus primitive memory, when it
judges that “this occurred,” is vague, but not false.
Vague identity, which is really close similarity, has been a
source of many of the confusions by which philosophy has lived.
Of a vague subject, such as a “this,” which is both an image and
its prototype, contradictory predicates are true simultaneously:
this existed and does not exist, since it is a thing remembered,
but also this exists and did not exist, since it is a present
image. Hence Bergson’s interpenetration of the present by the
past, Hegelian continuity and identity-in-diversity, and a host
of other notions which are thought to be profound because they
are obscure and confused. The contradictions resulting from
confounding image and prototype in memory force us to precision.
But when we become precise, our remembering becomes different
from that of ordinary life, and if we forget this we shall go
wrong in the analysis of ordinary memory.
Vagueness and accuracy are important notions, which it is very
necessary to understand. Both are a matter of degree. All
thinking is vague to some extent, and complete accuracy is a
theoretical ideal not practically attainable. To understand what
is meant by accuracy, it will be well to consider first
instruments of measurement, such as a balance or a thermometer.
These are said to be accurate when they give different results
for very slightly different stimuli.* A clinical thermometer is
accurate when it enables us to detect very slight differences in
the temperature of the blood. We may say generally that an
instrument is accurate in proportion as it reacts differently to
very slightly different stimuli. When a small difference of
stimulus produces a great difference of reaction, the instrument
is accurate; in the contrary case it is not.
* This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The subject
of accuracy and vagueness will be considered again in Lecture
XIII.
Exactly the same thing applies in defining accuracy of thought or
perception. A musician will respond differently to very minute
differences in playing which would be quite imperceptible to the
ordinary mortal. A negro can see the difference between one negro
and another one is his friend, another his enemy. But to us such
different responses are impossible: we can merely apply the word
“negro” indiscriminately. Accuracy of response in regard to any
particular kind of stimulus is improved by practice.
Understanding a language is a case in point. Few Frenchmen can
hear any difference between the sounds “hall” and “hole,” which
produce quite different impressions upon us. The two statements
“the hall is full of water” and “the hole is full of water” call
for different responses, and a hearing which cannot distinguish
between them is inaccurate or vague in this respect.
Precision and vagueness in thought, as in perception, depend upon
the degree of difference between responses to more or less
similar stimuli. In the case of thought, the
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