LECTURE XXX. THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY.-MEMORY PROPER. Elementary ph nomena may be distinct, while they depend on each other for their realization. I COMMENCED and concluded, in my last Lecture, the consideration of the second source of knowledge, - the faculty of Self-Consciousness or Internal Perception. Through the powers of External and Internal Perception we are enabled to acquire information, experience: but this acquisition is not of itself independent and complete; it supposes that we are also able to retain the knowledge acquired, for we cannot be said to get what we are unable to keep. The faculty of Acquisition is, therefore, only realized through another faculty,the faculty of Retention or Conservation. Here, we have another This general principle illustrated by the phænomena of Acquisition, Retention, Reproduction, and Representation. example of what I have already frequently had occasion to suggest to your observation, -we have two faculties, two elementary phænomena, evidently distinct, and yet each depending on the other for its realization. Without a power of acquisition, a power of conservation could not be exerted; and without the latter, the former would be frustrated, for we should lose as fast as we acquired. But as the faculty of Acquisition would be useless without the faculty of Retention, so the faculty of Retention would be useless without the faculties of Reproduction and Representation. That the mind retained, beyond the sphere of consciousness, a treasury of knowledge, would be of no avail, did it not possess the power of bringing out, and of displaying, in other words, of reproducing, and representing, this knowledge in consciousness. But because the faculty. of Conservation would be fruitless without the ulterior faculties of Reproduction and Representation, we are not to confound these faculties, or to view the act of mind which is their joint result, as a simple and elementary phænomenon. Though mutually dependent on each other, the faculties of Conservation, Reproduction, and Representation are governed by different laws, and, in different individuals, are found greatly varying in their comparative vigor. The intimate connection of these three faculties, or elementary activities, is the cause, however, why they have not been distinguished in the analysis of philosophers; and why their distinction is not precisely marked in ordinary language. In ordinary language we have indeed Hence these three faculties not distinguished by philosophers; nor in ordinary language. Ordinary use of the terms Memory and Recollection. words which, without excluding the other faculties, denote one of these more emphatically. Thus in the term Memory, the Conservative Faculty, -the phænomenon of Retention is the central notion, with which, however, those of Reproduction and Representation are associated. In the term Recollection, again, the phænomenon of Reproduction is the principal notion, accompanied, however, by those of Retention and Representation, as its subordinates. This being the case, it is evident what must be our course in regard to the employment of common language. We must either abandon it altogether, or take the term that more proximately expresses our analysis, and, by definition, limit and specify its signification. Thus, in the Conservative Faculty, we may either content ourselves with the scientific terms of Conservation and Retention alone, or we may moreover use as a synonym the vulgar term Memory, determining its application, in our mouths, by a preliminary definition. And that the word Memory principally and Memory properly denotes the power of Retention. Acknowledged by properly denotes the power the mind possesses of retaining hold of the knowledge it has acquired, is generally admitted by philologers, and is not denied by philosophers. Of the latter, some have expressly avowed this. Of these I shall quote to you only two or three, which happen to occur the first to my recollection. Plato considers Memory simply as the faculty of Conservation (ἡ μνήμη σωτηρία αἰσθή σews). Aristotle distinguishes Memory (μvýμn) as the faculty of Conservation from Reminiscence (åváμvnois), the faculty of Reproduction. St. Augustin, who is not only the most illustrious of the Christian fathers, but one of the profoundest thinkers of antiquity, finely contrasts Memory with Recollection or Reminiscence, in one of the most eloquent and philosophical chapters of his Plato. Aristotle. St. Augustin. 1 2 De Memoria et Reminiscentia [c. 2, § 25 Cf. Conimbricenses, In De Mem. et Rem. c. vii. p. 10. ED.] Julius Cæsar Scali ger. 2 Confessions"Hæc omnia recipit recolenda, cum opus est, et retractanda grandis memoriæ recessus. Et nescio qui secreti atque ineffabiles sinus ejus; quæ omnia suis quæque foribus intrant ad eam, et reponuntur in ea. Nec ipsa tamen intrant, sed rerum sensarum imagines illic præsto sunt, cogitationi reminiscenti eas," The same distinction is likewise precisely taken by one of the acutest of modern philosophers, the elder Scaliger. "Memoriam voco hujusce cognitionis conservationem. Reminiscentiam dico, repetitionem disciplinæ, quæ e memoria delapsa fuerat." This is from his commentary on Aristotle's History of Animals; the following is from his De Subtilitate: "Quid Memoria? Vis animæ communis ad retinendum tam rerum imagines, i. e. phantasmata, quam notiones universales; easque, vel simplices, vel complexas. Quid Recordatio? Opera intellectus, species recolentis. Quid Reminiscentia? Disquisitio tectarum specierum; amotio importunarum, digestio obturbatarum." The father suggests the son, and the following occurs in the Secunda Scaligerana, which is one of the two collections we have of the table-talk of Joseph Scaliger. Joseph Scaliger. The one from which I quote was made by the brothers Vassan, whom the Dictator of Letters, from friendship to their learned uncles (the Messrs. Pithou), had received into his house, when pursuing their studies in the University of Leyden; and Secunda Scaligerana is made up of the notes they had taken of the conversations he had with them, and others in their presence. Scaliger, speaking of himself, is made to say: "I have not a good memory, but a good reminiscence; proper names do not easily recur to me, but when I think on them I find them out."4 It is sufficient for our purpose that the distinction is here taken between the Retentive Power,— Memory, and the Reproductive Power, — Reminiscence. Scaliger's memory could hardly be called bad, though his reminiscence might be better; and these elements in conjunction go to constitute a good memory, in the comprehensive sense of the expression. I say the retentive faculty of that man is surely not to be despised, who was able to commit to memory Homer in twenty-one days, and the whole Greek poets in three months, and who, taking him all in all, was the most learned man the world has ever seen. I might adduce many other authorities to 1 Lib x. c 8.-ED. 2 [Aristotelis Historia de Animalibus, Julio Casare Scaligero Interprete. Tolosa 1619, p. 30.] 3 [Exercit. cccvii 28] 4 Tom. ii p 552 -ED. 5 See Heinsius, In Josephi Scaligeri Obitum; Funebris Oratio (1603), p. 15. His words are: -"Uno et viginti diebus Homerum, reliquos intra quartum mensum poetas, cæteros autem intra biennium scriptores perdisceret." See below lect. xxxi. p 413.-ED. Memory, what. The fact of retention admitted. the same effect; but this, I think, is sufficient to warrant me in using the term Memory exclusively to denote the faculty possessed by the mind of preserving what has once been present to consciousness, so that it may again be recalled and represented in consciousness. So much for the verbal consideration. By Memory or Retention, you will see, is only meant the condition of Reproduction; and it is, therefore, evident that it is only by an extension of the term that it can be called a faculty, that is, an active power. It is more a passive resistance than an energy, and ought, therefore, perhaps to receive rather the appellation of a capacity. But the nature of this capacity or faculty we must now proceed to consider. In the first place, then, I presume that the fact of retention is admitted. We are conscious of certain cognitions as acquired, and we are conscious of these cognitions as resuscitated. That, in the interval, when out of consciousness, these cognitions do continue to subsist in the mind, is certainly an hypothesis, because whatever is out of consciousness can only be assumed; but it is an hypothesis which we are not only warranted, but necessitated, by the phænomena, to establish. I recollect, indeed, that one philosopher has proposed another hypothesis. Avicenna, the celebrated Arabian philosopher and physician, denies to the human mind the conservation of its acquired knowledge; and he explains the process of recollection by an irradiation of divine light, through which the recovered cognition is infused into the intellect. Assuming, however, that the knowledge we have acquired is retained in and by the human mind, we must, of course, attribute to the mind a power of thus retaining it. The fact of memory is thus established. But if it cannot be denied, that the knowledge we have acquired by Perception and Self-consciousness, does actually continue, though out of consciousness, to endure; can we, in the second place, find any ground on which to explain the possibility of this endurance? I think we can, and shall adduce such an explanation, founded on the general analogies of our mental nature. Before, however, com The hypothesis of Avicenna regarding retention. Retention admits of explanation. 1 Suabedissen makes Memory equivalent to Retention; see his Grundzüge der Lehre von dem Menschen, p. 107. So Fries, Schmid. [Cf. Leibnitz, Nouv. Ess., lib i. c. i. § 5; lib. ii. c. xix 1. Conimbricenses, In De Mem. et Rem. ci. p 2] [Fracastorius, De Intellectione, l. i., Opera, f. 126 (ed. 1584). - ED.] 3 2 See Suabedissen, as above. 3 See Conimbricenses, In De Memoria et Reminiscentia, [c. i. p. 2, edit. 1631. Cf. the same, In De Anima, lib. iii. c. v. q. ii. art. ii. p. 430.-ED] Similitudes suggested mencing this, I may notice some of the similitudes which have been suggested by philosophers, as illustrative of this faculty. It has been compared to a storehouse, Cicero calls it "thesaurus omnium rerum," provided with cells or pigeon-holes, in which its furniture is laid up and arranged.* in illustration of the faculty of Retention. Cicero. Gassendi. 3 1 It has been likened to a tablet on which characters were written or impressed. But of all these sensible resemblances, none is so ingenious as that of Gassendi to the folds in a piece of paper or cloth; though I do not recollect to have seen it ever noticed. A sheet of paper, or cloth, is capable of receiving innumerable folds, and the folds in which it has been oftenest laid, it takes afterwards of itself. "Concipi charta valeat plicarum innumerabilium, inconfusarumque, et juxta suos ordines, suasque series repetendarum capax. Silicet ubi unam seriem subtilissimarum induxerimus, superinducere licet alias, quæ primam quidem refringant transversum, et in omnem obliquitatem; sed ita tamen, ut dum novæ, plicæ, plicarumque series superinducuntur priores omnes non modo remaneant, verum etiam possint facili negotio excitari, redire, apparere, quatenus una plica arrepta, cæteræ, quæ in eadem serie quadam quasi sponte sequuntur." All these resemblances, if intended as more than metaphors, are unphilosophical. We do not even obtain any insight into the nature of Memory from any of the physiological hypotheses which have been stated; indeed all of them are too contemptible even for serious criticism. "The mind affords us, however, in itself, the very explanation which we vainly seek in any collateral influences. The phænomenon of retention is, indeed, so natural, on the ground of the self-energy of mind, that we have no need to suppose any special faculty for memory; the conservation of the action of the mind being involved in These resemblances of use simply as metaphors. The phænomenon of retention naturally arises from the selfenergy of mind. the very conception of its power of self-activity. "Let us consider how knowledge is acquired by the mind. Knowledge is not acquired by a mere passive affection, but through the exertion of spontaneous activity on the part of the knowing subject; for though this activity be not exerted without some external excitation, still this excitation is only the occasion on which |