Ml THE SCIENTIFIC Series \T/ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library 3 1924 031 165 719 olin.anx Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924031 1 6571 9 THE mXERMTIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. VOLUME XLI. THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. Each book complete in One Volume, 12mo, anh bottnd in Cloth. I. FOEMS OF "WATEE : a Familiar Exposition of the Origin and Phenomena of Glaciers. By J. Tthdall, LL. D. , F. K. S. With 25 Illustrations. $1.50. II. PHYSICS AND POLITICS ; Or, Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of "Natural Selection" and "Inheritance" to Political Society. By Waltee Baqehot. $1.50. III. FOODS. By Edwaed Smith, M.D.,LL.B.,F.E.S. With numer- ous Illustrations. $1.T5. IV. MIND AND BODY : The Theories of their Eelation. By Alex- ander Baln, LL. D. With Four Illustrations. §1.50. V. THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. By Herbert Spencer. $1.50. VI. THE NEW CHEMISTEY. By Professor J. P. Cooke, of Harvard University. With 31 Illustrations. $2.00. Vn. ON THE CONSEEVATION OF ENERGY. By Balfour Stewart, M. A., LL. D., F. E. S. With 14 Hlustrations. $1.50. VIII. ANIMAL LOCOMOTION ; or. Walking, Swunming, and Flyinjr. By J. B. Pettioeew, M. D., F.E.S., etc. With 130 Illustr,.- tions. $1.75. IX. EESPONSIBILITY IN MENTAL DISEASE. By Henet Mauds- ley, M. D. $1.50. X. THE SCIENCE OF LAW. By Professor Sheldon Amos. $1.75. XI. ANIMAL MECHANISM : A Treatise on Terrestrial and Aerial Locomotion. By Professor E. J. Marey. With 117 Illustra- tions. $1.75. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 2 Th^ International Scientific Series. — (Continued.) XII. THE HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN EELIGION AND SCIENCE. By J. W. Dbapee, M. D., LL. D. $1.75. XIU. THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT AND DARWINISM. By Professor Osoae Schmidt (Strasburg University). With 26 Illustrations. $1.50. XIV. THE CHEMICAL EFFECTS OF LIGHT AND PHOTOG- RAPHY. By Dr. Heemaitn Voqel (Polytechnic Academy of Berlin). Translation thoroughly revised. With 100 Illus- trations. $2.00. XV. FUNGI : Their Nature, Influences, Uses, etc. By M. C. Cooke, M. A., LL. D. Edited by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, M. A., F. L. S. With 109 Illustrations. $1.50. XVI. THE LIFE AND GROWTH OF LANGUAGE. By Professor William Dwight Whitnet, of Yale College. $1.50. XVII. MONEY AND THE MECHANISM OF EXCHANGE. By W. Stanley Jevohs, M. A., F. E. S. $1.75. XVIII. THE NATURE OF LIGHT, with a. General Account of Physi- cal Optics. By Dr. Eugene Lommel. With 188 lUustrations and a Table of Spectra in Chromo-lithography. $2.00. XIX. ANIMAL PARASITES AND MESSMATES. By Monsieur Van Benedeh-. With 83 Illustrations. $1.50. XX. FERMENTATION. By Professor SonerzEUBEEQEE. With 25 Illustrations. $1.60. XXI. THE FIVE SENSES OF MAN. By Professor Beensiein. With 91 Illustrations. $1.75. XXII. THE THEORY OF SOUND IN ITS RELATION TO MUSIC. By Professor Pieteo Blaseena. With numerous Illustra. tions. $1.50. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., I, 3, & 6 Bond Street. The International Scientific Series. — (Continued.) XXm. STUDIES IN SPECTEUM ANALYSIS. By J. Nosmait LooKTER, F. E. S. With Six Photographic Illustrations of Spectra, and nvimerous Engravings on "Wood. $2.50. XXIV. A HISTOEY OF THE GEOWTH OF THE STEAM-EN- GINE. By Professor E. H. Thueston. With 163 IHustia- tions. $2.50. XXV. EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. By Alexahdee Bain, LL. D. $1.75. XXVI. STUDENTS' TEXT-BOOK OF COLOE, oe, Modeen Cnso- MATI03. With Applications to Art and Industry. By Pro- fessor Ogdest N. Eood, Columhia College. New edition. With 130 Illustrations. $2.00. XXVn. THE HUMAN SPECIES. By Professor A. de Quateefages, Memhre de Plnstitut. $2.00. XXVIII. THE CEAYFISH : an Introduction to the Study of Zoology. By T. H. Huxley, F. E. S. With 82 Illustrations. $1.75. XXIX. THE ATOMIC THEOEY. By Professor A. Wuktz. Trans- lated by E. Cleminshaw, F. C. S. $1.50. XXX. ANIMAL LIFE AS AFFECTED BY THE NATUEAL CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE. By Kael Sempeb. With Two Maps and 106 Woodcuts. $2.00. XXXI. SIGHT : An Exposition of the Principles of Monocular and Bi- nocular Vision. By Joseph Le Conte, LL. D. With 132 Illustrations. $1.50. XXXII. GENEEAL PHYSIOLOGY OF MUSCLES AND NEEVES. By Professor J. Eosenthai,. With 75 Illustrations. $1.50. XXXIIL ILLUSIONS : A Psychological Study. By James Sully. $1.50. XXXIV. THE SUN. By C. A. Yootto, Professor of Astronomy in the College of New Jersey, With numerous Illustrations. $2.00. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 4 The International Scientific Series. — (Continued.) XXXV. VOLCANOES : What they Are and what they Teach. By JoHH "W. JcDD, F. E. S., Professor of Geology in the Eoyal School of Mines. With 96 Illustrations. $2.00. XXXVI. SUICIDE : An Essay in Comparative Moral Statistics. By Henet Moeselli, M. D., Professor of Psychological Medi- cine, Eoyal University, Turin. $1.75. XXXVII. THE FORMATION OF VEGETABLE MOULD, THEOUGH THE ACTION OF WOEMS. With Observations on their Habits. By CiiAi£i.ES Dakwin, LL. D., F. E. S., author of "On the Origin of Species," etc., etc. With Illustrations. $1.50. XXXVm. THE CONCEPTS AND THEOEIES OF MODERN PHYS- ICS. By J. B. Stallo. $1.75. XXXIX. THE BEAIN AND ITS FUNCTIONS. By J. Lxtts. |1.60. XL. MYTH AND SCLENCE. An Essay, By Tito Viqnoli. $1.50. THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SEEIES. DISEASES OF MEMORY: AN ESSAY m THE POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY. BY TH. RIBOT, AUTHOa OP "hEEEDITT : A PSTCHOLOOIOAL STUDY OF ITS PHENOMENA, LAWS, CAUSES, AND consequences;" "ENGLISH PSTCHOLOGT;" ETC. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, By WILLIAM HUNTINGTON SMITH. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1, 8, ANB 6 BOND STREET. 1882. COPYEIGHT BY D. APPLETON AND OOMPANT, 1882. PEEFACE. Mt purpose in this work is to provide a psy- chological monograph, upon the diseases of mem- ory, and, so far as the present state of our knowledge will permit, to derive from them cer- tain deductions. The phenomena of memory have often been investigated, but never from a pathological stand-point. It has seemed to me that it might be profitable to consider the sub- ject in this form. I have endeavored to limit myself to that, and have said nothing of the normal phases of memory, save so far as was necessary to make my meaning clear. I have cited many illustrations ; this method, not in keeping with a purely literary study, is alone adapted to instruction. To write in a general way of the disorders of memory, without citing examples of each, would be, it seems to me, a 6 PEEFACE. useless task, since it is essential that tlie au- thor's conclusions should be verified at every point. I beg the reader to note that he is of- fered here an essay in descriptive psychology, nothing more ; and, if it has no other merit, this volume will bring to his attention many ac- counts of peculiar cases, scattered over a wide field of research, and only now brought together in a connected form. T. E. TABLE OF OOI^^TEI^^TS. I. — Memoet as a Biological Fact 9 Memory ig essentially a biological fact, accidentally a psy- chical fact — Organic memory — Seat of memory — Modifica- tions of nervous elements ; dynamical associations be- tween these elements — Conscious memory — Conditions of consciousness : intensity ; duration — Unconscious cerebra- tion — Nervous action is the fundamental condition of per- ception ; consciousness is only an accessory — Localization in the past, or recollection — Mechanism of this operation — It is not a simple and instantaneous act ; it consists of the addition of secondary states of consciousness to the principal state of consciousness — Memory is a vision in time — Localization, theoretical and practical — Reference points — Eesemblance and difference between localization in the future and in the past — All memory an illusion — Forgetfulness a condition of memory — Return to the open- ing proposition : conscious memory tends little by little to become automatic. IT.-rGBNBEAL Amnesia 69 Classification of the diseases of memory — Temporary amne- sia — ^Epileptics — Forgetfulness of certain periods of life — Examples of re-education — Slow and sudden recoveries — Case of provisional memory — Periodical or intermittent amnesia — Formation of two memories, totally or partially, distinct — Hypnotism — Progressive amnesia — Its impor- tance : reveals the law which governs the destruction of memory — Law of regression ; enunciation of this law — In 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. TAGS OHAPIEB what order memory fails— Counter-proof : it is re-formed in inverse order — Illustrations— Congenital amnesia — Extraordinary memory of idiots. III. — Paetial Amnesia 135 Reduction of memory to memories — Anatomical and physi- ological reasons for partial memories — ^Amnesia of num- bers, names, figures, etc. — Amnesia of signs — ^Its nature : a loss of motor-memory — Examination of this point — Progressive amnesia of signs verifies completely the law of regression — Order of dissolution: proper names; common nouns ; verbs and adjectives ; interjections and language of sentiment ; gestures — Relation between this dissolution and the evolution of the Indo-European lan- guages — Counter-proof : return of signs in inverse order. IV. — Exaltations of Mbmobt 174 General excitation — ^Partial excitation — Return of lost im- pressions — Return of forgotten languages — Application to this fact of the law of regression — Case of perverted memory — ^Examples and explanations. V. — CONOLUSION 192 Relations between the conservation of perceptions and nutrition, between the reproduction of impressions and the general and local circulation — ^Influence of the quan- tity and quality of the blood — Examples — The law of re- gression connected with a physiological principle and a psychological principle — Recapitulation. DISEASES OF MEMORY. CHAPTER I. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. The descriptive study of the phenomena of recollection has been often made by various au- thors, particularly by the. Scotch ; hence, this work will not attempt to cover that ground. I propose to ascertain what light- the new method in psychology can throw upon the nature of memory ; to show that the teachings of physiol- ogy, united with those of intuitive perception, lead us to state the problem in a much more comprehensive form ; that memory, as ordinarily known to us and as psychology commonly de- scribes it, far from comprising the whole process of memory, is only its most highly developed and complex phase, and that, taken by itself and studied alone, it is not easily understood ; that it is the last term in a long evolutionary series, the product of an extended, but connected, de- velopment, having its origin in organic life ; in 2 10 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. short, that memory is, per se, a biological fact —by accident, a psychological fact. Thus understood, our study comprises the physiology and psychology of memory, as well as its pathology. The disorders and maladies of this faculty, when classified and properly inter- preted, are no longer to be regarded as a collec- tion of amusing anecdotes of only passing inter- est. They will be found to be regulated by certain laws which constitute the very basis of memory, and from which its mechanism is easily laid bare. I. By common usage the word meinory has a triple meaning: the conservation of certain con- ditions, their reproduction, and their localization in the past. This, however, is only a certain kind of memory, which we call perfect. The three elements are of unequal value : the first two are necessary, indispensable ; the third, what in the language of the schools is called "recol- lection," completes the act of memory, but does not constitute it. Suppress the first two, and memory is annihilated; suppress the third, and memory ceases to exist in an objective, but not in a subjective, sense. This third element, which is purely psychological, would appear, then, to be superadded to the others : they are stable ; it is unstable ; it appears and disappears ; it repre- MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. H sents the extent of consciousness in the act of memory, and nothing more. If memory is studied, as it has been np to this time, as "a faculty of the mind," by the aid of instinct alone, it is inevitable that this perfect and conscious form should be regarded as the whole of memory ; but this is taking a part for the whole, or rather the species for the genus. Contemporary authors, such as Huxley, Clifford, and Maudsley, in maintaining that con- sciousness is only an adjunct of certain nervous processes, as incapable of reacting upon them as is a shadow upon the steps of the traveler whom it accompanies, have opened the way for a new theory which we shall attempt to formulate here. Let us set aside the psychical element for the time being, reduce the problem to its simplest terms, and try to discover how, without the aid of consciousness, a new condition is implanted in the organism, is conserved and reproduced ; in other words, how memory is formed, inde- pendently of all cognition. Before considering the real organic memory, it would be weU to mention some of the views already advanced with regard to its constitution. Analogies to memory have been sought in the order of inorganic phenomena, particularly "in the property possessed by light of being stored up in a sheet of paper in a state of impercepti- 12 DISEASES OF MEMOET. ble vibration, for a greater or less time, ready- to appear upon the application of a proper de- veloping medium. Thus, engravings exposed to tlie solar rays and afterward kept in darkness will reveal, at tke end of several months, by the aid of special reagents, permanent traces of the photographic action of the sun."* Lay a key upon a sheet of white paper exposed to the sunlight, place the paper in a dark drawer, and the spectral image of the key wOl stiU be visi- ble after the lapse of years, f In our opinion, these and similar facts have too vague an anal- ogy with memory to be of value as practical il- lustrations. Conservation, the first condition of recollection, is found, but that alone ; for in these instances reproduction is so passive, so depen- dent upon the intervention of a foreign agent, that there is no resemblance to the natural re- production of the memory. Hence, ia studying our subject, it must never be forgotten that we have to do with vital laws, not with physical laws ; and that the bases of memory must be looked for ia the properties of organic matter, and nowhere else. We shall see, farther on, that those who forget this go wide of the mark. Neither shall I dwell upon phases of vegetable * Luys, "Le Oerveau et ses Fonctions," p. 106. t G. H. Lewes, "Problems of Life and Mind," third series, p. 67. MEMOET AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 13 growth, which have been compared with the func- tions of memory, but hasten at once to decisive facts. A general idea of the manner in which new functions are acquired, retained, and automatic- ally reproduced, may be obtained from the mus- cular tissue of the animal kingdom. "Experi- ence teaches us daily," says Bering, "that a muscle becomes stronger in proportion to its use. Muscular fiber, responding feebly at first to the excitation transmitted by the motor nerve, does so more vigorously the more frequently it is stimulated, allowing natural periods of repose. After each action it is better prepared for action, more disposed to a repetition of the same work, readier to reproduce a given organic process. It gains more in activity than in repose. We have here, in the simplest form, the nearest approach in physical conditions to that faculty of repro- duction which is found in a state so complex iu nerve-matter. What is observed in muscular tissue is found, to a greater or less extent, in the substance of other organs. Everywhere we perceive, with an increase of activity and proper intervals of repose, an increased power in organic functions."* * Hering, "Ueber das Gedachtniss als allgemeine Function der organisirten Materie. Vortrag,'' etc., 2" Auflage, Wien, Gerold's Sohn, 1876, p. 13. 14 DISEASES OF MEMORY. The most higMy developed tissue of the or- ganism, the nervous tissue, has, to an extreme degree, this double power of conservation and reproduction. We must not, however, look for tlie type of organic memory in tlie simple form of reflex action. Reflex action, wlietlier it con- sists of an excitation followed by one or many contractions, is th.e result of structural tendency. It is reasonable to suppose tliat tMs anatomical predisposition is the product of heredity — ^that is to say, of a specific memory, acquired, fixed, and made organic by incessant repetition. But we shall not attempt to make this a valid argu- ment in favor of our theory, since there are others less open to dispute. The true type of organic memory — and here we enter the heart of our subject — must be sought in the group of facts to which Hartley has given the appropriate title of secondary automatic ac- tions, as opposed to those automatic functions which are primitive or innate. These secondary automatic actions, or accLuired movements, are the very basis of our every-day existence. Thus locomotion, which in many inferior species is in- nate, must be acquired by man, particularly the power of co-ordination which maintains the equi- librium of the body in any position, through the combination of tactile and visual impressions. In a general way, it may be said that the limbs MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 15 and other sensorial organs of the adult act with facility only because of the sum of acquired and co-ordinate movements which forms for each part of the body its special memory, the accumulated capital upon which it lives, and through which it acts — just as the mind lives and acts in the medium of past experience. To the same cate- gory belong those groups of movements of a more artificial character which constitute the ap- prenticeship of the manual laborer, and are called into action in games of skill, bodily exercises, etc. If we study the manner in which these primi- tive automatic movements are acquired, fixed, and reproduced, we see that the first requisite is the formation of associations. The original ma- terial is provided by primitive reflex actions, which must be properly grouped, some combined and others excluded. This formative period is one of constant experiment. Acts which seem now a part of onr natures were originally ac- quired with difficulty. When light first strikes the eyes of a new-born child, an incoherent fluct- uation of movements is observed ; at the expira- tion of a few weeks the movements are co-ordi- nated, the eyes have the power of accommoda- tion, and, being fixed upon a luminous point, are able to follow it with precision. When a chUd learns to write, according to Lewes, it is impossible for him to use his hand alone ; he 16 DISEASES OF MEMORY. must also move Ms tongue, the facial muscles, and perhaps his feet.* In time he is able to suppress these useless discharges. And so, when we attempt for the first time any muscular act, we expend a great quantity of superfluous en- ergy, which we learn gradually to subdue. By exercise, certain movements are fixed to the ex- clusion of others. Thus there are formed, in the nervous elements corresponding to the motor or- gans, secondary dynamical associations, more or less stable (that is to say, a memory), which unite with the primitive and permanent ana- tomical associations. If the reader will observe these numerous and well-known secondary automatic actions, he will find that the organic memory thus formed re- sembles the psychological memory in aU but one point — the absence of consciousness. Let us sum up their characteristics ; the resemblance between the two will be readily apparent. Acquisition, sometimes immediate, sometimes gradual ; repetition of the act necessary in some cases, useless in others ; an inequality of the organic memory according to individuals — ^it is rapid with some, slow, or totally refractory, with others (awkwardness is the result of a deficient organic memory). With some, associations once formed are permanent ; with others, they are * Op. eit., p. 51. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 17 easily lost or forgotten. We observe tlie ar- rangement of actions in simnltaneons or succes- sive series, as if for conscious recollection, and here is a fact worthy of careful notice : each member of the series suggests what is to follow ; this is what happens when we walk vidthout concerning ourselves with the movements of our Umbs. Overcome with sleep, soldiers on foot as weU as on horseback have continued to keep their places on the march, although those in the saddle were obliged to hold themselves in constant equilibrium. This power of organic suggestion is still more strikingly seen in a case cited by Carpenter,* of an accomplished pianist who rendered a piece of music while asleep, a fact which must be ascribed less to the sense of hearing than to the muscular sense which sug- gested the succession of movements. Without seeking extraordinary illustrations, we find in every-day life series of organic, complex, and carefully determined acts, with fixed limits, whose terms, aU differing from one another, fol- low in constant order ; for example, the ascent and descent of a staircase with which we are familiar. Our psychological memory is ignorant of the number of steps ; but the organic memory knows this, as weU as the number of flights, the arrangement of the landings, and other details ; * " Mental Physiology," p. 75, § 71. 18 DISEASES OF MEMORY. it is never deceived. May we not say that to the organic memory these "definite series are pre- cisely analogous to a phrase, a couplet of verse, or a musical air to the psychological memory ? In its method of acquisition, conservation, and reproduction, we find, then, that the organic memory is identical with that of the mind. Con- sciousness alone is wanting. At the beginning it accompanies motor activity ; then it is gradu- ally effaced. Sometimes — and such cases are very instructive — its disappearance is sudden. A man subject to temporary suspensions of con- sciousness continued, during the stage of insensi- bility, any act already begun ; on one occasion, while walking, he fell into the water. He was a shoemaker, and often wounded his fingers with his awl, continuing the action as if piercing leather.* In cases of the epUeptic vertigo, known as "petit mal," similar facts are observed. A musician, who played the violin in an orchestra, was frequently sei^ied with the momentary loss of consciousness, incident to this affection, dur- ing the performance of a selection. "He con- tinued to play, however, and, although remain- ing in absolute ignorance of his surroundings, although he neither saw nor heard those whom he accompanied, he followed the measure."! In * Carpenter, " Mental Physiology," p. 75. t Trousseau, "Legons cliniciues," t. ii, xli, § 2. Many similar MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 19 such, cases it seems as if consciousness had taken upon itself the task of exposing its own peculiar sphere, of reducing its role to proper propor- tions, and of showing, by sudden absence, the supplementary part which it plays in the mech- anism of memory. We are now prepared to advance further and ask what modifications of the organization are necessary for the establishment of a memory ; what changes are undergone by the nervous sys- tem when a group of movements is definitively organized. We here reach the final question, warranted by facts, which can be propounded with regard to the organic bases of memory ; and, if organic memory is a property of animal life, of which psychological memory is only a particular phase, all that we are able to discover or conjecture with regard to its ultimate condi- tions will apply equally well to memory as a whole. It is impossible in such a research to avoid hypothesis. But, by evading all a priori con- ceptions, in holding rigidly to the facts, in rest- ing upon what we know of nervous action, we avoid any likelihood of gross error. Our hy- pothesis, moreover, is capable of incessant modi- fication. Finally, it will substitute in the mind, facts of interest will be found in this work. We shall return to it in speaking of the pathology of memory. 20 DISEASES OF MEMOBT. for a vague phrase upon the conservation and reproduction of memory, a clear representation of the extremely complex process which pro- duces and sustains it. The first point to be established is with re- gard to the seat of memory. This question can give no room for serious controversy. The law, as formulated by Bain, is that "the renewed feeling occupies the very same parts, and in the same manner, as the original feeling." To give a striking example : experiment shows that the persistent idea of a brilliant color fatigues the optic nerve. We know that the perception of a colored object is often followed by a consecutive sensation which shows us the object with the same outline, but in a complementary color. It may be the same in the memory. It leaves, although with less intensity, a consecutive image. If with closed eyes we keep before the imagina- tion a bright-colored figure for a long time, and then suddenly open the eyes upon a white sur- face, we may see for an instant the imaginary object with a complementary color. This fact, noted by Wundt, from whom we borrow it, proves that the nervous process is the same in both cases — ^in perception and in remembrance.* We now begia to see more clearly into the * For further details on this point, see Bain, " The Senses and the Intellect," p. 368. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 21 problem of tlie physiological conditions of mem- ory. These conditions are : 1. A particular modification impressed upon the nervons elements. 2. An association, a specific connection estab- lished between a given number of elements. This second condition has not received the attention which it merits, as we shall endeavor to show. To keep for the present to the organic mem- ory, let us take one of the secondary automatic movements which have served as a type, and consider what takes place during the period of organization ; let us take, for example, the move- ments of the lower limbs in locomotion. Each movement requires the operation of a certain number of muscles, tendons, joints, liga- ments, etc. These modifications — for the most part, at least — are transmitted to the sensorium. Whatever opinion may be held with regard to the anatomical conditions of muscular sensibil- ity, it is certain that the sensibility exists, and that it makes known the part of the body par- ticipating in a movement, and permits us to regulate it. What does this fact show ? It implies modi- fications received and conserved by a determined group of nervous elements.- "The movements that are instigated or actuated by a particular 22 DISEASES OF MEMORY. nervous center do, like the idea, leave behind them residua, which, after several repetitions, become so completely organized into the nature of the nervous center that the movements may henceforth be automatic."* "The residua of volitions, Uke the residua of sensations or ideas, remain ia the mind and render future volitions of a like kind more easy and more deiinite."t By this organization of residua, after the period of experiment of which we have spoken, we are able to execute movements with facility and in- creasing precision, until they finally become auto- matic. Submitting this familiar instance of organic memory to analysis, we see that it implies the two conditions mentioned above. The first is a particular modification im- pressed upon the nervous elements. As this has been often discussed, it need not detain us. But does the nervous fiber, in receiving an entirely new impression, retain a permanent modification ? This point is disputed. Some regard the nerves as simple conductors, whose constituent matter, disturbed for a moment, returns to a state of primitive equilibrium. Whether transmission is explained by longitudinal vibration in the axis- cylinder, or the chemical decomposition of pro- * Maudsley, " Physiology and Pathology of the Mind," p. 167. t Idem, p. 157. MEMOEY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 23 toplasm, it is difficult to believe tliat no trace remains. We find at least ia the nerve-cell an element vrhicli, by common consent, receives, stores up, and reacts. Now, an impression once received leaves its imprints. Hence, according to Maudsley, there is produced an aptitude, and vdth. tliat a difiEerentiation of tlie element, al- though, we have no reason to think that origi- nally it differed from homologous cells. "Every impression leaves a certain ineffaceable trace ; that is to say, molecules once disarranged and forced to vibrate in a different way can not re- turn exactly to their primitive state. If I brush the surface of water at rest with a feather, the liquid will not take again the form which it had before ; it may again present a smooth sur- face, but molecules will have changed places, and an eye of sufficient power would see traces of the passage of the feather. Organic mole- cules acquire a greater or less degree of aptitude for submitting to disarrangement. No doubt, if this same exterior force did not again act upon the same molecules, they would tend to return to their natural form ; but it is far otherwise if the action is several times repeated. In this case they lose, little by little, the power of re- turning to their original form, and become more and more closely identified with that which is forced upon them, until this becomes natural in 2i DISEASES OF MEMOEY. its turn, and they again obey tlie least cause that will set tliem ia vibration."* It is impossible to say in what this modifica- tion consists. Neither the microscope, nor re- agents, nor histology, nor histochemistry can re- veal it ; but facts and reason indicate that it takes place. The second condition, which consists in the establishment of stable associations between dif- ferent groups of nervous elements, has up to this time received but little attention. I do not find that contemporary authors even have realized its importance. It is, however, a neces- sary corollary to their thesis upon the seat of memory. Some seem to admit, at least by implications, that an organic or conscious remembrance is impressed upon a given cell, which, with its nervous filaments, has in a certain sense a monopoly of conservation and reproduction. I believe that this illusion has in part arisen through ittdefinite language, which leads us to regard a movement, a perception, an idea, an image, a sentiment, as one thing, as a unity. Reflection will show, however, that each of these supposed unities is composed of numer- ous and heterogeneous elements ; that it is an association, a group, a fusion, a complexus, a * DdbcBuf, "Th^orie g6ii6rale de la sensibilite," p. 60. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 25 multiplicity. To return to the example cited above — tliat of locomotion: each, movement may- be considered as reflex action of a very com- plicated order, of vrhich the contact of the foot with the ground is at every moment the initial impression. Let us take this movement in its complete form. Is the starting-point an act of voli- tion \ Then the impulse, originating, according to Ferrier, in a particular portion of the cortex, traverses the white substance, reaches the cor- pora striata, passes through the crura cerebri, thence to the complicated structure of the me- dulla, where it passes to the other side of the body, descending the anterior columns of the spinal cord to the lumbar region, and then along the motor nerves to the muscles. This transmission is followed by a return to the cerebral center, through the posterior columns of the cord and the gray matter, the meduUa, the pons varolii, the optic tract and the white substance, to the surface of the hemisphere. Take this movement in its abridged and ordi- nary form when its character is entirely auto- matic. Then the course is simply from the periphery to the cerebral ganglia, to return again to the periphery, the upper portion of the brain remaining inactive. This course — whose principal points have 26 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. been rougMy indicated, and all of whose details are not known, even by the most learned anato- mists — presupposes the activity of a very large number of nervous elements, all differing from one another. Thus the motor and sympathetic nerves differ in structure from those of the brain and spinal cord. The cells differ from one another in volume, in form, in arrangement, in the number of filaments, and in their posi- tion in the cerebro-spinal axis, since they ex- tend from the lower extremity of the spinal cord to the cerebral layers. Each of these ele- ments has a part to play. If the reader will cast his eyes over an anatomical chart or a few histological plates, he will obtain an approxi- mate idea of the immense number of nervous elements necessary for the production of a movement, and therefore for its conservation and reproduction. It is of the highest importance that attention should be given to this point, viz. : that organic memory supposes not only a modification of nervous elements, hut the formation among tJiem of determinate associations for each par- ticular act, the establishment of certain dy- namic affinities, which, by repetition, become as stable as the primitive anatomical connections. In our opinion, the important feature with re- gard to the basis of memory is not only the MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 27 modification impressed upon each, element, but tlie -manner in wMch a number of elements group themselves together and form a com- plexus. This point being to us of capital importance, we may be permitted to enlarge upon it. We may note first that our hypothesis — a necessary consequence of admitted facts concerning the seat of memory — really obviates certain difficul- ties while apparently introducing new complica- tions. The question arises whether each nerve- cell is able to retain several different modifica- tions ; or if, once modified, it is permanently polarized. Naturally, we fall back on conjec- ture. We must believe that, if each cell is capable of modifications, the number is limited. We may even admit that there is only one. The number of cerebral cells being, according to Meynert's calculations, 600,000,000 (and Sir Lionel Beale gives a much larger estimate), the hypothesis of a single impression is not unten- able. But this question has for us a secondary interest ; for, even admitting the last hypothesis — the most unfavorable for the explanation of the number and complexity of organized memo- ries — we see that this single modification may enter into different combinations, and produce different results. We must not only take into account each individual factor, but its relations 28 DISEASES OP MEMORY. and the resulting combinations. We may com- pare the modified cell to a letter of the alpha- bet; this letter, always preserving its own iden- tity, aids in the formation of millions of words in many languages, living and dead. By proper association, numerous and complex combinations may be derived from a small number of ele- ments. To return to our example of locomo- tion : organic memory, which forms its basis, consists of a particular modification of a great many nervous elements. But many of these ele- ments, so modified, may serve another purpose, enter into new combinations, and form another memory. The secondary aatomatic movements employed in swimming or dancing require cer- tain modifications of the muscles and articula- tions already used in locomotion, already regis- tered in certain nervous elements : they find, in fact, a memory already organized, many of whose elements are turned to their own use, causing them to enter into new combinations and concur in the formation of another memory. Note, again, that the necessity for a great number of cells and nerve-filaments for the con- servation and reproduction of a movement, how- ever simple, implies an equally great possibility of permanence. and revivification; in consequence of the number of elements, and the stability of their association, the chances of reanimation are MEMOEY AS A BIOLOGICAL TACT. 29 increased, each being able to contribute some- tMng to tlie revival of tlie others. FiaaUy, our hypothesis is in accord vsdth two facts of common observation. 1. An acquired movement, well fixed in the organism, well learned, is with difficulty replaced by another having nearly the same form, but re- quiring a different mechanism. It is a question of destroying one association and buUdiag up another ; of breaking telations already estab- lished and forming new ones. 2. It sometimes happens that in place of one accustomed movement we involuntarily produce another, which is explained by the fact that the same elements, entering into the different com- binations, are able to sustain discharges in dif- ferent directions, and that an infinitely smaU cir- cumstance suffices to set one group in action in place of another, and thus produce different results. On this theory we explain the following in- cident recorded by Lewes:* "I was one day relating a visit to the Epileptic Hospital, and, intending to name the friend. Dr. Bastian, who accompanied me, I said, 'Dr. Brinton,' then im- mediately corrected this with ' Dr. Bridges ' ; this also was rejected, and ' Dr. Bastian ' was pro- nounced. I was under no confusion whatever * Op. cit., p. 128. 30 DISEASES OF MEMOET. as to the persons, but, having imperfectly ad- justed the group of muscles necessary for the articulation of the one name, the one element which was common to that group and to the others, namely, B, served to recall all three." This explanation seems perfectly exact, and we again note with this author a well-known fact which will support our theory. "Who does not know how, in trying to recollect a name, we are tormented vrith the sense of its beginning with a certain letter, and how, by keeping this letter constantly before the mind, at last the whole group emerges?"* An analogous remark might be made concerning the acquired movements em- ployed in writing. It is a mistake which I have often observed myself when writing rapidly or vsdth a fatigued brain ; it is so brief, so quickly repaired, and so soon forgotten, that the ex- amples given were noted at once. Wishing to write " doit de honnes,''^ I wrote " donne.''^ Wish- ing to write "we pas /aire une part,''^ I vrrote " ne part /aire,'" etc., etc. Evidently in the first instance the letter D, and in the second the let- ter P (I" express by these symbols the psycho- physiological state which served as the basis of their conception and graphic reproduction) — in each instance the letter in question excited one group instead of another ; and this confusion * Op. cit., pp. 128, 129. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 31 was the easier since tlie remainder of the groups, " OTiwe," " ar^," were already consciously evolved. I believe that those who will take the trouble to observe carefully their own errors of this sort wiU not deny that the fact is of frequent occur- rence. It must not be forgotten that the preceding is an hypothesis ; but it apparently conforms to scientific data, and accounts for the facts. It permits the representation, in intelligible form, of the bases of organic memory, the acquired movements which constitute the memory of dif- ferent organs — the eyes, hands, arms, and legs. These bases do not, in our opinion, consist of a purely mechanical registration, or, according to a popular view, of an imprint, preserved we know not where, like that of the key on the sheet of paper. These are metaphors which have no place here. Memory is a biological fact. A rich and extensive memory is not a collection of impressions, but an accumulation of dynamical associations, very stable and very responsive to proper stimuli. II. We have now to consider a more complex form of memory — that which is accompanied by acts of consciousness, and which even many psychologists are apt to regard as constituting 32 DISEASES OE MEMOET. its entire function. Let ns see how far what has been said of organic memory is applicable here, and the added effect of consciousness it- self. In passing from the simple to the com- plex, from the lower to the higher, from the stable to the unstable form of memory, it is impossible to avoid the question as to the rela- tion between unconsciousness and consciousness. The problem is so involved in natural obscurity and artificial mysticism that it is almost impos- sible to deal with it in clear and positive terms. We will make the attempt, however. It is very evident at the beginning that we have no concern with the metaphysics of uncon- sciousness as conceived by Hartmann and oth- ers. We may even declare at once that we see no way of explaining the transition from uncon- sciousness to consciousness. We may indulge in plausible and ingenious hypotheses, but nothing more. However, psychology as a practical sci- ence has nothing to fear. It takes certain states of consciousness for granted, without occupying itself with their genesis. All that it can do is to determine some of the conditions in which they exist. The first of these conditions is the mode of activity of the nervous system termed by physi- ologists the nervous discharge. But the greater portion of nervous states either do not assist in MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 33 the evolution of consciousness, or contribute to it in a very indirect vs^ay ; for instance, tlie ex- citations and discharges in the great sympathet- ic ; the normal action of the vaso-motor nerves ; many of the reflex nerves, etc. Others are accompanied by consciousness at intermittent stages ; or, being conscious in early life, cease to be so in the adult state ; the secondary au- tomatic actions, of vs^hich we have spoken, are examples. Nervous activity is much more ex- tended than psychical activity ; every psychical action presupposes a nervous action, but the re- verse is by no means true. Betvreen that form of nervous activity which is never, or hardly ever, accompanied by consciousness, and the form of nervous activity which is always, or nearly always, so accompanied — between these two classes lies a third, where consciousness is sometimes present and sometimes absent. In this group unconsciousness is to be studied. Before proceeding farther with this subject, let us consider again two conditions of the ex- istence of consciousness — intensity, and duration. 1. Intensity is a condition of extremely vari- able character. States of consciousness are con- tinually striving to supplant it, but the victory may result either from the strength of the vic- tor or the weakness of the other combatants. We know — and this point has been made very 4 34 DISEASES OF MEMOET. clear by Herbart and others — that the most exalted state may continue to decrease until the threshold of consciousness is passed — that is to say, until one of the conditions of existence fails. We are justified in saying that there may be every possible degree of consciousness, as small as desired, to the lowest modality — conditions named by Maudsley subconscious — but there is no authority for believing that this decrease has no limit, even although it escapes us. 2. Little attention has been paid to dura- tion as a necessary condition of consciousness. It is, however, of capital importance. Here we are able to reason from exact data. Thirty years of investigation have determined the time required for different perceptions (sound, 0"-16, kjo 0"-14; touch, 0"-21 to 0"-18 ; Hght, 0"-20 to '0"'22; for the simplest act of discernment, the nearest to reflex action, 0"-02 to 0"-04). Al- though the results vary with the person, the cir- cumstances, and the nature of the psychical acts under investigation, it is at least proved that every psychical act requires an appreciable du- ration of time, and that "the infinite speed of thought" is only a metaphor. This knovsTi, it is evident that every nervous action whose du- ration is less than that required for psychical action can not arouse consciousness. In this MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 35 connection it is instructive to examine the nerv- ous action accompanying a state of purely re- flex consciousness. According to Exner,* the physiological time necessary for a reflex action must be from 0"-0662 to 0" -0578 — a number much less than those given above for different orders of perception. If, as Herbert Spencer says, the wing of a fly makes from ten to fifteen thousand vibrations per second, f and each vibration implies a separate nervous action, we have an example of a nervous state whose ra- pidity is astounding, compared with which a nervous state accompanied by consciousness oc- cupies an enormous period of time. As a result of the foregoing, it is evident that every state of consciousness necessarily occupies a certain duration, and that an essential condition of con- sciousness is wanting when the duration of the nervous process falls below this minimum.:]: *Pfluger's "Archiv.," viii (1874), p. 526. The duration of reflex action varies with the exciting force, and according to whether transmission in the spinal cord is longitudinal or trans- verse. This subject is far from being exhausted. t According to Marey, the wing of a fly vibrates only 330 times per second. Tiiis discrepancy, however, does not affect the validity of our reasoning. X The determination of the duration of psychical acts will throw much light upon facts connected with mental activity. In my opinion, it will ^Iso contribute to the explanation of the changes from consciousness to unconsciousness in acquired move- ments. An act is first executed slowly and consciously ; by repe- tition we gain ease and rapidity; that is, the nervous process 36 DISEASES OF MEMORY. The question of unconsciousness is only vague and embarrassed by contradictory opinions be- cause badly stated. If we consider conscious- ness as an essence, a fundamental property of the mind, all is obscure ; if we consider it as a phenomenon having its own conditions of ex- istence, all becomes clear, and unconsciousness is no longer a mystery. It must not be forgot- ten that a state of consciousness is a complex modality reqiiiring a particular condition of the nervous system ; that this nervous action is not accessory, but an integral part of the given state — ^its basis, the fundamental condition of its existence ; that, from the moment it is pro- duced, this state exists in and of itself ; that when consciousness is added the state still exists in and of itself ; that consciousness completes, finishes, but does not constitute it. If one of the conditions of consciousness is wanting, whether intensity, or duration, or others of which we are ignorant, a part of this complex phenome- non — consciousness — disappears ; but another part — the nervous process — remains. There is left of the action only its organic phase. It is not surprising, then, that, later on, results of cerebral activity should become manifest ; wMoh serves as a base, finding a path already marted out, moves more rapidly, until it gradually falls below the minimum neces- sary for consciousness. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 37 they already existed, but in an undeveloped form. This understood, everything that pertains to unconscious activity loses its mysterious charac- ter and is explained with the greatest ease: for instance, the spontaneous acts of memory, which appear to be incited by no association, and which are experienced daily by every one ; a student's lessons, read at night and found to be fully mas- tered the following day ; problems long pondered over, whose solution suddenly flashes on the con- sciousness ; poetic, scientific, and mechanical in- ventions ; strange feelings of sympathy or antipa- thy, etc. Unconscious cerebration does its work noiselessly, and sets obscure ideas in order. In a curious case related by Dr. Holmes * and cited by Carpenter, a man had a vague knowledge of the work going on in his brain, without attaiaing to the state of distinct consciousness: "A busi- ness man in Boston, . . . having an important question under consideration, had given it up for the time as too much for him. But he was conscious of an action going on in his brain which was so unusual and painful as to excite his apprehensions that he was threatened with palsy, or something of that sort. After some hours of this uneasiness, his perplexity was all at once cleared up by the natural solution of his * " Mechanism in Thought and Morals," p. 47. 38 DISEASES OF MEMOET. doubts coming to Mm— worked out, as lie be- lieved, in that obscure and troubled interval." * In summing up, we may picture the nervous system as traversed by continuous discharges. Among these nervous actions some respond to the endless rhythm of the vital functions ; others, fewer in number, to the succession of states of consciousness ; still others, by far the most nu- merous, to unconscious cerebration. Six hundred millions (or twelve hundred millions) of cells, and four or five thousands of millions of fibers, even deducting those in repose or which remain inac- tive during a lifetime, offer a sufficient contin- gent of active elements. The brain is like a laboratory full of movement, where thousands of occupations are going on at once. Unconscious cerebration, not being subject to restrictions of time, operating, so to speak, only in space, may act in several directions at the same moment. * Carpenter, " Mental Physiology," p. 533. The whole chapter contains interesting facts with regard to nnoonsoious cerebration. A mathematician, a friend of the author, was occupied with a geometrical problem whose solution he failed of obtaining after a number of trials. Several years later the correct solution flashed upon his mind so suddenly that he " trembled as if in the pres- ence of another being who had communicated the secret " (p. 536). If any one wishes to behold the spectacle of a powerful and penetrating mind hampered by a bad method, let him read Sir William Hamilton's remarkable study on " Latency " (" Lectures on Metaphysics," v. i, Lect. xviii). "With his theory of the psy- chical faculties, and his willful neglect of physiology, he was un- able to cope with such questions. MEMOPvY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 39 Consciousness is tlie narrow gate tkrough. wMch a very small part, of aU tMs work is able to reach, ns. We have just determined the relation of con- sciousness to unconsciousness ; in the same man- ner we may know the relation of psychical mem- ory to organic memory : one is only a special phase of the other. What has been said of physiological memory applies in a general way to conscious memory ; only a single factor is added. It is worth while, however, to take up the question anew and consider it in detail. The subject has again a twofold aspect : we are to examine into the residua, and the manner in which they are associated. I. The old theories upon memory, having re- gard only to its psychological meaning, assigned as its base "vestiges," "traces," or "residua," and often used these terms in an equivocal sense. Sometimes it was a question of material imprints on the brain, sometimes of latent modifications stored up in the "mind." Those who adopted the last view were logical. But this theory, al- though it has many supporters among those who ignore physiology, is untenable. A state of con- sciousness which is not consciousness, a represen- tation which is not represented, is a -purejlatus vocis. Take away from anything that which constitutes its reality, and you reduce it to a 40 DISEASES OF MEMOET. possibility; that is to say, when the conditions of existence reappear, it will reappear; which brings ns back to the theory advanced above with regard to unconsciousness. With us the problem of "psychological re- sidua " is solved in advance ; if every state of consciousness implies as an integral part a ner- vous action, and, if this action produces a per- manent modification of the nervous centers, the state of consciousness wiU also be recorded in the same place and manner. The objection may be raised, indeed, that a state of consciousness implies a nervous action and something more. But that does not affect our position. If the primitive nervous state — that which responds to perception — is sufficient to sustain this "some- thing more," the secondary nervous state — that which responds to remembrance — is also suffi- cient. The conditions are the same iu each in- stance, and the solution of the difficulty, if a solution is possible, must be sought in a theory of perception, not in a theory of memory. This psycho - physiological residue we may style with Wundt a disposition, and note with him in what it differs from an imprint. "Analo- gies borrowed from the domain of physiology emphasize this difference. When the eye is ex- posed to iatense light, the sense-impression per- sists in the form of a consecutive image. The MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 41 eye, each, day comparing and measuring distances and relations in space, gains more and more in precision. The consecutive image is an imprint ; the accommodation of the eye, its faculty of measurement, is a functional disposition. It may be that, in the case of the unexercised eye, the retina and the muscles are constituted the same as in the exercised organ, but there is la the second a disposition much more marked than in the first. No doubt the physiological tendency of any organ depends less upon its modifica- tions, properly so called, than upon the imprints which remain in its nervous centers. But all physiological study relative to the phenomena of habit, adaptation to given conditions, etc., shows that these same imprints consist essentially in functional dispositions."* II. These considerations bring us to the point upon which we wish to lay particular stress. Dynamical associations have a much more im- portant part to play in conscious memory than in organic -memory. We might repeat here what has been said before ; but the question has been studied so little from this stand-point that it will be better to consider it in another form. Each of us has in his consciousness a certain number of recollections : images of men, ani- mals, cities, countries, facts of history, or sci- * " Grundzilge der philoaophischen Psychologie," p. 791. 42 DISEASES OF MEMORY. ence or language. These recollections come back to us in the form of a more or less extended series. The formation of these series has been very clearly explained by the laws of association between different states of consciousness. We are now concerned, not with the series, but with their component terms. Let us analyze a state of simple consciousness and discern its complex meaning. Take as one of these terms the memory of an apple. According to the verdict of conscious- ness, this is a simple fact. Physiology shows that this verdict is an illusion. The memory of an apple is necessarily a weakened form of the perception of an apple. What does this percep- tion suppose ? A modification of the complex structure of the retina, transmission by the optic nerve through the corpora geniculata and the tubercula cLuadrigemina to the cerebral ganglia (optic tract?), then through the white substance to the cortex. This supposes the activity of many widely separated elements. But this is by no means aU. It is not a question of a simple sensation of color. We see, or imagine, the apple as a solid object having a spherical form. These conceptions result from the ex- quisite muscular sensibility of our visual ap- paratus and from its movements. Now, the movements of the eye are regulated by several MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 43 nerves — the sympatlietic, tlie oculo-motor, and its branches. Each, of these nerves has its own ter- mination, and is connected by a devious conrse with the outer cerebral layer, where the motor intuitions, according to Maudsley, are formed. We simply indicate outlines. For further details the reader should consult standard works on anatomy and physiology. But we have given an idea of the prodigious number of nervous fila- ments and distinct communities of cells scat- tered through the different parts of the cerebro- spinal axis, which serve as a basis for the psy- chical state known as the memory of an apple, and which the double illusion of consciousness and language leads us to consider as a simple fact. Is it said that visual perception is too com- plex, and proves too much in favor of our the- ory? Then take the recoEection of a word. If it is a written word it is again a question of visual perception, and is allied to the instance already cited. But if we take a spoken word we find the complexity equally great. Articulate language supposes the intervention of the larynx, the pharynx, the lips, the nasal fossa, and, conse- quently, of many nerves having centers in differ- ent parts of the brain— the spinal, the facial, and the hypoglossal. If we include auditory impressions in the memory of words, the compli- 44 DISEASES OF MEMOET. cation is greater stiU. Then tlie cerebral center must be united witb Broca's convolution and the island of Eeil, universally considered as tlie psy- cMcal center of speecb. We tbus see tbat the case does not differ from tbe preceding, either in nature Or complexity, and tbat tbe memory of every word must bave as its basis a determi- nate association of nervous elements.* It is unnecessary to dwell upon tbis point. Wbat has been said sbows tbe importance of tbe associations wbicb I call tbe dynamic bases of memory, tbe modifications impressed upon tbe elements being tbe static bases. Examples of more simple cases migbt be given, but tbey would be superfluous. Tbe memory conserves and reproduces real, concrete states of conscious- ness ; we must therefore consider tbem as sucb, and cboose our illustrations from tbat order of phenomena. Psychological analysis and idea- logical analysis may, each in its own province, descend to ultimate elements ; it is a useful work to investigate tbe genesis of states of conscious- ness: here we consider them as already formed. When we begin to talk we use simple words ; later, isolated phrases. For a long time we do * Forbes Winslow (" On the Obscure Diseases of the Brain and Disorders of tlie Mind," 4th edition, p. 257) cites the case of a soldier who was trepanned, losing in the operation some portion of the brain. He forgot the numbers five and s«»era, and was not able to recollect them for a considerable time. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 45 not realize that these words are made up of sim- ple elements ; many are always ignorant of the fact. Consciousness, which is an interior voice, is regulated -by the same laws. The apparently simple is, on analysis, found to be complex. There can be no doubt that these simple states, which are the alphabet of consciousness, require for their conservation and reproduction certain nervous collocations. The facts already cited relative to letters and syllables offer sufficient proof. There is another more curious. "A man of scholastic attainments," says Forbes Winslow, "lost, after an attack of acute fever, all knowl- edge of the letter F." * If, then, we would comprehend a "good mem- ory," and translate this expression into physio- logical terms, we must imagine a great number of nervous elements, each modified in a special manner, each forming part of a distinct associ- ation and probably ready to enter into others ; and each of these associations contaimng within itself the conditions essential to the existence of states of consciousness. Memory has, then, static and dynamic bases. Its power is in ratio with their number and stability. * Op. cit, p. 238. The author does not tell us whether it was the articulate sound or the written sign ; or whether the patient recovered. 46 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. III. We have now to study the real character of psychical memory to determine what alone be- longs to a mental phase which, retaining all its essential parts and organic conditions, consti- tutes the most complex, the highest, and the most unstable form of memory. This, in the language of the schools, is called recollection. I shall call it localization in time, since the term implies no theory and is only a simple expres- sion of facts. There are few questions which the scholastic method has embarrassed with more difficulties and factitious explanations. It will therefore be well to state in a few words how we regard the problem and its solution. Localization in time (for instance, the recollec- tion of something that happened, at what time and in what place) is not a primitive act. It supposes, aside from the principal state of con- sciousness, secondary states, variable in number and degree, which, by their groupings, operate as determinate causes. In our opinion the mechan- ism of recollection is best explained by the mechanism of vision. The distinction between primitive and acquired sight-perceptions has been recognized since the time of Berkeley. We know that the primitive impression is that of color; that the secondary MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 47 impressions are those of direction, extent, and form ; that the first depends upon the sensibility of the retina, while the latter depend upon the muscular sensibility of the eye ; and, finally, that through habit the primitive and the acquired are so confounded as to form in a general sense but one act, simple and immediate — although analy- sis, experiment, and pathological observation prove the contrary. It is the same with mem- ory. First we have the primitive state of con- sciousness as a simple existence ; secondary states of consciousness which follow and which provide the ideas of relation and judgment, localize it at a certain distance in the past ; so that we may define memory as a vision in time. The phe- nomena thus outlined must now be considered more in detail. The theoretical explanation of localization in time starts with the law, enunciated by Dugald Stewart and admirably explained by Taine, that imaginary acts are always accompanied by the belief (at least for the moment) in the existence of the corresponding reality.* This illusion, which exists in the highest degree in hallucina- tion, vertigo, and dreams (for want of real per- ceptions to correct it) also exists, although in a less degree, in all states of consciousness. I * Taine," De I'Intelligence," 1" partie, livre ii, ch. i, § 3. — A collection of facts which leave no doubt upon the subject. 48 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. shall not now speak of tlie meclianism tlirougli wMcli a conscious state is deprived of its object- ive reality and reduced to a purely mental per- ception, but refer tlie reader to the explanations given by M. Taine.* These instances, however, are not recollections. So long as an image, whatever its content (wheth- er it represent a house, or a mechanical inven- tion, or a sentiment), remaius isolated as if sus- pended in consciousness, with no relation to other states having a fixed position, incapable of classification — so long we regard it as a present existence. But among these mental images some have the power, from the moment they enter into consciousness, of pushing out ramifications in different directions and sustaining states which connect them with the present, and by which they appear to us as parts of a more or less ex- tended series ; in other words, they are localized in time. I shall not attempt to determine whether memory is a postulate of the idea of time, or whether the idea of time is a postulate of mem- ory ; or whether time is a form d priori of mind ; or whether it is explicable by experi- .luental reasoning. These questions belong to the criticism of consciousness, and not to empirical psychology. The latter is not concerned with * Op. cit. — particularly the second part, livre i, ch. ii. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 49 critical or ontological discussions. It states as a simple fact that time implies memory, and that memory implies time. This is sufficient, and, being admitted, the question arises, How do we localize a given event in time? Theoretically, in only one way. We deter- mine position in time as we determine position in space— by reference to a fixed point, which, in the case of time, is the present. It must be observed that the present is a real existence, which has a given duration. However brief it may be, it is not, as the language of metaphor would lead us to believe, a flash, a nothing, an abstraction analogous to a mathematical point. It has a beginning and an end. But its begin- ning does not appear to us as an absolute be- ginning. It touches upon something with which it forms continuity. When we read or hear a sentence, for example, at the commencement of the fifth word something of the fourth stiU re- mains. Each state of consciousness is only pro- gressively effaced ; it leaves an evanescent trace, similar to that which, in the physiology of sight, is called an after-sensation. Hence, the fourth and fifth words are in continuity ; the end of the one impinges upon the beginning of the other. That is the important fact. There is not an indeterminate contiguity of two scmie- things ; but the initial point of one actual state 50 DISEASES OF MEMOBT. touclies the final point of the anterior state. If this simple fact is thoroughly understood, the theoretical mechanism of localization in time will be ecLually clear, for it is evident that the retro- gressive transition may exist as weU between the fourth word and the third, and that, each state of consciousness having its individual duration, the number of states so traversed, and the sum of their duration, will give the position of any state whatever with reference to the present, or its distance in time. Such is the theoretical mechanism of localization, namely, a retrogres- sive movement, which, startiag from the present, traverses a more or less extended series of terms. Practically, we have recourse to processes much more simple and expeditious. Rarely do we make this retrograde passage through all the intermediate terms, or even the greater part of them. Our way is facilitated by the use of ref- erence points. I wUl cite a familiar instance. On the 30th of November I am looking for a book of which I have great need. It is coming from a distance, and its transportation wall re- quire at least twenty days. Did I send for it in time? After a little hesitation I remember that my order was given on the eve of a short journey, whose date I can fix ia a precise man- ner as Sunday, the 9th of November. With this, recollection is complete. In analyzing this MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 51 case, we observe tliat tlie principal state of con- sciousness — the order for tlie book — ^is first thrown into the past in an indeterminate manner. It arouses secondary states, compares them, and places itself before or after. "The image travels back and forth along the line of the past ; every phrase mentally pronounced gives it a new im- petus."* After a number of oscillations, more or less extended, it finds its place ; it is fixed, remembered. In this example the recollection of the journey is what I designate as a reference point. I understand by reference point an event, a state of consciousness, whose position in time we know — that is to say, its distance from the present moment, and by which we can measure other distances. These reference points are states of consciousness which, through their intensity, are able to survive oblivion, or, through their complexity, are of a nature to sustain many relations and to augment the chances of revivi- fication. They are not arbitrarily chosen ; they obtrude upon us. Their value is entirely rela- tive. They are for an hour, a day, a week, a month ; then, no longer used, they are forgot- ten. They have, as a general thing, a distinct in- dividuality ; some of them, however, are common * Taine, O'p. cit, second part, liv. i, oh. ii, § 7. An excellent analysis of a similar example will be found in this place. 52 DISEASES OE MEMORY. to a family, a society, or a nation. These refer- ence points form for each, of us different series corresponding to the events that make up our life : daily occupations, domestic incidents, pro- fessional work, scientific investigations, etc., the series becoming more numerous as the life of the individual is more varied. These reference points are like mile-stones or guide-posts placed along the route, vrhich, starting from a central place, diverge in different directions. There is always this peculiarity : that the series may, so to speak, be placed in juxtaposition and com- pared one with another. It remains for us to show how these reference points permit us to simplify the mechanism of localization. The impression which we call a reference point returning, by hypothesis, very often to consciousness, is very often compared with the present according to its position iu time — that is to say, intermediate states which sep- arate them are more or less completely revived. As a result, the position of a reference point is, or seems to be (for we shall see further on that aU recollection implies an illusion), better and better known. By repetition this localization becomes immediate, instantaneous, automatic. The process is analogous to the formation of acquired states (habits). The intermediate terms disappear because they are useless. The series MEMOEY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 53 is reduced to two terms, and these two terms suffice, since their distance in time is known. Without this abridged process and the disap- pearance of a prodigious number of terms, lo- calization in time would be very long and tedi- ous, and restricted to very narrow limits. By its aid, as soon as the image is formed, its primary localization is instantaneous ; it is placed between two landmarks — the present and some given point of reference. The process is con- cluded after a few trials, often laborious, some- times fruitless, and perhaps never precise. If the reader will study carefully his own recollections, I do not believe that he will raise any serious objections to what has just been said. He will, moreover, note how this mech- anism resembles that of localization in space. Here, also, we have our reference points, abridged methods, and well-known distances which we employ as units of measurement. It will not be unprofitable to show ia a few words that localization in the future is executed ia an analogous manner. Our knowledge of the future can only be a copy of the past. I find only two categories of facts: those which are a reproduction, pure and simple, of what has oc- curred at similar epochs, in the same places under like circumstances ; and those which consist of inductions, deductions, or conclusions, drawn 54: DISEASES OF MEMOEY. from the past, but produced by tlie logical work- ing of the mind. Outside of these two categories everything is possible, but everything is un- known. Evidently the first class most nearly resembles memory, since it is a simple reproduction of what has been. A man is in the habit of going every year to pass the month of September at a coun- try house. In the middle of vnnter he sees it vnth all its surroundings, inhabitants, and charac- teristic activity. This image is at first indeter- minate ; it is equally an object of remembrance and of the future. Then it glides away from the present through winter, spring, and summer ; finally it is localized. The course of the year, with its succession of seasons, j^^e,?, and changes of occupation, provides reference points. The mechanism differs from .that of memory only in one respect : we pass from the termination of the present to the beginning of the follovsdng state. We do not proceed, as in recollection, from beginning to end, but from end to begin- ning. Theoretically, we traverse in this invari- able order all intermediate states ; in fact, only the reference points. The mechanism is the same as that employed in memory, only it acts in a different direction. To recapitulate : setting aside verbal explana- tions, we find that recollection is not a " facul- MEMORY AS A BIOLO&IOAL FACT. 55 ty," but a fact, and that this fact is a result of aggregate conditions. As with recollection, lo- calization in time varies through every possible degree according to the conditions. At the highest stage of development are the reference points ; below those, rapid and precise recollec- tions, located almost as quickly ; one degree lower, those which cause hesitation, requiring an appreciable time ; lower yet, laborious recollec- tions, only attained by trial and stratagem ; final- ly, in some instances, the labor is useless, and our indecision is translated into such phrases as, "It seems to me that I have seen that form!" " Did I dream that ? " One step more, and local- ization is entirely wanting ; the image, denied an abiding place, wanders in devious mazes, incapa- ble of rest. There are many examples of this last case, and they are found in the least ex- pected forms. Through the effects of disease or old age, celebrated men have been unable to rec- ognize cherished works of their own production. Toward the close of his life Lianseus took great pleasure in perusing his own books, and when reading would cry out, forgetting that he was the author, " How beautiful ! What would I not give to have written that ! " A similar anecdote is told of Newton and the discovery of the dif- ferential calculus. "Walter Scott as he grew old was subject to similar forgetfulness. One day 56 DISEASES OF MEMOET. some one recited in Ms presence a poem wMcli pleased Mm much. ; lie asked the author's name ; it was a canto from his "Pirate." Ballantyne, who acted as Ms secretary and wrote Ms life, ha^ related in the most circumstantial manner how the greater part of "Ivanhoe" was dic- tated during a severe illness. The book was fin- ished and printed before the author was able to leave Ms bed. He retained no remembrance of it, except the main conception of the romance, which had been thought of prior to the attack. In a case cited by Forbes Winslow, the im- age is apparently waiting to be seized and local- ized ; it is on the edge of recognition ; the smallest aid would suffice, but is wanting. A lady was driving out with the poet Rogers, then mnety years old, and asked Mm after an ac- quaintance whom he could not recollect. "He pulled the checkstring, and appealed to his ser- vant. ' Do I know Lady M. ? ' The reply was, 'Yes, sir.' This was a painful moment to us both. Taking my hand, he said, 'Never mind, my dear, I am not yet compelled to stop the carriage and ask if I know you.'"* A much, more instructive instance is recorded * Laycock, " Organic Laws of Personal and Ancestral Mem- ory," p. 19 ; Carpenter, op. cit., p. 444 ; Ballantyne, " Life of Walter Scott," ch. xliv; Spring, " Symptomology," vol. ii; Forbes WLnslow, op. eit., p. 247. MEMOEY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 57 by Macaulay in Ms essay on Wycherley, whose memory, lie tells us, was "at once preternatu- rally strong and preternatnrally weak" in his declining years. If anything was read to him at night, he awoke the next morning with a mind overflowing with the thoughts and expres- sions heard the night before ; and he wrote them down with the best faith in the world, nothing doubting that they were his own. Here the mech- anism of memory was plainly dissevered ; pa- thology provides us with an explanation. Inter- preting the case according to principles already laid down, we should say : The modification im- pressed upon the cerebral cells was persistent ; the dynamical associations of the nervous ele- ments were stable ; the state of consciousness connected with each was evolved ; these states of consciousness were reassociated and consti- uted a series (phrases or verses). Then the men- tal operation was suddenly arrested. The series aroused no secondary state ; they remained iso- lated with nothing to connect them with the pres- ent, with nothing by which they might be located in time. They remained in the condition of illu- sions ; they seemed to be new because no con- comitant state impressed upon them the imprint of the past. Localization in time is so far from being a simple, primitive, instantaneous act, that it often 58 DISEASES OF MEMORY. requires an appreciable interval, even for con- sciousness. In cases where it is apparently in- stantaneous its rapidity is a result of repetition. The eye judges in the same way of the distances of objects, and it is probable that, in the case of a nascent memory as in that of nascent vision, localization is never instantaneous.* We have found, in fact, in the highest form of memory only one new operation — localization in time. In conclusion it remains for us to show the relatively illusory character of this process. I recaU at this moment very vividly a visit which I made a year ago to an old chateau in Bo- hemia. The visit lasted two hours. To-day I go over it again readily in imagiaation. I enter by the great door, I traverse in order courts, cor- ridors, halls, and chapels ; I see again the frescos and decorations ; I find my way Avith ease through the labyrinth of the old castle to the moment of departure. But it is impossible for me to con- ceive of this imaginary visit as. lasting two hours. * Note again what happens when events are frequently re- peated. I have made the journey from Paris to Brest a hundred times. All the images are superimposed, forming an indistinct mass ; they are aU, properly speaking, in the same vague state. Only those journeys marked hy an important event appear as recollections; those alone which awaken secondary states of consciousness are localized in time, or rememhered. It wiU be noted that our explanation of the mechanism of recollection corresponds with that given by Taine, op. cit., second part, liv. i, oh. ii, § 6. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 69 It seems much, more brief, and tlie difference would be greater still if tlie same time had been occupied in some analogous way, or in agreeable company. If we declare the two periods to be equal, it is because we put our faith in a time- piece rather than ia the testimony of conscious- ness. AU recollection, however clear it may be, un- dergoes an enormous contraction ; this fact is in- disputable and invariable. The law is confirmed by scientific experiments applied to very simple cases where the chances of error are very small. Vierordt has shown that if we endeavor to im- agine fractions of a second, our idea of the given duration is always too large ; the contrary is true when it is a question of several minutes or several hours. To study the duration of these small in- tervals he caused an assistant to observe for a certain time the beatings of a pendulum, and then-- to imitate them as closely as possible. The inter- val of the imitated series was always too long when the original interval was short, too short when the original was long. * With complex states of consciousness, the error increases ; and the problem is the more dif- * Vierordt, " Der Zeitsinn naoh Versnchen," 36-111. Analo- gous experiments by H. Weber on visual perceptions, " Tastsinn und GemeingefilM," 8T. See, also, Hermann's "Handbuch der Physiologie," 1879, v. ii, second part, p. 282. 60 DISEASES OF MEMORY. ficult of exact solution since the contraction does not follow any appreciable law. We can not say that it is proportional to distance in time ; indeed, we may assume the contrary. If I represent the past ten years of my life by a line one metre long, the last year would extend over three or four decimetres ; the fifth, very eventful, would occu- py two decimetres ; and the other eight would be compressed into the remaining space. In history the same illusion is noticeable. Certaia centuries appear to be longer than others ; and, if I am not mistaken, the period extending back from our day to the taking of Constantiao- ple seems longer that that which extends from the last-named event to the First Crusade, although, chronologically speaking, the two are very nearly equal. This impression is probably due to the fact that the first is better known, and that our personal recollections are mingled with it. In proportion as the present supplants the past, states of consciousness disappear and are ef- faced. After a short time but little remains ; the greater part are veiled in an oblivion whence they never emerge, and they take with them the quan- tity of duration inherent in each ; consequently, the elimination of states of consciousness is an elimination of time. Kow, the abbreviated pro- cesses of which we have spoken suppose such elimination. If, to reach a distant recollection, it MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 61 were necessary to traverse tlie entire series of in- tervening terms, memory would be impossible, because of tlie length of time required for tlie operation. * We arrive, tben, at this paradoxical conclu- sion : that one condition of memory is f orgetful- ness. Without the total obliteration of an im- mense number of states of consciousness, and the momentary repression of many more, recollection would be impossible. Forgetfulness, except in certaia cases, is not a disease of memory, but a condition of health and life. We discover here a striking analogy with two essential vital processes. To live is to acquire and lose ; life consists of dis- solution as well as assimilation. Forgetfulness is dissolution. Knowledge of the past (and here we are led back to the functions of vision) may also be compared to a picture of a distant landscape, at once deceptive and exact, since its very exacti- * Aberorombie ("Inquiries Concerning the Intellectual Pow- ers," p. 101) furnishes a proof: " The late Dr. Leyden was re- markable for his memory. I am informed, through a gentleman who was intimately acquainted with him, that he could repeat correctly a long act of Parliament, or any similar document, after having once read it. When he was, on one occasion, congratu- lated by a friend for his remarkable power in this respect, he re- plied that, instead of an advantage, it was often a source of great inconvenience. This he explained by saying that, when he wished to recollect a particular point in anything which he had read, he could do it only by repeating to himself the whole /roTO the com- mencement till he reached the point which he wished to recall." 62 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. tude is derived from illusion. If we could com- pare our past, as it has really been, fixed before us objectively, with the subjective representation which we have in memory, we would find the copy formed upon a particular system of projec- tion : each of us is able to find his way without trouble in this system, because he has himself created it. IV. Having thus traced the development of mem- ory to its highest point, we will now follow the inverse order and return to the proposition from which we started. This return is necessary that we may show for the second time that memory consists of a variable process of organization be- tween two extreme limits: a new state — organic registration. There is no form of mental activity more strongly in favor of the theory of evolu- tion. From this point of view, and from this alone, are we able to comprehend the nature of memory ; we see that its study is not only a physiology, but something more — a morphology — that is to say, a history of transformations. Let us take up the subject, then, at the point at which we left it. A new acquisition of the mind, more or less complex, is revived for the first or second time. These recollections are the most unstable elements of memory — so unstable that many disappear for ever; such are the MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 63 greater number of incidents coming daily witMn our observation. However clear and intense these recollections may be, they have a minimum of organization. But on each return, whether vol- untary or involuntary, they gain in stability ; the tendency to organization is accentuated. Below this group of fully conscious and un- organized recollections we find another group, conscious and semi-organized — for example, a language that we are learning, a scientific theory or a manual art that we have only partly mas- tered. Here the distinctively individual charac- ter of the first group is effaced ; recollection be- comes more and more impersonal ; it becomes objective. Localization in time disappears, be- cause it is useless. Here and there isolated terms retain personal impressions which are localized. I remember having learned such a German or English word, in such a city, under such circum- stances. This is a survival, the mark of an an- terior state, an original imprint. Little by little it is effaced, and this term assumes the common- place impersonal character of all the others. This knowledge of a science, a language, or an art, becomes more and more persistent. It withdraws progressively from the psychical sphere and approaches nearer and nearer to the nature of an organic memory. Such, in the case of an adult, is the memory of his mother tongue. 64: DISEASES OF MEMORY. Still lower, we come upon a completely organ- ized and almost unconscious memory, such as that of an expert musician, of a workman who has mastered his trade, or of an accomplished ballet-dancer. And yet all this belongs, strictly speaking and in the ordinary meaning of the word, to a fully conscious memory. We may go lower still. The exercise of each of our faculties (sight, touch, locomotion) implies a completely organized memory. But this is so much a part of our natural selves that few sus- pect with what difficulty it has been accLuired. It is the same with a multitude of opinions in daily life. "No one remembers that the object at which he is looking has an opposite side ; or that a certain modification of the visual impres- sion implies a certain distance ; or that a certain motion of the legs will move him forward ; or that the thing which he sees moving about is a live animal. It would be thought a misuse of language were any one to ask another whether he remembered that the sun shines, that fire burns, that iron is hard, and that ice is cold." * And yet we repeat, aU this in a nascent intelli- gence belongs to memory in the strictest sense. It is not necessary to add that the preceding * Spencer, " Principles of Psyciology," part iv, ch. vi, § 192. This chapter is very important with regard to memory considered as a product of evolution. MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 65 is an ideal sketcli, a scheme. It would be doubly illusory to endeavor to circumscribe clear- ly an evolution wMch. takes place by iasensible transitions, and wMch, moreover, varies with each individual. Can we go farther ? We can. Below the com- pound reflex impressions representing organic memory at its lowest term there are simple re- flex impressions. These, resulting from innate anatomical conditions, have been acquired and fixed by long-continued experience in the evolu- tion of species. We thus pass from individual to hereditary memory, which is a specific mem- ory. It is enough to indicate this hypothesis. In fact, we see that it is impossible to deter- mine where memory — whether psychical or or- ganic — ends. In what we designate under the collective name of memory there are series hav- ing every degree of organization, from a nascent state, to that which is most highly developed. There is an incessant transition from the unsta- ble to the stable, from a state of consciousness with indeterminate acquisition to an organic state the acquisition fixed. Thanks to this con- tinual movement toward organization, there is a simplification, an order, which leaves room for the highest form of thought. Left to itself, with no opposing forces, the process of registration would tend to the progressive destruction of 66 DISEASES OF MEMORY. consciousness, and would transform man into an automaton. Suppose a human adult so situated tliat all new states of consciousness — perceptions, ideas, images, sentiments, desires — are not retained ; then the series of conscious states constituting each form of psychical activity will in time be- come so well organized that aU his acts will be entirely automatic. Shallow and commonplace minds realize this hypothesis to a certain extent. Confined to a narrow circle from which they ex- clude so far as possible all that is new or spon- taneous, they tend toward a state of perfect stabUity ; they become mere machines ; for the greater portion of their lives consciousness is a superfluous factor. Having considered our subject in aU its bear- ings, we now return to the proposition with which we began : Conscious memory is only a particular phase of biological memory. We may, by another method, show once more that mem- ory is attached to the fundamental conditions of life. Every form of memory, from the highest to the lowest, is maintained by dynamical associa- tions between nervous elements and particular modifications of these elements, or of their com- ponent ceUs. These modifications, resulting from MEMORY AS A BIOLOGICAL FACT. 67 a first impression, are not conserved in inert mat- ter ; they do not resemble the imprint of a seal upon wax. They are recorded in living matter. ISTovs^, living tissues are ia a state of continuous molecular renovation, nervous tissue more than any other, and, in nervous tissue, the gray sub- stance more than the vrhite substance, as is shovfTi by the excessive abundance of blood-ves- sels vdth which the former is- lined. Since the modifications are persistent, the new material, the arrangement of the new molecules, must ex- actly reproduce the type which they replace. Memory depends directly upon nutrition. But the cells have not only the power of self - nourishment. They are endowed, at least during a portion of life, with the faculty of reproduction, and we shall see farther on how this fact explains certain cases of restored mem- ory. Physiologists are agreed that this repro- duction is only one form of nutrition. The basis of memory is, therefore, nutrition ; that is to say, the vital process par excellence. I shall not now dwell upon this point. When we have spoken of the disorders of mem- ory, its exaltation and depression, its moment- ary suspension and sudden return, and of its progressive impairment, we may recur to this part of our subject with profit ; then the im- portance of nutrition will be self - evident. 68 DISEASES OF MEMORY. Heretofore we have confined ourselves to pre- liminary study of memory in a state of health. We must now consider it in a morbid state. The pathology of memory completes its physi- ology ; we shall see if it also confirms it. CHAPTER II. GEWEEAL AMNESIA. Mateeials for the study of the diseases of memory are abundant. They are scattered through books of medicine, works on mental disorders, and the writings of many psycholo- gists. They may, with some little trouble, be brought together, and we have then at hand all the facts needed to facilitate investigation. The difficulty lies in classifying them ; in giving to each case its proper interpretation ; in learning its true bearing upon the mechanism of mem- ory. In this respect, facts collected at random are very unequal in value ; the most extraor- dinary are not the most instructive ; the most curious are not the best sources of light. Phy- sicians, to whom we owe them for the most part, have described and studied only from a professional stand-point. A disorder of memory is to them only a symptom, and is so recorded; it serves to establish a given diagnosis and prog- nosis. It is the same with classification : the 7 70 DISEASES OF MEMORY. observer is content witli associating eacli case of amnesia with the morbid state of which, it is the effect ; thus we have amnesia from soften- ing of the brain, hemorrhage, cerebral disturb- ance, or intoxication. From our point of view, however, diseases of memory must be studied by themselves, as morbid psychical states, through which we bet- ter understand the same elements in a healthy condition. As to classification, we are forced to arrange them according to external resemblances. Our knowledge of the subject is not sufficiently advanced to permit us to undertake a natural classification — that is, by causes. I may state now, to obviate further explanation, that the classification which foUows is of value only as it serves to bring a degree of order into a con- fused and heterogeneous mass of facts, and that in many respects it is entirely arbitrary. Certain diseases of memory may be limited to a single category of recollections, leaving the remainder apparently intact: these are partial disorders. Others, on the contrary, affect the entire memory in all its forms ; completely dis- sever mental life ; produce chasms that can nev- er be bridged over ; or demolish it altogether through long-continued activity: these are gen- eral disorders. "We shall distinguish, then, in the first place, between two great classes — gen- GENEEAL AMNESIA. Yl eral diseases and partial diseases of memory. The former only will be considered in this chap- ter, and will be studied in the following order: 1. Temporary amnesia ; 2. Periodical amnesia ; 3. Progressive amnesia, the most curious and in- structive of all ; 4. In conclusion, a few words with regard to congenital amnesia. I. Temporary amnesia usually makes its appear- ance suddenly, and ends in the same way. It embraces periods of time which may vary from a few minutes to several years. The briefest, the clearest, and the most common forms are met with in cases of epilepsy. Physicians are not in accord with regard to the nature, the seat, or the causes of this malady. The solu- tion of the problem is not within the scope or province of this work. It is enough for us to know that all authorities agree in recognizing three forms : grand mal, petit mal, and epilep- tic vertigo ; that these are regarded less as dis- tinct varieties than as different degrees of the same morbid state; and, lastly, that the more moderate the attack in external manifestations the more fatal it is to the mind. The attack is followed by a mental disorder which may reveal itself in odd or ridiculous acts or in crime. All of these acts have a common characteristic, des- 72 DISEASES OF MEMORY. ignated by Dr. HugMiags Jackson as mental automatism. They leave no recollection save in a few instances, and then tlie traces of memory are very slight. A patient while consulting with his physician is seized with epileptic vertigo. He soon re- covers, Tbut has forgotten having paid his fee a moment before the attack. An educated man, thirty-one years of age, found himself at his desk feeling rather confused, but not otherwise ill. He remembered having ordered his dinner, but not of eating or paying for it. He returned to the dining-room, learned that he had both eaten and paid, showing no signs of being ill, and had set out for his office. Unconsciousness lasted about three quarters of an hour. Another epi- leptic, seized with a sudden paroxysm, fell in a shop, got up, and, eluding the shopman and his friends, ran away, leaving his hat and order-book behind. He was discovered a quarter of a mile away, asking for his hat at all the shops, but not having recovered his senses, nor did he become conscious until he got to the railway ten minutes after.* Trousseau reports the case of a magis: trate who, attending a meeting of a learned socie- ty in Paris, went out bare-headed, walked as far as the Quay, returned to his place and took part * Hughlingg Jackson, "West Riding Lunatic Asylum Re- ports," vol. V, p. 116, et aeq. GENERAL AMZJTESIA. Y3 in tlie discussions, with, no knowledge of what he had done. Very often acts begun in the nor- mal state are continued by the patient during the period of automatism, or words just read are com- mented upon. We have given illustrations in the preceding chapter. Nothing is so common in this disease as ineffectual attempts at suicide, of which no traces remain in the memory after the epileptic vertigo. It is the same with criminal attempts. A shoemaker, seized with epileptic mania on his wedding day, killed his father-in-law with a blow from his knife. Coming to himself at the end of several days, he had not the slightest conscious- ness of what had taken place.* From these examples the reader will compre- hend the nature of epileptic amnesia better than by any general description. A certain period of mental activity is as if it had never been ; the pa- tient knows of it only through the testimony of others or his own vague conjectures. Such is the fact. As to its psychological interpretation, there are two possible hypotheses. We may conclude, either that the period of mental automatism is not accpmpanied by consciousness, in which case the amnesia does not need explanation, as, nothing having been produced, nothing could be con- served or reproduced ; or consciousness does exist, but in so weak a form that amnesia ensues. I be- * See, also, Morel, " Trait6 des maladies mentales," p. 695. 74 DISEASES OF MEMORY. lieve that the second hypothesis is the true one in the majority of cases. In the first place, to restrict ourselves to reason alone, it is not easy to suppose that very compli- cated acts adapted to different ends are executed without some consciousness, however intermit- tent. Enlarge the power of habit as much as we will, the fact remains that, if ia uniformity of action consciousness tends to disappear, where there is diversity it tends to positive development. But reasoning provides us only with possibili- ties; experience alone can decide. Now, there are facts which prove the existence of a certain consciousness, even in the many cases where the patient retains no recollection of the attack. Sev- eral epileptics, addressed during the crisis in a brusque way and with a tone of command, replied to questions briefly and in apparent pain. "WTien the attack was ended they remembered neither what had been said to them nor their own replies. A child made to inhale the vapor of ether or am- monia, of which the odor was disagreeable, cried, angrily: "Go away, go away, go away!" and when the attack was over knew nothing of what had taken place. Sometimes epileptics were able with much effort to recollect experiences during the attack, especially toward its close. They were then like persons emerging from a painful dream. The principal circumstances of the attack GENERAL AMNESIA. 75 had escaped them ; they began by denying acts which were imputed to them ; little by little they remembered a certain number of details which they seemed to have forgotten at first.* If, in these cases, it is reasonable to believe that consciousness was present, we may also af- firm its existence in many other instances. The application, however, is not general. The magis- trate just mentioned was able to direct his move- ments ia such a manner as to evade obstacles, carriages, and passers-by, which denotes a certain degree of consciousness. But in an analogous case, recorded by Dr. Hughlings Jackson, the pa- tient was thrown down by an omnibus, and at another time narrowly escaped a fall into the Thames. How, then, are we to explain amnesia in cases where consciousness is indicated? By the ex- treme weakness of the conscious state. A state of consciousness is fixed definitely by two circum- stances — intensity and repetition ; the latter is al- lied with the former, since repetition is a sum of Intensities. Here there is neither intensity nor repetition. The mental disorder which follows the attack has been very accurately defined by Jackson as "an epileptic dream." One of his pa- tients, aged nineteen, and little likely to dogmatize upon such a question, gave utterance to the same * Trousseau, " Lejons cliniques," t. ii, p. 114. Falret, loc. eit. 76 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. expression. " Last time he had a fit and went to bed, and when in bed said : ' Wait a bit, Bill, I am coming.' He went down-stairs, he unbolted the doors, and he went out in his night-shirt. He came to himself just as he was stepping on the cold stones, and then his father touched him. He said that he had had a dream. ' It's all right, I have had a dream.' He went to bed, and had not been in. bed for five minutes when he began again talking of Bill (an acquaintance in the vol- unteers), saying: 'You are in a great hurry to get your coat on.' His father went into his bed- room again, called his brother, and got the patient into bed." * Thus we may find in the dream an indication of the mental state of epileptics. Dreams of which all remembrance immediately vanishes are very common. We awake in the night ; the rec- ollection of an interrupted dream is very dis- tinct ; in the morning not a trace remains. This is still more striking when we awake at the ordi- nary hour. The visions of the night are then very vivid, a short time elapses, and they are ef- faced for ever. Who has not lost himself in vain efforts to recall a dream of the preceding night, of which he remembers nothing, not even that it was a dream ? The explanation is simple. The states of consciousness which constitute the dream are * " "West Riding Asylum Reports," vol. v, p. 124. GENERAL AMNESIA. 77 extremely weak. They seem to be strong, not because they are so in reality, but because no other stronger state exists to force them into a secondary position. Prom the moment of awak- ening the conditions change. Images disappear before perceptions, perceptions before a state of sustained attention, a state of sustained attention before a fixed idea. In fact, consciousness during the majority of dreams is at a minimum of in- tensity. The difficulty is in explaining why, in the pe- riod following the epileptic attack, consciousness falls to a minimum. Neither physiology nor psy- chology is able to solve the problem, since each ignores the conditions of the genesis of conscious- ness. The question is the more difficult when amnesia is allied with epUeptic delirium, and with it alone. Note, for instance, what happens when the subject is at once the victim of alcoholism and epilepsy. A patient is seized during the day with an epileptic attack, breaks everything within his reach, and conducts himself with great violence. After a brief period of respite he is seized- in the night with alcoholic delirium, characterized by the usual terrifying visions. The next day, on coming to himself, he remembers the delirium of the night ; but of the delirium of the day no rec- ollection remains.* * Magnan, " Olinique de Sainte-Anne," March 3, 1879. Y8 DISEASES OF MEMOET. There is anotlier diflaculty. If amnesia arises from weakness in the primitive states of con- sciousness, how is it that these states, hypothet- xcally weak, inspire determinate acts? Accord- ing to Jackson, there is during the paroxysm an internal discharge sufficient to incapacitate the highest nervous centers. "Mental automatism results . . . from over-action of low nervous cen- ters, because the highest or controlling centers have been thus put out of use."* We have here only a special application of a weU-known physio- logical law : The excito-motor power of reflex cen- ters increases when their connection with the su- perior centers is destroyed, f We may limit ourselves to the psychological problem. If we insist upon regarding conscious- ness as a "force," existing and acting by itself , no explanation is possible. But if we admit, as was said in the preceding chapter, that con- sciousness is the accompaniment of a nervous state which remains the fundamental element, the matter is clear. At least, there is no con- tradiction in admitting that a nervous state, suf- * " West Eiding Asylum Eeports," vol. v, p. 111. t A very important oharaoteristio of epileptic mania, says Fal- ret (loc. cit.), is the absolute resemblance of all attacks in the same patient, not only in general, but in the smallest detail. The same patient expresses the same ideas, utters the same words, per- forms the same acts. There is a surprising uniformity in the dif- ferent attacks. GEKEEAL AMNESIA. 79 flcient to deteimine certain acts, may be insuffi- cient to awaken consciousness. The production of a movement and tliat of a state of conscious- ness are two distinct and independent facts ; tlie conditions of existence of the one are not those of the other. Let us note in closing that the fatal consequence of repeated epileptic seizures, especially in the form of vertigo, is the progres- sive and final destruction of memory. This phase of amnesia wiU be studied in another place. We pass now to cases of temporary amnesia of a destructive character. In the cases just given the capital accumulated up to the devel- opment of the disease was not lost ; it simply happened that something which had been in the consciousness no longer remained in the memory. In the cases which follow, a part of the capi- tal is lost. These cases afford a rich field of interest, and it is possible that one day, with further progress in the applications of physi- ology and psychology, we may learn much from them concerning the nature of memory. In the present stage of knowledge they are not the most instructive — at least in my judgment, and I say this with no desire to underrate their value to others. These cases differ very much one from an- 80 DISEASES OE MEMORY. other. Sometimes tlie suspension of memory begins with, the disease and extends forward ; sometimes it extends backward over events re- cently past ; of teher it extends in both directions. Sometimes memory returns of itself and sudden- ly ; sometimes slowly and with assistance ; some- times the loss is absolute, and complete reeduca- tion is necessary. We shall give examples of each. "A young woman, married to a man whom she loved passionately, was seized during con- finement with prolonged syncope, at the end of which she lost all recollection of events that had occurred since her marriage, inclusive of that ceremony. She remembered very clearly the rest of her life up to that point. ... At first she pushed her husband and child from her with evident alarm. She has never recovered recol- lection of this period of her life, nor of any of the impressions received during that time. Her parents and friends have convinced her that she is married and has a son. She believes their testimony, because she would rather think that she has lost a year of her life than that all her associates are impostors. But conviction and consciousness are not united. She looks upon husband and child without being able to realize how she gained the one and gave birth to the other."* * " Lettre de Charles Villiers & G. Ouvier " (Paris : Lenor- GENERAL AMNESIA. 81 Here we have an example of incurable am- nesia, extending only into the past. As to psy- chological courses, they may be found in the destruction of residua and the impossibility of their reproduction. In other cases amnesia ex- tends forward, and is therefore to be attributed to the impossibility of registration and conserva- tion of succeeding states of consciousness. Generally, in cases of temporary amnesia re- sulting from cerebral shock, there is a retroac- tive effect. The patient, on recovering conscious- ness, is found to have lost not only aU. recollec- tion of the accident and the period followiag, but also of a more or less extended time ante- rior to that event. Many examples might be given ; I shall cite only one, recorded by Car- penter. A Mr. H. "was driving his wife and chUd in a phaeton, when the horse took fright and ran away; and, aU attempts to pull him in being unsuccessful, the phaeton was at last violently dashed against a wall, and Mr. H. was thrown out, sustaining a severe concussion of the brain. On recovering, he found that he had forgotten the immediate antecedents of the accident, the mant, 1802), cited by L. Villermay, " Essais snr les maladies de la mdmoire," pp. 76, 77. This little work, otherwise of small value, appeared in the " M^moires " of the Paris Sooi6t§ de M6de- oine, 1817, vol. i. 8 82 DISEASES OF MEMORY. last thing lie remembered being that lie had met an accLuaintance on the road about two miles from the scene of it. Of the efforts he had made, and the terror of his wife and child, he has not, to this day, any recollection what- ever."* We come now to cases of amnesia mnch more grave in character, in several instances requiring complete re-education. The following are taken •from the English review, "Brain": The first case, reported by Dr. J. Mortimer . Granville, is that of a young woman, aged twen- ty-six, hysterical and choreic, who, after a par- oxysm of considerable violence, fell into a state verging on suspended animation. "When consciousness began to return, the latest sane ideas formed previous to the illness mingled curiously with the new impressions re- ceived, as in the case of a person awakening slowly from a dream. When propped up with piUows in bed near the window, so that passers in the street could be seen, the patient described the moving objects as ' trees walking ' ; and when asked where she saw these things, she invariably replied ' in the other Gospel.' In short, her men- tal state was one in which the real and ideal were not separable. Her recollections on recovery, and * Op. cit., p. 460. GENERAL AMNESIA. 83 for some time afterward, were indistinct, and, in regard to a large class of common topics which, must have formed the staple material of thought up to the period of the attack, memory was blank. Special subjects of thought immediately anterior to the malady seemed to have saturated the mind so completely that the early impres- sions received after recovery commenced were imbued with them, while the cerebral record of penultimate brain-work in the Ufe before the morbid state was, as it were, obliterated. For example, although this young woman had sup- ported herself by daily duty as a governess, she had no recollection of so simple a matter as the use of a writing implement. When a pen or pencil was placed in her hand, as it might be thrust between the fingers of a child, the act of grasping it was not excited, even reflexly ; the touch or sight of the instrument awoke no asso- ciation of ideas. The most perfect destruction of brain-tissue could not have more completely effaced the constructive effect of education and habit on the cerebral elements. This state lasted some weeks." * Eecovery of the memory was slow and painful, requiring a process of re-education as distinct as that in the case which follows. This, reported by Professor William Sharpey, * "Brain: A Journal of Neurology," October, 1879, p. 317, et seq. 84 DISEASES OF MEMORY. is one of tlie most curious instances of re-ednca- tion on record. We give only the psychological details. The patient was a young married wom- an, about twenty-four years of age, of pale com- plexion and slender make, who, for about sis weeks, remained in a continuous state of somno- lence, the torpor increasing from day to day untn finally (about the 10th of June) it became impossible to rouse her. She remained in this condition for nearly two months. When food was presented to her lips with a spoon, she read- ily took it into her mouth and swallowed it; when satisfied, she closed her teeth to signify the fact, and, if importuned to take more, turned away her mouth. She seemed to distinguish dif- ferent flavors, for she manifested an evident preference for some sorts of food and obstinately refused others. She had occasional intervals of waking at uncertain and distant periods. She answered no question, and recognized nobody " except one old acquaintance, whom she had not seen for more than twelve months. She looked steadfastly in this person's face for a few seconds, apparently occupied in trying to re- member his name, which at length she found out and repeated again and again, at the same time taking Mm by the hand as if overjoyed to see him." She then fell again into slumber. Toward the end of August she returned, little by little, GENERAL AMNESIA. 85 to a normal condition. Here began tlie work of re-education. "On h.er recovery from th.e torpor, slie ap- peared to have forgotten nearly aU her previous knowledge ; everything seemed new to her, and she did not recognise a single individual — not even her nearest relatives. In her behavior she was restless and inattentive, but very lively and cheerful; she was delighted with everything she saw or heard, and altogether resembled a child more than a grown person. "In a short time she became more sedate, and her attention could be longer fixed on one object. Her memory, too, so entirely lost as far as regarded previous knowledge, was soon found to be most acute and retentive with respect to everything she saw or heard subsequently to her disorder ; and she has by this time recov- ered many of her former acquirements, some with greater, others with less facility. With regard to these, it is remarkable that though the process followed in regaining many of them apparently consisted in recalling them to mind with the assistance of her neighbors, rather than in studying them anew, yet even now she does not appear to be in the smallest degree conscious of having possessed them before. "At first it was scarcely possible to engage her in conversation ; in place of answering a 86 DISEASES OF MEMORY. question, she repeated it aloud in tlie same words in which it was put, and even long after she came to answer questions she constantly re- peated them once over before giving her reply. At first she had very few words, but she soon acquired a great many, and often strangely mis- applied them. She did this, however, for the most part in particular ways ; she often, for instance, made one word answer for all others which were in any way allied to it ; thus, in place of 'tea,' she would ask for 'juice,' and this word she long used for liquids. For a long time, also, in expressing the qualities of objects, she invariably, where it was possible, used the words denoting the very opposite of what she intended, and thus she would say 'white' in place of 'black,' 'hot 'for 'cold,' etc. She would often also talk of her arm when she meant her leg, her eye when she meant her tooth, etc. She now generally uses her words with propriety, al- though she is sometimes apt to change their terminations, or compose new ones of her own. " She has as yet recognized no person, not even her nearest connections ; that is to say, she has no recollection of having seen or known them previously to her illness, though she is aware of having seen them since, and calls them either by their right names or by those of her own giving ; but she knows them only as GENEEAL AMNESIA. 87 new acquaintances, and has no idea of wliat rela- tion they sustaia to herself. She has not seen above a dozen people since her iUness, and she looks on these as all that she has ever known. "Among other acquirements she has recovered that of reading ; but it was requisite to begLri her with the alphabet, as she at first did not know a single letter. She afterward learned to form syl- lables and smaU words, and now she reads tolera- bly well, and has shown herself much interested in several stories previously unknown to her, which she has read since her recovery. The re- acquisition of her reading was eventually facili- tated by singing the words of familiar songs, from the printed page, whUe she played on the piano. In learning to write she began vsdth the most elementary lessons, but made much more rapid progress than a person who had never be- fore been taught. Very soon after the torpor left her she could sing many of her old songs, and play on the piano-forte with little or no assist- ance, and she has since continued to practice her music, which now affords her great pleasure and amusement. In singing, she at first generally re- quired to be helped to the first two or three words of a line, and made out the rest apparently from memory. She can play from the music-book several tunes which she had never seen before; and her friends are inclined to think that she 88 DISEASES OF MEMORY. now plays and sings fully as well, if not better, than she did previonsly to her illness. She learned backgammon, which she formerly knew, and several games at cards, with very little trouble ; and she can now knit worsted, and do several other sorts of work ; but with regard to all these acquirements, as already mentioned, it is remarkable that she appears not to have the slightest remembrance of having possessed them before, although it is plain that the process of recovery has been greatly aided by previous knowledge, which, however, she seems uncon- scious of having ever acquired. "When asked how she had learned to play the notes of music from a book, she replied that she could not tell, and only wondered why her questioner could not do the same. "She has once or twice had dreams, which she afterward related to her friends, and she seemed quite aware of the difference betwixt a dream and a reality ; indeed, from several casual remarks which she makes of her own accord, it would appear that she possesses many general ideas of a more or less complex nature, which she has had no opportunity of acquiring since her recovery."* So far as we can judge from Professor Shar- pey's report, re-education lasted in this instance * " Brain," April, 1879, p. 1, et seq. GENERAL AMNESIA. 89 only about three months. The case, moreover, is by no means unique : "A clergyman, of rare talent and energy, of sound education, was thrown from his carriage and received a violent concussion of the brain. For several days he remained utterly unconscious, and when restored his intellect was observed to be in a state similar to that of a naturally intelligent child. Although in middle life, he commenced his English and classical studies un- der tutors, and was progressing satisfactorily, when, after several months' successful study, his memory gradually returned, and his mind re- sumed all its wonted vigor and its former wealth and polish of culture."* "A gentleman about thirty years of age, of learning and acquirements, at the termination of a severe illness was found to have lost the recol- lection of everything, even the names of the most common objects. His health being restored, he began to re-acquire knowledge like a child. After learning the names of objects, he was taught to read, and, after this, began to learn Latin. He made considerable . progress, when, one day, in reading his lesson with his brother, who was his teacher, he suddenly stopped and put his hand to his head. Being asked why he did so, he replied: 'I feel a peculiar sensation * Forbes Winslow, op. cit., p. 317. 90 DISEASES OF MEMOKY. in my head; and now it appears to me that I knew all this before.' From that time he rapid- ly recovered his faculties." * I am content for the moment to bring these facts to the attention of the reader. Any com- ments which they may suggest will find a more appropriate place elsewhere. I will close with a case little known, and which forms a natural transition to the group of intermittent amnesia. We see, in fact," a provisional memory gradually formed, only to disappear suddenly before the primitive memory. A young woman, of robust constitution and good health, accidentally fell into a river and was nearly drowned. For six hours she was in- sensible, but then returned to consciousness. Ten days later she was seized with a stupor which lasted for four hours. When she opened her eyes she failed to recognize her friends, and was utterly deprived of the senses of hearing, taste, and smell, as well as the power of speech. There remained to her only the senses of sight and touch, which were both abnormally sensitive. She was apparently quite lost to everything that went on about her, and, like an animal deprived of its braiQ, remained in any position in which she was placed. Her appetite was good, but she ate indiflerently, in a perfectly automatic man- * Forbes Winslow, op. cit., p. 317. GENERAL AMNESIA. 91 ner. So automatic was her life that for days her sole occupation was in pulling or cuttiag various objects into pieces of great minuteness, such as flowers, articles of clothing, waste paper, an old straw bonnet, etc. Later, she was sup- plied with materials for patchwork, and, after some initiatory instruction, she took her needle and labored incessantly from morning to night, making no distinction between Sundays and week- days, since she could not be made to compre- hend the difference. She had no remembrance from day to day of what she had been doing the previous day, and so every morning com- menced de 7101)0. She gradually, however, began, like a child, to register ideas and acquire experi- ence. She was then led to the higher art of worsted work. She was delighted with the col- ors and the flowers upon the patterns, and seemed to derive special pleasure from the har- mony of tints. But every day she began some- thing new, unless her unfinished work was placed before her, forgetting what had been done the day before. The first ideas derived from her former ex- perience, that seemed to be awakened within her, were connected with two subjects which had nat- urally made a strong impression upon her — namely, her fall into the river, and a love affair. When she was shown a landscape in which there 92 DISEASES OF MEMORY. was a river, or the view of a troubled sea, she became intensely agitated, and one of her attacks of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility immedi- ately followed. So great was her feeling of fright associated vrith water that she trembled at the mere sight of it running from one vessel to another. When she washed her hands they were merely placed in water vdthout rubbing them together. From an early stage of her illness she de- rived obvious pleasure from the visits of a young man to whom she had been attached ; he was evidently an object of interest when nothing else would- rouse her. He came regularly every even- ing, and she as regularly looked for his coming. At a time when she did not remember from one hour to another what she was doing, she would look anxiously for the openiag of the door about the time he was accustomed to pay her a visit; and, if he did not come, she was fretful through- out the entire evening. When, by her removal into the country, she lost sight of him for a time, she became unhappy and irritable, and suffered frequently from attacks of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility. When, on the other hand, he remained near her there was a progressive return of the intellectual powers and memory. This return was, however, gradually going on. One day, seeing her mother in a state of grief, GENERAL AMNESIA. 93 she suddenly cried out, with, some hesitation, "What's the matter?" From this time she be- gan to articulate a few words ; but she neither called persons nor things by their right .names. The pronoun "this" was her favorite word ; and it was applied alike to every individual object, animate and inanimate. The first objects which she called by their right names were wild flow- ers, for which she had shown quite a passion when a child ; and at this time she had not the least recollection of the friends and places of her childhood. "The mode of recovery of this patient was quite as remarkable as anything in her history. Her health and bodily strength seemed com- pletely re-established, her vocabulary was being extended, and her mental capacity was improv- ing, when she became aware that her lover was paying attention to another woman. This idea immediately and very naturally excited the emo- tion of jealousy ; which, if we analyze it, will appear to be nothing else than a painful feeling connected with the idea of the faithlessness of the object beloved. On one occasion this feeling was so strongly excited that she fell down in a fit of insensibility, which resembled her first attack in duration and severity. This, however, proved sanatory. When the insensibility passed off, she was no longer spell-bound. The veil of oblivion 9 94 DISEASES OF MEMOET. was withdrawn ; an^, as if awakening from a sleep of twelve months' duration, she fonnd her- self surrounded by her grandfather, grandmother, and their familiar friends and acquaintances, in the old house at Shoreham. She awoke in the possession of her natural faculties and former knowledge, hut without the slightest remem- brance of anything which had taken place in the year's interval, from the invasion of the first fit up to present time. She spoke, but she heard not ; she was still deaf, but, beiag able to read and write as formerly, she was no longer cut off from asso- ciation with others. From this time she rapidly improved, but for some time continued deaf. She soon perfectly understood by the motion of her lips what her mother said ; they conversed with facility and quickness together, but she did not understand the language of the Ups of a stranger. She was completely unaware of the change in her lover's affections, which had taken place in her state of ' second consciousness ' ; and a painful ex- planation was necessary. This, however, she bore very well ; and she has since recovered her previous bodily and mental health." * We shaU see later on, after the various facts to be considered are disposed of, what general con- clusions vdth regard to the mechanism of memory * Dunn, in the " Lancet," November 15 and 29, 1845. Vide Carpenter, op. cit., p. 460, et seq. GENERAL AMNESIA. 95 are to be derived from its pathology. For the moment, we limit ourselves to a few remarks sug- gested by the preceding cases. It is first to be observed that these, although grouped indiscrimi- nately by medical authorities under the general head of total amnesia, belong, in fact, from a psy- chological point of view, to two distinct morbid types. The first type (represented by the cases cited by Villiers and Granville) is by far the most frequent. If we have given but few examples, it is because we would not weary the reader with monotonous and unprofitable repetitions. It is characterized psychologically by the fact that am- nesia appears only in the less automatic and less organized phases of memory. In cases belonging to this morbid group neither habits, nor aptitude for mechanical work, such as that of sewing or embroidery, nor the faculty of reading, writing, or speaking a native or foreign language, is in the least affected ; in a word, memory, in its or- ganized or semi-organized form, remains intact. Pathological destruction is limited to the most highly developed and most unstable forms of memory, to those which have a personal charac- ter, and which, accompanied by consciousness and localization in time, constitute what we denomi- nated in the preceding chapter the psychical memory, properly so called. Moreover, it must be observed that amnesia affects the most recent 96 DISEASES OF MEMORY. events, extending backward over a period of vari- able duration.* At first thougM, this fact is sur- prising, since our latest recollections are appar- ently the most vivid, the strongest, of all. In truth, it is logical, the stability of any recollection beiug in direct ratio with its degree of organiza- tion. But this point will be considered farther on. The physiological cause of amnesia in this group is only amenable to hypothesis ; probably it varies with each case. At first, the faculty for registering new impressions is temporarily suspended; as they appear, states of conscious- ness vanish and leave no trace. But preceding recollections, registered for weeks, months, years — where are they? They have long endured, they have been conserved and frequently repro- duced, they seemed to be a stable acquisition, and yet their place is a blank. The patient is able to regain them only indirectly and by arti- fice — the testimony of others or his personal re- flections which unite the present in a more or less imperfect fashion with what remains of his past. Observation does not show that this chasm is ever bridged by direct recollection. Thus two * I must mention in passing an incident reported by Brown- S6quard of a patient wto, after an attack of apoplexy, lost all recollection of five years of his life. These five years, which comprised the period of Ms marriage, ended just six months be- fore the date of the attack. GENEEAL AlOESIA. 97 suppositions are possible : either the registration of anterior states is effaced, or, the conservation of anterior states persisting, their power of re- vivification by association vsdth the present is de- stroyed. It is impossible to decide arbitrarily between these two hypotheses. The second morbid type is less frequent, and is represented by the cases cited by Sharpey and Winslow (that of Dunn forms a transition to the group classed as intermittent amnesia). Here the work of destruction is complete ; memory in all its forms — organized, semi-organized, or con- scious — is totally suppressed ; amnesia is complete. We have seen that writers who have described the disease in this form compare the patient to an infant and his mind with a tabula rasa. These expressions, however, are not to be taken too literally. The instance of re-education re- corded above shows that, if aU anterior experi- ence is vnped out, certain latent aptitudes still remain in the brain. The extreme rapidity of re-education, especially toward the last, can not be otherwise explained. Fsicts indubitably show that this return of knowledge which appears to be the work of art is reaUy the work of nature. Memory returns because the atrophied nervous elements are supplanted in time by other ele- ments having the same properties, primitive and acquired, as those which they replace. This 98 DISEASES OF MEMORY. again demonstrates tlie relation existing between memory and nutrition. Fiaally — for all observations upon amnesia can not be reduced to a single formula — ^in, cases wliere tlie loss and return of memory are sudden we recognize an analogy with, the phenomena of arrested functions or " inhibition," a subject to which physiologists have given much, study and concerning which very little is known. These points are indicated by way of illustration. An extended analysis at this stage would be prema- ture. Let us continue our review of recorded facts with a consideration of periodic amnesia. II. The study of amnesia in its periodic forin is better calculated to throw Uglit upon the nature of the 'Ego and the conditions for the existence of a conscious personality than to exhibit the mechanism of memory from a new stand-point. It forms an interesting chapter in a work as yet incomplete, and which might be properly entitled "Diseases and Aberrations of the Personality." It vdll be diflacult for us to avoid the subject, since it confronts us on every side. But I shall endeavor to say only what is indispensable to clearness of exposition. I shall be sparing of illustrations; they are sufficiently familiar, the study of the so-called phenomena of "double GENERAL AMNESIA. 99 being a common pastime. The detailed and instructive observations of Dr. Azam in particular have contributed largely to the pop- ular knowledge of periodic amnesia. I shall limit myself, then, to a review of important cases, taking up first the manifestations of periodic amnesia in its most highly developed form, and proceeding to those of a less complicated nat- ure. I. The most clearly defined and the most complete instance of periodic amnesia on record is the case of a young American woman reported by Macnish. in his "Philosophy of Sleep";* it has been often quoted : ' ' Her memory was capacious and well stored with a copious stock of ideas. Unexpectedly, and without any forewarning, she fell into a profound sleep, which continued several hours beyond the ordinary term. On waking, she was discovered to have lost every trace of acquired knowledge. Her memory was tabula rasa — aU vestiges, both of words and things, were oblit- erated and gone. It was found necessary for her to learn everything again. She even acquired, by new efl'orts, the art of spelling, reading, writ- ing, and calculating, and gradually became ac- quainted with the persons and objects around, like a being for the first time brought into the * Page 167. 100 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. world. In these exercises she made considerable proficiency. But, after a few months, another fit of somnolency invaded her. On rousiag from it, she found herself restored to the state she was in before the first paroxysm ; but was wholly ignorant of every event and occurrence that had befallen her afterward. The former condition of her existence she now calls the old state, and the latter the new state ; and she is as uncon- scious of her double character as two distinct persons are of their respective natures. For ex- ample, in her old state she possesses all the original knowledge, in her new state only what she acquired since. ... In the old state she possesses fine powers of penmanship, while in the new she vrrites a poor, awkward hand, hav- ing not had time or means to become an ex- pert." These periodical transitions lasted for four years. Setting aside for the moment all that con- cerns the alternation of two personalities, it should be noted that there were formed here two memories, each complete and absolutely in- dependent of the other. JSTot only was the mem- ory of personal impressions, the memory of con- sciousness, entirely and hopelessly dissevered, but also the semi-organic, semi-conscious memory by which we are able to speak, to read, and to write. The record does not tell us whether or GEJfEEAL AMNESIA. 101 no this disruption of memory extended to its purely organic forms — to habits (whether, for in- stance, the patient was obliged to learn anew the use of the hands in eatiag, dressing, etc.). But, even supposing that this group of acquisitions remained intact, the separation into two distinct and independent groups is still as complete as the most exacting observer could desire. Dr. Azam records a case similar to the pre- ceding, although not so clearly manifested. The normal memory disappeared and reappeared pe- riodically. In the abnormal interval a new mem- ory was not formed, but the patient retained faint traces of the primitive states. This, at least, is the inference from an observation whose psychological details are not always given with precision.* The subject was a young man who, after successive attacks of chorea, lost completely all memory of the past, forgot everything that had been taught him, could neither read, write, nor count, and did not recognize any of his at- tendants, with the exception of his father and mother and the Sister of Charity who acted as nurse. But while the amnesia lasted (the ordi- nary period was a month) the youth was able to * " Eevue Scientiflque," December 22, 1877. The author says, for instance, that during one of the attacks the patient " con- versed with intelligence and vivacity, without having recovered his memory " 1 102 DISEASES OF MEMORY. mount Ms horse, drive a carriage, follow tlie regular daily routiae, and say Ms prayers at the proper time. Usually the return of memory was very sudden. So far as we can judge, there was a periodical suspension of memory in its unstable and partly stable, or — if the reader prefer — its conscious and semi-conscious, forms —consciousness being, in general, in inverse ratio to stability. But the organized, instinctive mem- ory was not impaired; the last strongholds were not carried. I shall not dwell, however, upon the record of a case too deficient iu psycholog- ical interpretation to be of much value. II. A second, less complete but more common, form of periodic amnesia is that of which Dr. Azam gives an interesting description in the case of Fehda X., and of which Dr. Dufay found a parallel in one of his own patients. The origi- nal records may be easily consulted, and a brief summary will sufiice for our purpose. A woman of hysterical temperament was at- tacked in 1856 with a singular malady affecting her in such a manner that she lived a double life, passing alternately from one to the other of two states which Dr. Azam defines as "the first condition" and "the second condition." In the normal, or first condition, the woman was serious, grave, reserved, and laborious. Sud- denly, overcome with sleep, she would lose con- GENEEAL AMNESIA. 103 sciousness and awake in the second condition. In this state her character was changed ; she be- came gay, imaginative, vivacions, and coquet- tish. "She remembered perfectly all that had taken place in other similar states and during her normal life!''' Then, after the lapse of a longer or shorter period, she was again seized with a trance. On awaking she was iti the first condition. But in this state she had no recol- lection of what had occurred in the second con- dition ; she remembered only anterior normal periods. With increastag years the normal state (first condition) lasted for shorter and shorter and less frequent periods, while the transition from one state to the other, .which had formerly oc- cupied something like ten minutes, took place almost instantaneously. Such are the essential facts in this case. For purposes of special study, it may be summed up in a few words. The patient passed alter- nately through two states ; in one she possessed her memory entire ; in the other she had only a partial memory formed of all the impressions re- ceived in that state. The case reported by Dr. Dufay is analogous to that just given. During the period corre- sponding with the second condition of Felida X., the patient was able to Recall the minutest inci- dents which had taken place in the normal state 104 DISEASES OF MEMORY. or during tlie period, of somnambulism. There was also a change in character, and, during the period of complete memory, the patient desig- nated the normal condition as " d'etat Mte " — the "brute state."* It is worth noting that in this form of peri- odic amnesia there is a part of the memory which is never wiped out, but which remains common to both conditions. "In these two states," Dr. Azam teUs us, "the patient was perfectly able to read, write, count, cut, and sew." There was not here, as in the case recorded by Macnish, complete disruption. The semi-conscious forms of memory co-operated equally -with both phases of mental activity. III. Our exposition of the diJffierent phases of periodic amnesia may be profitably concluded with the enumeration of certain cases in which they appear in an undeveloped form ; they are met with in victims of somnambulism, whether natural or induced. Usually, somnambulists, after the attack, have no recollection of what they have done ; but in each crisis there is recollection of preceding crises. There are exceptions to this law ; but they are rare. The case, recorded by Macario, of a girl who was violated during one * For further details, see Azam, " Revue Scientifique," 1867, May 20, September 16; 1877, November 10; 1879, March 8. And Dufay, ibid., 1876, July 15. GEJ>fEEAL AMNESIA. 105 attack, retaining no remembrance of it on awaken- ing, but revealittg the fact to ker motker in a suc- ceeding crisis, kas been often cited. Dr. Mesnet was witness to an attempt at suicide begun in one and continued ia tke ofcker of two consecutive at- tacks.* A young servant-maid believed kerseK every nigkt to be a biskop, and spoke and acted consistently witk tkat idea (Combe) ; and Hamil- ton speaks of a poor apprentice wko, on going to sleep, imagined tkat ke was tke fatker of a family, wealtky, a senator, takiag up tke role every nigkt and acting it in tke most grapkic manner, denying Ms real condition if any allusion was made to tke subject in kis presence. It is useless to multiply examples, as tkey may be found on every kand ; tke evident conclusion is tkat, side by side witk tke normal memory, tkere is formed during tke attacks a partial, temporary, and parasitic memory. On examining tke general ckaracteristics of periodic amnesia as illustrated in tke cases given, we find, first, an evolution of two memories. In extreme cases (Macnisk) tke two memories are in- dependent of one anotker; wken one appears, tke otker disappears. Eack is self-supporting ; eack utUizes, so to speak, its own material. Tke organized memory employed in speaking, read- ing, and writing is not a common basis of tke two * " Archives g6n6rales de mddeoine," 1860, v. xv, p. 147. 10 106 DISEASES OF MEMORY. states. In each there is a distinct recollection of words, graphic signs, and the movements neces- sary to record them. In modified cases (Azam, Dufay, somnambnUsm) a partial memory alter- nates with the normal memory. The latter em- braces the totality of conscious states ; the former, a limited group of states which, by a natural pro- cess of selection, separate from the others, and form in the life of the individual a series of con- nected fragments. But they retain a common basis in the less stable and less conscious forms of memory which enter iadifEerently into either group. As a result of this discerption of memory, the iniividual appears — at least to others — to be liv- ing a double life. The illusion is natural, the Ego depending (or appearing to depend) upon the pos- sibility of association of present states with those that are reanimated or localized in the past, ac- cording to laws already formulated. There are here two distinct centers of association and attrac- tion. Each draws to itself certain groups, and is without influence upon others. It is evident that this formation of two memories, entirely or partly independent of one another, is not a primitive cause ; it is the symptom of a morbid process, the psychical expression of a disorder yet to be analyzed. And this leads us to a great subject, much to our regret, since we must treat it as GENERAL AMFESIA. 107 a side issue : we refer to the conditions of per- sonality. Let us first reject the idea of an Hgo conceived as a distinct entity of conscious states. Such an hypothesis is useless and contradictory ; it is a conception worthy of a psychology in its infancy, content to accept superficial observations as the whole of truth and to theorize where it can not explain. I avow allegiance to contemporary sci- ence which sees in conscious personality a com- pound resultant of very complex states. The Ego subjectively considered consists of a sum of conscious states. There is a central group surrounded by secondary states which tend to supplant it, and these in turn are en- compassed in a similar manner vsdth other less conscious states. The highest state, after a more " or less extended period of vitality, succumbs, and is replaced by another, about which the re- maining states group themselves as before. The mechanism of consciousness is comparable to that of vision. Here we have a visual point in which alone perception is clear and precise ; about it is the visual field in which perception is progressively less clear and precise as we ad- vance from center to circumference. The JEgo, its present perpetually renewed, is for the most part nourished by the memory ; that is to say, the present state is associated vrith others which. 108 DISEASES OF MEMOKY. thrown back and localized in the past, constitute at each moment what we regard as our person- ality. In brief, the Ego may be considered in two ways : either in its actual form, and then it is the sum of existing conscious states; or, in its continuity with the past, and then it is formed by the memory according to the process outlined above. It would seem, according to this view, that the identity of the Ego depended entirely upon the memory. But such a conception is only par- tial. Beneath the unstable compound phenome- non in aU its protean phases of growth, degen- eration, and reproduction, there is a something that remains : and this something is the unde- fined consciousness, the product of all the vital processes, constituting bodily perception, and which is expressed in one word — the ccencesthe- sis.* Our conception of this organic conscious- ness is so vague that it is difficult to speak of it in precise terms. It is a bodily condition which, perpetually renewed, is no more recognized than a habit. But although it is felt neither in * The general feeling of well-being which results from a healthy condition of all the organs of the body, which is, indeed, the expression of a favorably proceeding organic life, is known as the cxncestTiesis, and is sometimes described as an emotion ; but it is not truly an emotion ; it is the body's sensation or feeling of its well-being, and marks a condition of things, therefore, in which activity of any kind will be pleasurable. — Maudsley, op. cit., p. 135. [Tr.] GEKERAL AMNESIA. 109 and of itself, nor in the gradual variations wMcli mark its normal state, it passes througli instan- taneous or rapid modifications that produce rad- ical changes in the personality. All observers are agreed that the early development of mental disease is indicated, not by intellectual disorder, but by changes in character — changes which are only the psychical expression of the ccEnsesthe- sis. So an organic lesion, often ignored, may transform the cosnsesthesis, substituting for the normal sensation of existence a condition of mel- ancholy, mental distress, and anxiety, of which the patient is unable to discern the cause ; or, on the other hand, producing undue joyousness, exuberant emotions, and extreme content — mis- leading expressions of grave disorganization, of which the most striking example is seen in the euphrasia of the dying. Each of these changes has a physiological cause ; together they repre- sent the echoes of consciousness, and it is as reasonable to say that our every-day existence is not a mode of living because it is monotonous, as to say that these variations are felt, and that the normal state is imperceptible. This bodily condition, which is without the sphere of con- sciousness because of its perpetuity, is the true basis of personality — ever-present, ever-acting, without repose or respite, it knows neither sleep nor exhaustion, lasting as long as Hfe itself, of 110 DISEASES OF MEMORY. wMch., indeed, it is only an expression. TMs it is that serves as support for the conscious Bgo formed by the memory ; it renders associations possible, and maintains them after they are formed. The unity of the Ugo is, then, not that of a mathematical point, but that of a very compli- cated mechanism. It is a consensus of vital pro- cesses, co-ordinated first by the nervous system — the chief regulator in the bodily economy — and finally by consciousness whose natural form is unity. It is, in fact, inherent in the nature of psychical states that they can co-exist only in a very limited number, grouped about a center which alone represents consciousness iu the pleni- tude of its powers. Suppose, now, that we are able at a single stroke to change the body and put another in its place — skeleton, vessels, viscera, muscles, in- tegument all new — the nervous system alone, with all its past registered within, remaining in- tact. There can be no doubt that, in the efflux of unwonted vital sensations, the greatest disor- der would arise. Between the primitive coenses- thesis represented by the nervous system and the new ccensesthesis acting with all the intensity of juvenescence, there would be an irreconcilable antagonism. This hypothesis is actually realized to a certain extent in morbid cases. Anaesthesia resulting from organic lesion sometimes modifies GENERAL AMNESIA. m the coensestliesis to such a degree that the sub- ject fancies himself made of stone, butter, wax, wood, to be changed ia sex, or to be dead. Aside from such morbid cases, note what takes place at puberty. "When new organs come into action, after a primitive period of quiescence, with the total revolution produced in the or- ganism, innumerable sensations, new desires, vague or distinct ideas, and novel impulses pass into the consciousness in a very brief space of time. Little by little they penetrate to the circle of primitive ideas, and finally become an integral part of the Ego — which by the same token is completely transformed ; it is renewed, and the sentiment of personality undergoes a radical metamorphosis. Until assimilation is complete, this- penetration and disintegration of the primi- tive Ego is accompanied by extreme commotion in the consciousness, which is the subject of the most tumultuous disturbance." * It may be said that whenever the changes in the coensesthesis, in place of being insensible or temporary, are rapid and permanent, there is discord between the two elements that constitute personality in its normal state : bodily sensation and conscious memory. If the new center holds its own, it be- comes the point about which other new associa- * Griesinger, " Trait6 des maladies mentales,'' p. 56, et seq. The entire passage is an excellent analysis. 112 DISEASES OF MEMORY. tions are formed ; and thus a new complexus, a new Ego, is developed. The antagonism between the two centers of attraction — the old, which is in the stage of dissolution, and the new, which is in the stage of evolution — ^produces results which vary with circumstances. Sometimes the primitive Ego disappears after enriching the new with the spoils of its accumulated wealth — that is to say, with a part of its constituent associations. Sometimes the two Egos alternate, neither being able to supplant the other. Sometimes the primi- tive Ego exists only in the memory ; but, uncon- nected with any ccBnsesthesis, appears to the new Ego as an extraneous entity.* The preceding digression has been made to demonstrate what has already been affirmed — i. e., that periodic amnesia is only a secondary phenomenon ; it has its origin in vital disorder — the sentiment of existence which is, properly speaking, only the sentiment of bodily unity, passing through two alternate phases. This is the primitive cause of the formation of two centers of association, and, consequently, of two memories. * I thus explain a case recorded Ijy Leuret (" Fragments psych, sur la folie," p. 277), often cited. A maniac, who always desig- nated herself as "lapersonne de moi-meme" had retained very clearly recollection of her life up to the heginning of her insanity ; but she assigned this period to another. Of the primitive Hgo only the memory remained. These disorders of personality are full of interest, but they are not within the province of our dis- cussion. GENERAL AMNESIA. II3 If we contimie our inquiry, other questions arise wMch, unfortunately, we are unable to an- swer: 1. Wliat is the psychological cause of these rapid and regular variations of the coensesthesis ? Upon this point only hypotheses are offered (con- dition of the vascular system, inhibitory action, etc.). 2. What is the principle by which each form of the coensesthesis is attached to certain forms of as- sociation, to the exclusion of others ? We do not know. We can only affirm that in periodic am- nesia conservation remains intact ; that is to say, that the cellular modifications and dynamic asso- ciations subsist ; the power of reproduction alone is lost. The associations are provided with two sources of activity : a state (A) is able to stimulate certaia groups, but is incapable of influencing others ; another state (B) has also certain attached groups ; certain elements enter equally into each complexus, and there is incomplete disruption of the memory. In a word, two psychological states determine by alternation two coensestheses, which in turn determine two forms of association and, conse- quently, two memories. To complete this portion of our subject, some- thing should be said of the inherent co-operation established, in spite of long interruptions, between 114: DISEASES OF MEMORY. states of the same nature, notably in successive attacks of somnambulism. This phenomenon, in- teresting in many ways, can be examined here only from the point of view of periodical and regular excitations of the same recollections. Cu- rious as this may seem at first glance, it is logical, and perfectly in accord with our conception of the Ego. For, if the Ego is at any given moment only the sum of actual states of consciousness, and of those vital processes upon which consciousness depends, it is evident that, every time the physio- logical and psychological complexus is re-formed, the Ego will correspond, and similar associations win be brought into action. During each attack a certain physiological state is produced, and, as sensation is for the most part confined to exterior excitation, many associations wiU not be awak- ened. There is a simplification of mental life, re- duction to an almost mechanical condition. Moreover, it is plain that these states bear a great resemblance to one another, by reason even of their simplicity, and that they differ totally from the normal state. It is natural, then, that the same conditions should produce the same effects, that the same elements should unite in the same combinations, and that the same associations should be awakened to the exclusion of others. They find in the pathological state conditions of existence which are wanting in the normal state, GENERAL AMNESIA. 115 or, at least, are in antagonism witli others. In tlie healthy and normal state, the phenomena of con- sciousness are too numerous and varied to permit many chances for the same combination to be re- peated. It sometimes happens, however, from unknown causes. A dissenting minister, apparently ia good health, went through the entire pulpit service one Sunday morning with perfect consistency — his choice of hymns and lessons and extempore prayer being all related to the subject of the sermon. On the Sunday following he went through the service in precisely the same manner, selecting the same hymns and lessons, offering the same prayer, giving out the same text, and preaching the same sermon. On descending from the pulpit he had not the slightest remembrance of having gone through precisely the same service on the preceding Sunday. He was much alarmed, and feared an attack of brain-disease, but nothing of the kind supervened.* Drunkenness is some- times marked by a similar return of memory, as in the weU known case of the Irish porter who, having lost a package whUe drunk, got drunk again and remembered where he had left it. As we said at the beginning of this section, cases of periodic amnesia, however curious they may be, teach us much more with regard to the nature of * Carpenter, op. eit, p. 444. 116 DISEASES OF MEMORY. the Ego than to that of memory. But they have their value in mental pathology, and we shall re- turn to them again in the pages which follow. III. In progressive amnesia the work of dissolu- tion is slow and continuous, resulting in com- plete destruction of memory ; this is the general rule, but there are exceptions where the morbid evolution does not end in total extinction. The development of the disease is very simple ; be- ing gradual in its action, there is little to excite surprise ; but it is a fruitful theme for study, since, in learning of the dissolution of memory, we also learn how it is organized. We have no peculiar, rare, or exceptional cases to detail. There is a morbid type, well-nigh constant, which it wUl suffice to describe. The primal source of disease is a progress- ive lesion of the brain (cerebral hemorrhage, apo- plexy, softening, general paralysis, atrophy). During the initial period only partial disorders are manifested. The patient is forgetful, and al- ways of the most recent events. A task inter- rupted is forgotten. Incidents of the day, an order received, or a resolution made — these are soon effaced. Partial amnesia is a common symp- tom in general paralysis in its earlier stages. Lunatic asylums are full of patients of this class, GENEEAL AMNESIA. II7 wlio, on the day after entry, insist that they have been there for a year, five years, ten years ; who have only the vaguest recollection of leav- ing their homes and their families ; and who can tell neither the day of the week nor the name of the month. But recollection of what was done and acquired prior to the disease is retained with great tenacity. Every one has noticed in aged persons that loss of memory is very marked only in respect to the immediate past. At this point the resources of the old psy- chology are exhausted. The conclusion, tacit, at least, is that the dissolution of the memory fol- lows no law. We shall endeavor to prove the contrary. To discover this law it is essential that the progress of dementia should be studied from a psychological poiat of view.* When the pre- monitory period just spoken of is passed, there is a gradual and extended decay of all the fac- ulties until the subject is reduced to a vegeta- tive condition. Physicians distiaguish between different kinds of dementia according to causes, classing them as senile, paralytic, epileptic, etc. These distinctions have no interest for us. The progress of mental dissolution is at bottom the same, whatever the cause, and that to us is the * The word dementia is here used in a medical sense, and nQt as a synonym of insanity. 11 118 DISEASES OF MEMORY. only fact with wMcli we liave to concern our- selves. The question now arises, Does loss of memory in this dissolution foUow any regular order ? Specialists who have left descriptions of de- mentia have paid no attention to this cLuestion, to them of little importance. Their testimony would be of slight value if we could not derive from it some response ; fortunately we are able to apply it in this direction. If we consult the best authorities (Grriesinger, Baillarger, Fabret, Foville, and others), we find that amnesia, lim- ited at first to recent events, extends to ideas, then to sentiments and affections, and finally to actions. Here we have the data for the formu- lation of a law. To classify them, it is enough to examine the different groups. 1. It is a fact of such common experience that the failing memory first loses its hold upon recent events that the anomaly is unobserved. A priori it would be natural to believe that the latest impressions were the most distinct and the most stable ; and in the normal state this is true. But, with the beginning of dementia, there is grave anatomical lesion, a degeneration of the nervous cells. These elements, a prey to atrophy, are no longer capable of the conservation of new impressions. In precise terms, neither a new modification in the cells, nor the formation of GENERAL AMNESIA. ng new dynamical associations, is possible, or, at least, permanent. Tlie anatomical conditions of stability and revivification are wanting. If the perception is entirely new, it is either not regis- tered at all in the nervous centers, or, if regis- tered, the impression is faint and soon effaced.* If it is only a repetition of previous experience stm vital, the patient relegates the event to the past ; the concomitant circumstances soon vanish, and there are no means for localization in time. But modifications established for years in the nervous elements until they have become or- ganic — dynamical associations and groups of as- sociations called into activity hundreds and thou- sands of times — ^these remain ; they have a great power of resisting destructive agencies. In this manner we explain a parodox of the memory : the new perishes and the old endures. 2. Soon the primitive bases upon which the patient has been for a time able to live begin in their turn to crumble away. Intellectual acqui- sitions — the technique of science and art, profes- sional knowledge, the command of foreign lan- guages — disappear little by little. Personal rec- ollections are obliterated, descending toward the past. Those of infancy are the last to disap- * In a case of senile dementia the patient never recognized his physician, although the latter came to visit him every day for fourteen months. — Felmann, " Archiv. fiir Psychiatrie," 1864. 120 DISEASES OF MEMORY. pear. Even in an advanced stage of tlie malady, experiences and songs of childliood often return. Sometimes the subject forgets tlie greater por- tion of Ms own language. Expressions are re- vived, as it were, by accident ; but, ordinarily, any words that may remain in tlie memory are re- peated over and over in a purely automatic way {tide Griesinger, Baillarger). The anatomical cause of this intellectual dissolution is an atro- phy which, first invading the exterior cerebral layers, penetrates to the white substance, causing a fatty and atheromatous degeneration of the cells, tubes, and capillaries of the nervous tissue. 3. The most careful observers have remarked that the emotional faculties are effaced much more slowly than the intellectual faculties. At first thought it seems strange that states so vague as those pertaining to the feelings should be more stable than ideas and intellectual states in general. Reflection will show that the feel- ings are the most profound, the most common, and the most tenacious of aU phases of mental activity. While knowledge is acquired and ob- jective, feelings are innate. Primarily consid- ered, independently of any subtle or complex forms which they may assume, they are the im- mediate and permanent expression of organic life. The viscera, the muscles, the bones— aU the essential elements of the body — contribute some- GENERAL AMNESIA. 121 thing to their formation. Feelings form the self ; amnesia of the feelings is the destruction of the self. It is logical, then, that a period should ar- rive when disorganization becomes so great as to disintegrate personality. 4. Those acquisitions which are the last to succumb are almost entirely organic, such as the routine of daily life and habits long con- tracted. Many are able to arise, dress them- selves, take their meals regularly, occupy them- selves in manual labor, play at cards or other games — frequently with remarkable skiU — while possessing neither judgment, will, nor affections. This automatic activity, which requires only a minimum of conscious memory, belongs to that inferior order of memory having its seat in the cerebral ganglia, the medulla, and the spinal cord. We thus see that the progressive destruction of memory foUows a logical order — a law. It advances progressively from the unstable to the stable. It begins with the most recent recollec- tions, which, lightly impressed upon the nervous elements, rarely repeated and consequently hav- ing no permanent associations, represent organi- zation in its feeblest form. It ends with iho. sen- sorial, instinctive memory, which, become a per- manent and integral part of the organism, repre- sents organization in its most highly developed 122 DISEASES OF MEMORY. stage. From the first term of the series to the last the movement of amnesia is governed by natural forces, and follows the path of least re- sistance — that is to say, of least organization. Thus pathology confirms what we have already postulated of the memory, viz., that the process of organization is variable and is comprised be- tween two extreme limits : the new state — organic registration. This law, which I shall designate as the law of regression or reversion, seems to me to be a nat- ural conclusion from the observed facts. How- ever, that all doubts and objections may be re- moved, it wiU perhaps be well to subject the law to further test. If memory in the process of de- cay follows invariably the path just indicated, it should foUow the same path in a contrary di- rection in the process of growth ; forms which are the last to disappear should be the first to manifest themselves, since they are the most sta- ble and the synthesis progresses from the lower to the higher. It is extremely difficult to find cases appro- priate to our purpose. The first requirement is that the memory should return of itself. Cases of re-education prove very little. Moreover, pro- gressive amnesia is rarely followed by recovery. Finally, attention having never been called to this point, the records are defective. Physicians GENEKAL AMNESIA. 123 occupied with, other symptoms usually content themselves with noting that memory "gradually returned." In the "Bssai" previously cited, Louyer-VU- lermay remarks that when memory is re-estab- lished it follows in its return an inverse order to that observed in its dissolution — concrete facts, adjectives, substantives, proper names. There is little to be derived from so confused a state- ment. In the following we have more definite material to work upon : "There is a case of a celebrated Russian as- tronomer who forgot in turn events of recent ex- perience, then those of the year, then those of the latter portion of his life, the breach continually widening until only remembrance of chUdhood remained. The case was thought to be hopeless. But dissolution suddenly ceased, and repair be- gan ; the breach was gradually bridged over in a contrary direction ; recollections of youth ap- peared, then those of middle age, then the experi- ences of later years, and, finally, the most recent events. His memory was entirely restored at the time of his death." * The following observation is still more pre- cise ; the symptoms were noted from hour to hour. I transcribe it almost entire : f * Taine, " De I'intelligence," t. i, liv. ii, ch. ii, § 4. t " Observation sur un oas de perte de m6moire," by M. Komp- 124 DISEASES OF MEMORY. "I must first give a few details, apparently insignificant of themselves, but worth knowing, since they relate to a remarkable phenomenon. During the latter part of November, an officer of my regiment had his left foot injured by the pressure of an ill-fitting boot. On the 30th of November he went to YersaiUes to meet his brother. He dined there, returning to Paris the same night, and, on entering his lodgings, found a letter from his father on the mantel-piece. We now come to the important point. On the first of December this officer was at the riding-school, and, his horse falling, he was thrown, striking upon the right side of his body, and particularly upon the right parietal. The shock was followed by a slight syncope. On coming to himself, he remounted ' to drive off a little giddiness,' and continued his lesson for three quarters of an hour with much assiduity. From time to time, how- ever, he kept saying to the riding-master, ' I have been dreaming. What has happened to me ? ' He was finally taken home. Living in the same house with the patient, I was immediately called in. He was standing, recognized me and greeted me as usual, saying, 'I seem to have been dream- ing. What has happened to me ? ' His speech is natural, he replies readily to all questions, fen in the " M^moires de l'Acad6mie de M6decine," 1835, t. iv, p. 489. GENERAL AMNESIA. 125 and complains only of a confused feeling in the head. "Notwithstanding my inquiries, and those of the riding-master, and of his servant, he remem- bers neither the injury to his foot, nor his jour- ney to Versailles, nor going out in the morning, nor the orders he gave on going out, nor his fall, nor what followed. He recognizes every one, caUs each visitor by his name, and knows his position as officer. I have not allowed an hour to pass without examining the patient. Each time that I go back he believes that I have come for the first time. He remembers nothing of the prescribed remedies administered (foot-bath, rubbing, etc.). In a word, nothing exists for him except the ac- tion of the moment. "Six hours after the accident — the pulse be- gins to rise, and the patient takes cognizance of the reply already made so many times, ' You fell from your horse ! ' "Eight hours after the accident— the pulse is still rising. The patient remembers to have seen me once before. "Two hours and a half later— the pulse is nor- mal. The patient no longer forgets what is said to him. He remembers distinctly the injury to his foot. He begins also to recall his visit to Ver- sailles yesterday, but so indistinctly that he says if any one were to affirm positively to the contrary 126 DISEASES OF MEMORY. he would be disposed to believe Mm. However, the memory contiauing to return, by night he be- came firmly convinced that he had been to Yer- sailles. But here the progress of recollection ceased for the day. He went to bed without re- membering what he had done at Versailles, how he had returned to Paris, or the receipt of his father's letter. " December 2d— after a night of tranquil sleep, he remembers on awakening what he did at Yer- sailles, how he came back, and that he found a letter from his father on the mantel-piece. But of all that he saw or heard on the 1st of Decem- ber, before his fall, he is still ignorant to-day — that is to say, he has no knowledge of the events in question save from the testimony of others. "This loss of memory is, as the mathemati- cians say, inversely as the time that has elapsed between any given incident and the fall, and the return of memory is in a determiuate order from the most distant to the most near." Is not this observation, made at random by a man who is apparently greatly surprised at what he records, a satisfactory proof? It is true that it was only a question of temporary and limited amnesia ; but we see that even within these nar- row limits the law is verified. I regret my ina- bility to place before the reader more facts of this kind, notwithstanding an extended search. GENERAL AMNESIA. 127 When attention is called to tMs point, I hope that other material will be discovered. On the whole, our law, derived from facts and verified by observation, may be assumed as true until the contrary is proved. It may be further cor- roborated by other known facts. This law, general when applied to memory, is only one phase of a stiU. more general law in biology. It is a well-known fact in organic life that structures last formed are the first to de- generate. It is, says a physiologist, analogous to what occurs in a great commercial crisis. The old houses resist the storm ; the new houses, less solid, go down on every side. Finally, in the biological world, dissolution acts in a con- trary direction to evolution : it proceeds from the complex to the simple. Hughlings Jackson was the first to show that the higher functions — the complex, special, voluntary functions of the nervous system — were the first to disappear; that the ' lower, the simple, general automatic functions were the last to go. We have stated these two facts in the dissolution of memory : the new perishes before the old, the complex be- fore the simple. The law which we have formu- lated is only the psychological expression of a law of life, and pathology shows iu its turn that memory is a biological fact. The study of peri- odic amnesia has thrown much light upon our 128 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. subject. In showing us tow the memory is dis- solved and reconstructed, it teaches us what memory is. It has revealed a law which permits us to observe morbid types in great variety and from many points- of view ; later on, we shall, by its aid, be able to include them in one gen- eral survey. "Without attempting a careful review in this place, let us recall briefly what has been observed above. First, in all cases, abolition of recent im- pressions ; in periodic amnesia, total suspension of all forms of memory, except those which are semi-organized and organic; in total and tempo- rary amnesia, complete loss of memory, except in its organic forms ; in one instance (Macnish) amnesia comprising even organic forms. We shall see in the following chapter that partial disor- ders of memory are governed by this same law of regression, and especially the most important group — that of amnesia of language. The law of regression being admitted, we have now to determine in what manner it acts. Upon this poiut I shall be brief, having only hypothe- ses to offer. It would be puerile to suppose that recollections are arranged in the brain in the form of layers in order of age, after the fashion of geological strata, and that disease, penetrating from the surface to the lowest point, acts Uke an experimentalist removing the brain of an ani- GENERAL AMNESIA. 129 mal, bit by bit. To explain th.e action of tlie morbid process we must have recourse to the hypothesis advanced above with regard to the physical bases of memory. It may be summed up in a few words. It is very probable that recollections occupy the same anatomical seat as primitive impres- sions, and that they excite the activity of the same nervous elements (cells and filaments). The latter may have very different positions from the surface of the brain to the spinal cord. Con- servation and reproduction depend: (1) upon a certain modification of the cells ; (2) upon the formation of more or less complex groups which we have designated as dynamic associations. Such are the physical bases of memory. Primitive acquisitions, those that date from infancy, are the most simple ; they include the formation of secondary automatic movements in the education of the senses. They depend prin- cipally upon the medulla and the lower centers of the brain ; and we know that at this period of life the exterior cerebral. layers are imperfectly developed. Aside from their simplicity there is every reason why these first acquisitions should be stable. In the first place, the impressions are received in virgin elements. Nutrition is very active ; but incessant molecular repair serves only to fix the registered perception; the new mole- 12 130 DISEASES OE MEMORY. CTiles taking tlie exact places occupied by tlie old, tlie acquired state finally becomes organic. More- over, the dynamic associations formed between the different elements attain after a time to a condition of complete fusion, thanks to continual repetition. It is inevitable, then, that the earlier acquisitions should be better conserved and more easily re- produced than any others, and that they should constitute the most lasting form of memory. WhUe the adult organism is in a healthy state, new impressions and associations, although of a much more complex order than those of in- fancy, have stUl great chances of stability. The causes just enumerated are always in action, al- though with modified energy. But if, through the effects of old age or disease, the conditions change ; if the vital processes, particularly nu- trition, begin to fail ; if waste is in excess of repair — then the impressions become unstable and the associations weak. Take an example. A man is at that period of progressive amnesia when forgetfulness of recent impressions is very rapid. He attends a recital, looks at a land- scape, or witnesses a play. The psychical ex- perience consists primarily of a sum of auditory or optical impressions forming certain very com- plex groups. In the registered perceptions of this particular recital or this particular play there is, generally speaking, nothing new except GENERAL AMNESIA. 131 in the grouping, tlie associations. Sounds, forms, and colors, forming the substance of the event, have long been matters of experience, and have been many times memorized. But, because of the morbid condition of the brain, this new com- plexus can not be fixed ; the component ele- ments enter into other associations, groups of greater stability formed in a healthy state and often revived. Between the new complexus, tending feebly to assert itself, and the old asso- ciations, strongly established, the struggle is very unequal. It is more than probable, therefore, that the primitive combinations would be revived later on, even in place of the new. These ex- planations will suffice. It should be noted, how- ever, that the hypothesis with regard to the cause of progressive amnesia is of secondary im- portance. Whether it is accepted or rejected, the value of our law is unchanged. IV. There is little to be said upon the subject of congenital amnesia. It is considered here that our discussion may be complete. Cases are met with in idiots, imbeciles, and, to a minor degree, in cretins. Most of these are afflicted with a general debility of memory. Varying with the subject, amnesia may extend so far in some in- stances as to prevent the acquisition and conser- 132 DISEASES OF MEMORY. vation of tlie ordinary acts tliat go to make up the routine of life. But, while weakness of the memory is the rule, frequent exceptions are found. Among victims of congenital amnesia there are some whose memories, within certain limits, have been very remarkable. It has long been observed that in many idiots and imbeciles the senses are very unequally de- veloped ; thus, the hearing may be of extreme delicacy and precision, while the other senses are blunted. The arrest of development is not uni- form in all respects. It is not surprising, then, that general weakness of memory should co-exist in the same subject with the evolution and even hypertrophy of a particular memory. Thus, cer- tain idiots, insensible to all other impressions, have an extraordinary taste for music, and are able to retain an air which they have once heard. In rare instances there is a memory for forms and colors, and an aptitude for drawing. Cases of memory of figures, dates, proper names, and words in general, are more common. An idiot "could remember the day when every person had been buried in the parish for thirty-five years, and could repeat with unvarying accuracy the name' and age of the deceased, and the mourners at the funeral. Out of the line of burials he had not one idea, could not give an intelligible reply to a single question, nor be GENERAL AMNESIA. 133 trusted even to feed himself."* Certain idiots, unable to make the most elementary arithmetical calculations, repeat the whole of the multiplica- tion table without an error. Others recite, word for word, passages that have been read to them, and can not learn the letters of the alphabet. Drobisch reports the following case of which he was an observer: A boy of fourteen, almost an idiot, experienced great trouble in learning to read. He had, nevertheless, a marvelous facility for remembering the order iu which words and letters succeeded one another. When allowed two or three minutes in which to glance over the page of a book printed in a language which he did not know, or treating of subjects of which he was ignorant, he could, in the brief time men- tioned, repeat every word from memory exactly as if the book remained open before him.f The existence of this partial memory is so common that it has been utilized in the education of idiots and imbeciles.:]: It is worth noting that * Forbes Winslow, op. cit., p. 661. t Drobisob, " Empirisohe Psyohologie," p. 95.— Dr. Herzen hag told me of tbe case of a Russian, aged twenty-seven, who became an imbecile tbrough excessive dissipation. He retained nothing of the brilliant talents of his yoath with the exception of an ex- traordinary memory, being able to work out at sight the most difficult problems in arithmetic and algebra, and to repeat, word for word, long passages of poetry after a single reading; I See, on this subject, Ireland " On Idiocy and Imbecility," London, 1877. 134 DISEASES OF MEMORY. idiots attacked by mania or some otlier acute disease frequently display a temporary memory. Thus, "an idiot, in a fit of anger, told of a com- plicated incident of wMcli lie had been a wit- ness long before, and which at the time seemed to have made no inipression upon him." * In cases of congenital amnesia, the exceptions are the most instructive. The law only confirms a common truth — viz., that memory depends upon the constitution of the brain, and that in idiots and imbeciles the condition is abnormal. But the formation of limited partial memories will aid us in the comprehension of certain disorders to which we have not yet referred. I am inclined to believe that a careful study of mental symptoms in idiots would permit us to determine the ana- tomical and physiological conditions of memory. To this point we shall return in the following chapter. * Griesinger, op. cit, p. 431. CHAPTER III. PAETIAL AMNESIA, Before taking up the subject of partial am- nesia, something remains to be said with regard to the varieties of memory. Without preliminary- explanation, the facts which we shall cite would appear inexplicable and almost miraculous. That a person should be deprived of all recollection of words and retain the other faculties intact ; that he should forget one language and retain his mastery of others ; that a language long forgotten should suddenly return; that there should be loss of memory for music and for nothing else — these are facts so singular at first thought that, if they were not recorded by the most trustworthy observers, we would be inclined to class them with popular fables. If, on the contrary, we once have an accurate idea of what the word memory reaUy means, the marvelous element disappears, and these facts, far from exciting our wonder, are 136 DISEASES OF MEMOKT. seen to be the natural and logical consequences of a morbid influence. The use of the word memory in a general sense is perfectly justifiable. It designates a faculty common to all sentient and thinking beings — the possibility of conserving and reproducing impres- sions. But the history of psychology shows that it is too often forgotten that this general term, like all others of its class, is of value only when applied to particular cases, and that memory may be resolved into memories, Just as the life of an organism may be resolved into the lives of the organs, the tissues, the anatomical elements, which compose it. " The ancient and stiU unex- ploded error," says Lewes, "which treats mem- ory as an independent function, a faculty, for which a separate organ, or seat, is sought, arises from the tendency continually to be noticed of personifying an abstraction. Instead of recogniz- ing it as the short-hand expJfession for what is common to aU concrete facts of remembrance, or for the sum of such facts, many writers suppose it to have an existence apart." * While common experience has long demon- strated the natural inequality of different forms of memory in the same individual, psychologists have either neglected this point or have denied its truthfulness. Dugald Stewart seriously affirms * Op. cit., prob. ii, p. 119. PAETIAL AMNESIA. 137 that "original disparities among men in tMs re- spect are by no means so immense as they seem to be at first view, and that much is to be ascribed to different habits of attention, and to a difference of selection among the various objects and events presented to their curiosity."* Gall, the first to protest agaiast this view, assigned to each fac- ility its own special memory, and denied the exist- ence of memory as an independent function, f Contemporary psychology, more comprehen- sive and exact in its investigations, has discovered a considerable number of facts which leave no doubt with regard to the inequality of memo- ries in the same person. Think, for instance, of artists like Horace Vernet and Gustave Dore painting a portrait from memory ; of chess players able to carry on one or several games in the mind ; of lightning calculators like Zerah Colburn, who "see the figures before their eyes" ;:}: of the man spoken of by Le»es, who, after walking half a mile through a crowded street, was able to name all the shops he had passed in relative order ; of Mozart, writing down the "Miserere" in the Sis- tine Chapel after having heard it twice. For * "Philosophy of the Human Mind," p. SOT. t "Fonctions da cerveau," t. i. i I have had occasion to note that several calculators do not see the figures in their problems, but hear them. It matters little, so far as our theory Is concerned, whether the images are visual or auditory. 138 DISEASES OF MEMORY. further details the reader is referred to special contributions on this subject. * The question can not be considered in detail here. It will suffice for my purpose if these inequalities of memory- are granted. What are we to infer from these partial memo- ries ? The special development of a certain sense with the anatomical structures upon which it de- pends. Let us take a particular case, a good vis- ual memory, for instance. Its conditions are that the eye, the optic nerve, and those portions of the brain concurring in the act of vision (that is — ac- cording to generally received opinion in anatomy — certain portions of the pons Yarohi, the crura cerebri, the optic tract, and the cerebral hemi- spheres) should be finely developed and act har- moniously. These structures, superior by hy- pothesis to the average, are perfectly adapted to receive and transmit impressions. Consequently, the modifications of the nervous elements, as well as the dynamical associations which are formed (and these, as we have several times pointed out, are the bases of memory), ought to be more stable, more definite, and easier to revive than those formed in a less favored brain. In short, when we say that the visual organ has a good anatomical and physiological constitution, we * Lewes, op. cit. ; Luys, " Le cerveau et ses fonotions," p. 120 ; Taine, op. cit., t. i, 1" partie, liv. ii, ch. i. PAKTIAL AMNESIA. 139 state tlie conditions of a good visual memory. We may go further, and note tliat tlie phrase ' ' a good visual memory" is still too indefinite. Does not daily observation show us that some per- sons remember forms most easUy, while others have a special facility for recalling colors ? It is reasonable to suppose that the first memory de- pends upon the muscular sensibility of the eye, the second upon the retina and the nervous ap- paratus connected therewith. These remarks are applicable to hearing, smeU, taste, and those di- verse forms of sensibility comprised under the general term touch — in fact, to aU the sense-per- ceptions. If we think of the intimate relations existing between the feelings, the emotions, the general sensibility and physical constitution of each person, if we remember how much these physical states depend upon the organs of animal life, we are able to understand that they bear the same relations to the feelings as do the organs of sense to the perceptions. According to con- stitutional differences, transmitted impressions may be weak or intense, stable or fleeting ; so it is with the conditions modifying the memory of feelings. The preponderance of any system of or- gans over another gives superiority to the corre- sponding group of recollections. There remain the psychical states of a higher order, abstract ideas and complex sentiments. These can not be 140 DISEASES OF MEMOET. referred directly to any particular organ or or- gans ; tlie seat of their production and reproduc- tion is not yet localized with anything like precis- ion. But, as they manifestly result from the as- sociation or disassociation of primitive states, we have no reason to suppose that they are governed by any other principle than that already desig- nated. 'In the same person, then, an unequal develop- ment of the different senses and different organs induces unequal modifications in the correspond- ing portions of the nervous system ; hence unequal conditions of recollection, and, finally, varieties of memory. It is even probable that inequality of memories in the same person is the rule rather than the exception. As we have no exact process by which we can analyze each case separately and compare it with others, what we have said above is conjectural, although we insist that it applies to all cases of inequality where great dispropor- tion is shown. The antagonism existing between different forms of memory might further provide us with indirect proof of our hypothesis ; it is a field in which important discoveries . are yet to be made ; but it lies outside the province of this work.* Finally, the influence of education must not be forgotten. Its role is evidently an impor- tant one ; but education applies in the main only * See Spencer's "Principles of Psychology," p. 228, et seq. PARTIAL AMNESIA. 141 to faculties previously set in relief by nature ; and in many cases it is unable to extend its sphere of action to other and less favored mental traits. In psychology, as in every other domain of practical science, experience alone is the final arbitrator. We may observe, however, that the relative independence of different forms of mem- ory may be established by reason alone. It is, in fact, a corollary to the two general propositions vrhich follow : 1. Every recollection has its seat in a definite and determinate portion of the encephalon; 2. The encephalon and the cerebral hemi- spheres are made up of a certain number of total- ly difEereiitiated organs, each having its special function to perform, while remaining in the most intimate relations vsdth its feUows. This last proposition is now admitted by most authorities upon the nervous system. But I do not wish to dwell upon this point. In physiology the distinction of partial mem- ories is a familiar truth ; * but in psychology the method of "faculties " has so long forced the rec- ognition of memory as an entity that the exist- * See in particular Ferrier, "Functions of the Brain." Gi-a- tiolet (" Anat. compar6e," t. ii, p. 460) says that each sense has a corresponding and correlative memory, and that the mind, like the body, has its temperaments which result from the preponder- ance of a given order of sensations in manifestations of mental activity. 13 142 DISEASES OP MEMORY. ence of partial memories has been wholly ignored, or, at the most, regarded as, anomalous. It is time that this misconception was done away with, and that the fact of special, or, as some authors prefer, local memories, was clearly recognized. This last term we accept wUliiigly on the condi- tion that it is interpreted as a disseminated locali- zation, according to the theory of dynamic asso- ciations advanced above. The memory has often been compared to a store-house where every fact is preserved in its proper place. If this metaphor is to be retained, it must be presented in a more active form; we may compare each particular memory, for instance, with a contingent of clerks charged with a special and exclusive service. Any one of these departments might be'abolished without serious detriment to the rest of the work ; and that is what happens in partial dis- orders of the memory. We come now to the pathology of our subject. If, in the normal condition of the organism, the different forms of memory are relatively inde- pendent, it is natural that, if in a morbid state one disappears, the others should remain intact. The process needs no explanation, since it results from the very nature of memory. It is true that many partial disorders are not restricted to a single group of recollections. This is not surprising PAETIAL AMNESIA. 143 when we remember the close association which, exists between the different parts of the brain, their functions, and their corresponding psychical states. There are cases, however, in which amne- sia is very limited. A complete study of partial amnesia would ne- cessitate the consideration, one after another, of the different manifestations of psychical activity, with the pnrpose of demonstrating that each gronp of recollections may be in turn suppressed, temporarily or permanently. Such a task, how- ever, is impossible of fulfillment. We can not even say that certain forms are never partly ef- faced, and that they disappear only vsdth the com- plete dissolution of the memory. We must be content to await the more extended and definite pathological contributions which the future may bring forth. Strictly speaking, there is only one form of partial amnesia concerning which existing knowl- edge will warrant a complete analysis — that of signs (spoken or written, interjections, gestures). The facts collected are abundant and are expli- cable by the law formulated above. Reserving cases of this kind for separate study, we shall first review what is known of other forms of partial amnesia. Persons, according to CalmeU,* have lost the * "Dictionnaire," en trente volumes, ai'ticle " Amnfeie." 144: DISEASES OF MEMORY. power of reproducing certain tones or colors, and have been forced to give up music or paint- ing. Others lose only the memory of numbers, forms, a foreign language, proper names, the existence of their nearest relatives. The case recorded by Sir H. Holland has been often cited. "I descended on the same day," he says, "two very deep mines in the Hartz Mountains, remaining some hours underground in each. While in the second mine, and exhausted both from fatigue and inanition, I felt the utter im- possibility of talking longer with the German in- spector who accompanied me. Every German word and phrase deserted my recollection ; and it was not until I had taken food and wine, and been some time at rest, that I regained them again."* This case, although the best known of its class, is not unique. Dr. Beattie relates that one of his friends, having received a blow on the head, lost all his knowledge of Greek, although his memory was otherwise unimpaired. The loss of languages acquired by study has often been ob- served as a result of certain acute febrile diseases. The same thing is noticed with regard to music. A child, having received a severe blow on the head, remained for three days unconscious. On coming to himself, he was found to have forgotten * "Chapters on Mental Physiology," p. 160. PARTIAL AMNESIA. 145 all that lie had learned of music. Nothing else was lost.* There are more complicated cases. A patient, who had completely forgotten the value of mu- sical notes, was able to play an air after hearing it. Another was able to write down notes, and even to compose, recognizing the melody by the sense of hearing; but he could not play with the notes before him.f These facts, showing the complexity of what are apparently the simplest of the mental functions, will be considered fur- ther on.:]: Sometimes the most perfectly organ- ized and the most stable recollections disappear momentarily, while others of the same nature remain intact. A surgeon, who was thrown from his horse and remained for some time insensible, described the accident distinctly upon his recov- ery, and gave minute directions with regard to his own treatment. But he lost all idea of hav- ing either wife or children, and this condition lasted for three days. * Is this case to be ex- plained by mental automatism? The subject, while partly unconscious, retained all his profes- sional knowledge. Certain patients lose entirely the memory of proper names, even of their own. * Carpenter, "Mental Physiology," p. 441. t Kussmanl, " Die Storungen der Spraolie," p. 181 ; Proust, " Archives g6n6rales de m6deoine," 1873. X See § n, following. * Abercrombie, " Essay on the Intellectual Powers,'' p. 156. 146 DISEASES OF MEMORY. We shall see hereafter, in studying the amnesia of signs throughout its complete evolution — as shown particularly in the aged. — that proper names are always forgotten first. In the follow- ing cases, this forgetfulhess was a symptom of softening of the brain. A man, being unable to recollect the name of a friend, drags his companion through several streets to the house of the gentleman of whom he was speaking, and points to the name-plate on the door. Mr. Yon B., formerly envoy to Madrid, and afterward to St. Petersburg, was about to make a visit, but could not teU the servants his name. "Turning round immediately to a gentleman who accompanied him, he said, with much ear- nestness, ' For God' s sake, tell me who I am ! ' The question excited laughter, but, as Mr. Yon B. insisted on being answered, adding that he had entirely forgotten his own name, he was told it, upon which he finished his visit." * In others the apoplectic attack is followed only by amnesia of numbers. A traveler, ex- posed for a long period to the cold, experienced great weakness of memory. He could neither perform any mathematical calculation, nor could he retain for a moment the result of any siich calculation made by another. Forgetfulness of * Forbes "Winslow, op. cit., pp. 266-369. PARTIAL AMNESIA. I47 persons is of very frecLuent occurrence, a fact not at all surprising, since this form of memory, even in its normal state, is very slightly devel- oped and unstable ia many iadividuals, result- ing as it does from a complex mental synthesis. A striking example is given by Louyer-Viller- may. "An old man in the company of his wife believed himself all the while with another wom- an whom he had been accustomed to visit fre- quently, and exclaimed, contiaually, ' Madame, I can remain no longer ; I must go back to my wife and children.' " * Carpenter tells us of a gentleman of considerable scientific ability with whom he had been intimate from childhood, that, after passing his seventieth year, although unusually vigorous in body, he was forgetful of circumstances which had happened not long pre- viously, and occasionally was unable to compre- hend unusual words. "Though continually at the British Museum, the Eoyal Society, and the Geological Society, he would be unable to refer to either by name, but would speak of ' that pub- lic place.' He still continued his visits to his friends, and recognized them in their own homes, or in other places (as the Scientific Societies) where he had been accustomed to meet them ; but the writer, on meeting him at the house of * Louyer-Villermay, " Diotionnaire de scieDce et m^decine," article " M6moire." 148 DISEASES OF MEMORY. one of the oldest friends of both, usually resid- ing in London, but then staying at Brighton, found that he was not recognized ; and the same want of recognition showed itself when the meet- ing took place out of doors. The want of mem- ory of words then showed itself more conspicu- ously ; one word beiag substituted for another, sometimes in a manner that showed the chain of association to be (as it were) bent or distorted. . . . Thus ... he told a friend that ' he had had his umbrella washed,' the meaning of which was gradually discovered to be that he had had his hair cut."* His health continued good for some time, but his memory progressively failed. He finally died of apoplexy. In this instance there was at the same time amnesia of proper names and amnesia of persons, but the most curious fact in connection with such cases is the operation of the law of contiguity. Eecognition of persons does not come of itself through the simple fact of their presence. It must be suggested, or rather aided, by actual im- pression of the circumstances in which they are commonly presented. Recollection of places, fixed by life-long experience, becomes almost or- ganic and remains stable. It serves as a point cPappui for the excitation of other remembrances. The name of the place may not be revived ; asso- * Op. eit., p. 545. PARTIAL AMNESIA. I49 ciation between tlie object and sign is often too weak. But recollection of the person follows, since it depends upon a very stable form of asso- ciation — contiguity in space. The surviving cate- gory of recollections aids in the revival of others, which, left to themselves, would have remained inactive. A more extended enumeration of cases of partial amnesia would be easy, but without profit to the reader. It is enough to know their general nature from occasional illustration. The question naturally arises, whether forms of memory totally or temporarily disorganized by disease are those most perfectly established, or those, on the contrary, which are the feeblest. To this we have no positive answer. Reason alone teaches ns that morbid influences follow the path of least resistance. Observation seems to confirm that hypothesis. In most cases of par- tial amnesia the least stable forms of memory are effaced. I do not know of a single case where, any organic form having been suspended or abol- ished, the higher forms remained intact. It would be hazardous to affirm, however, that this rule is invariable. To the question propounded we can, therefore, reply only by hypothesis in the present state of knowledge. Moreover, it would be contrary to the scientific method to apply a general law off-hand to a series of heterogeneous cases, each depending npon special conditions. 150 DISEASES OF MEMORY. A careful analysis of each, case, and of its causes, is necessary before it would be possible to assert that all are reducible to a single formula. But the present state of our knowledge will not permit of such extended study. The same remarks are applicable to tlie method by which, amnesia is produced. We know nothing of tlie physiological conditions re- lating to each form. As to psychological condi- tions, we must fall back on hypothesis. Cases of partial amnesia may be divided into two classes — those of destruction, and those of suspension of the mental functions. The first are direct results of disorganization of the nervous eleinents. In the second, certain groups are temporarily iso- lated and impotent ; in psychological terms, they are without the mechanism of association. The case cited by Carpenter, last quoted, suggests some such explanation. The close solidarity ex- isting between the different portions of the en- cephalon, and, consequently, between the differ- ent psychical states, generally speaking, persists. Certain groups alone, vdth the sum of recollec- tions which they represent, are in some degree rendered inactive, and, cut off from the influ- ence of other groups, are for a time unable to enter into consciousness. This state results from physiological conditions of which we are igno- rant. PABTIAL AMNESIA. 151 II. One form of partial amnesia, tliat of signs, we have reserved for special stady. The term we here use in its widest 'meaning as comprising all methods adopted by man to express his senti- ments and ideas. The subject is almost unlimited, and is rich ia facts at once similar to and differ- ent from one another, since they have a common psychological character and yet differ in nature as to whether they are vocal or written, or are to be classed as gestures, or come under the head of drawing or music. They are easUy observed, ac- curately localized, and, through their variety, lend themselves readUy to comparative analysis. We shaU see, moreover, that cases of partial amnesia belonging in this category verify in. a remarkable manner the law of the dissolution of memory out- lined ia the preceding chapter. To prevent misconception, we may say here that we do not propose a detailed study of apha- sia. It is true that in most cases aphasia is con- nected with a disordered memory, but there are other influences to be considered which do not concern us. The investigations made during the last forty years with regard to diseases of lan- guage show that the term aphasia is very general in its application. Aphasia, being not a disease but a symptom, varies with the morbid and indue- 162 DISEASES OF MEMORY. ing cause. Thus certain victims of aphasia are deprived of every mode of expression ; others are able to speak but can not write, or vice versa; aphasia of gesture is very rare. Sometimes the patient retains an extensive vocabulary of vocal and graphic signs, but can not use it correctly (cases of heterophasia and agraphia). Sometimes he does not understand the meaning of words, written or spoken, although the senses of hear- ing and sight are intact (cases of verbal surdity and cecity). Aphasia is sometimes permanent, sometimes transitory. It is often accompanied by hemiplegia, which is usually right-sided, and, independently of amnesia, is of itself an obstacle to writing.* As there is also variation with the individual, the intricacy of the theme is evident. HappUy, it does not lie within the province of this treatise. Our task, already sufficiently diffi- cult, is to separate from disorders of language and those of the expressive faculty in general the cases which seem to pertain to memory alone. It is clear, in the first place, that we are not concerned vrith cases of aphasia resulting from idiocy, dementia, or general loss of memory, nor with cases where the faculty of transmission alone is wanting, as in lesion of the white sub- stance in the third left frontal convolution, re- * Left-lianded persons always have hemiplegia on the left side. PAETIAL AMNESIA. 153 suiting in the destruction of the expressive fac- ulty, the gray substance remaining intact.* But this double elimination does not decrease the difficulty, since the majority of cases of aphasia are produced under entirely different conditions. Let us examine the most common type. I do not think it necessary to cite examples which are easily found, f Aphasia usually comes on very suddenly. The patient is not able to speak, and, on attempting to write, finds himself powerless ; at most he can only trace with pro- longed effort a few unintelligible words. His countenance shows that he is conscious. He tries to make himself understood by gestures. There is no paralysis of the muscles employed in articulation; the tongue moves freely. Such are the chief characteristics of the attack so far as it is connected with our special object. What has taken place in the psychical state of the patient ? is the memory gone ? Keflection will show that amnesia of signs is not comparable to * For cases of this kind see Kiissmaul, " Die Storungen der Spraohe," p. 99. f The literature of aphasia is so voluminous that the mere enumeration of titles would fill many pages of this n-ork. From a psychological point of view the reader should consult especially Trousseau, " Olinique m6dicale," t. ii ; Falret, article " Aphasie," in the " Diotionnaire encycl. des sciences m6dic." ; Proust, " Ar- chives g6n6rales de m6decine," 1872 ; Kussmanl, " Die Storungen der Sprache " (an important work) ; Hughlings Jackson, " On the Afleotions of Speech " in " Brain " for 18T8, 1879, 1880. 14 154 DISEASES OF MEMOET. that of colors, sounds, a foreign language, or a period of life. It includes the whole activity of the mind ; in this sense it is general ; and yet it is partial, since the patient retains his ideas and recollections, and is conscious of his condition. If we adopt the theory that amnesia of signs is a disease of the motor memory, we discover at once its distinguishing characteristic, and are able to study the subject from a new point of view. The term motor memory is not easily defined in a few words ; the subject has received little atten- tion from psychologists, and it is impossible to enlarge upon it here. I have endeavored else- where,* although in a tentative and summary way, to explain the psychological importance of movements, and to show that every conscious state depends, to a certain extent, upon the motor elements. Keeping to that portion of the sub- ject with which we are alone concerned, I shall only note, what every one vnll readUy admit, that feelings, ideas, and intellectual actions in general, are not fixed, and only become a portion of memory when there are corresponding residua in the nervous system— residua consisting, as we have previously demonstrated, of nervous ele- ments, and dynamic associations among those elements. On this condition, and this only, can * "Eevne philosophique," October, 1879. See also Maudsley, "Physiology and Pathology of the Mind," part i, chap. viii. PAETIAL AMNESIA. 155 there be conservation and reproduction. But the same must hold true of movements. Those with which we are concerned here, and which are employed in articulate speech, writing, draw- ing, music, gestures, can only be conserved and reproduced on the condition that there are motor residua constituted as explained above. It is clear that, if nothing remained of a word uttered or written for the first time, it would be impos- sible to learn to speak or write. The existence of motor residua being ad- mitted, we are able to understand the nature of amnesia of signs. Intellectual activity consists, as we have said, of a series of conscious states as- sociated in a certain way. Each term in the series appears to the consciousness as a simple fact ; but in reality it is not so. When we speak or think with any degree of precision, all the terms in the series form into pairs, each pair composed of the idea and its expression. In the normal state the fusion between the two elements is so complete that they are one ; but disease proves that they may be disassociated. Moreover, the expression pair is not sufficiently comprehensive. It is exact only when applied to that portion of the human race which is unable to write. If I think of a house, aside from the mental representation which is the conscious state properly so-called, aside from the vocal sign which translates the 156 DISEASES OF MEMOKT. idea and is apparently one with, it, there is a graphic image almost as closely blended with the idea which in the act of writing predominates over the others. Nor is this all. Aronnd tha vocal sign house are grouped, by less intimate as- sociation, the vocal signs of other languages {domus, maison, Haus, casa, etc.). About the graphic sign house are grouped the graphic signs of the same languages. We see, then, that in the adult mind every definite state of consciousness is not a simple unity, but a complex unity — a group. The mental representation, the thought, is, properly speaking, only the nucleus ; around it are grouped a greater or less number of deter- mining signs. When this is understood, the mechanism of amnesia of signs becomes clear. It is a pathological -state in which, the idea re- maining intact or very nearly so, a portion or all of the interpreting signs are temporarily or en- tirely forgotten. This general proposition may be profitably completed with a more detailed study. 1. Is it true that in cases of aphasia the idea subsists while its verbal and graphic expressions have disappeared ? The question is not whether we are able to think without the use of signs. The subject of aphasia has long made use of signs ; but does the idea disappear with the possibility of expression 1 PARTIAL AMNESIA. 157 Facts point to tlie negative. Althougli it is gen- erally recognized that aphasia, when serions and of long duration, is always accompanied by men- tal weakness, there can be no doubt that mental activity persists, even when there are no means of translating the ideas into words or gestures. Ex- amples are numerous ; I shall cite only a few of the most important. Patients deprived of only a part of their vo- cabulary, but unable to find the proper word, re- place it by a paraphrase or description. For scis- sors they say "the things that cut" ; for window, "what you see through." They designate a man by the place where he lives, by his titles, his pro- fession, inventions which he has made, or books that he has written.* In the most serious cases we sometimes find the patient able to play at cards with calculation and discretion ; others are able to superintend their affairs. In the latter class was the great landed proprietor spoken of by Trousseau, "who had leases and deeds brought to him, and indicated by gestures, intelligible to his attendants, what changes were to be made, and these were generally reasonable and profitable." A man entirely deprived of speech sent his physi- * The victim of aphasia often confounds words, says "fire" for "bread," etc., or devises new and unintelligible expressions; but disorders of this kind are more diseases of language than of memory. 158 DISEASES OF MEMORY. cian a detailed history of Ms case clearly ex- pressed and in a legible hand. We also have the testimony of patients themselves after recovery. "I had forgotten all the words I knew," said one of them, "but I retained fully my consciousness and will-power. I knew very well what I wanted to say, yet could not say it. When you [the physician] questioned me, I understood perfectly ; I made every effort to reply, but it was impossi- ble to remember a word."* Rostran, a physician, suddenly attacked, was unable to speak or write a single word, but " ana- lyzed the symptoms of his malady and sought to connect it with some special lesion of the brain, as if he were in attendance at a medical consultation." In another case, that of Lordat, the patient "was capable of comprehending a lecture and of classifying its heads in his mind, but, when his thoughts sought expression in speech or writing, he was helpless, although there was no paralysis."! 2. Does this amnesia depend, as suggested above, especially upon the motor elements? In establishing the necessary existence of motor * Legronx, "De I'apliasie," p. 96. t For details, see Trousseau, op. cit. Lordat was an ardent spiritualist, and from that point of view drew conclusions with regard to the independence of the mind. He deceived himself. In the Judgment of those who knew him, he did not regain his original faculties after nominal recovery. See Proust, op. eit. PAETIAL AMNESIA. I59 residua, this problem was not examined in all its complex relations. We shall therefore return to it again. When we learn to speak our own tongue or a foreign language, there are certain sounds or acoustic signs which are registered in the brain. But that is only a portion of the task. They must be repeated untU they pass from a recep- tive to an active state, and we are able to trans- late the acoustic signs into vocal movements. This operation is at first very difficult, since it consists in the co-ordination of very complex movements. We are only able to speak with fa- cility when these movements are easily repro- duced — that is to say, when the motor residua are organized. When we learn to write we fix the eyes upon a copy ; the visual signs are regis- tered in the brain, and then, with great effort, we endeavor to reproduce them by movement of the hand. Here there is a co-ordiaation of very deli- cate movements. We are able to write only when the visual signs are translated immediately into movements — that is to say, when the motor re- sidua are organized. The same remarks are ap- plicable to music, design, or expression by ges- ture, as in the case of deaf-mutes. The faculty of expression is more complex than it appears to be on general observation. Ideas or sentiments to be expressed require an acoustic (or visual) mem- 160 DISEASES OF MEMOET. ory and a motor memory. Why may we not believe that it is the motor memory wliicli is affected in amnesia of signs? In most cases of aphasia, if a common object, a knife, for iastance, is held before the patient and designated by a wrong name, such as "fork" or "book," the patient indicates dis- sent. Utter the proper word, and there is a ges- ture of affirmation. If you ask the patient to repeat, he is not usually able to do so. Thus the idea is not only preserved, but also the acoustic sign, since there is a discrimination among many and selection of the one proper to the object. As speech is impossible while the vocal organs remain intact, it must be that amnesia affects the motor elements. A similar experiment may be made in writing ; in cases where the victim of aphasia is not paralyzed we arrive at the same results and the same conclu- sion. The patient has retained the memory of visual signs, while he has lost the memory of movements necessary to their reproduction. Some are able to copy, but when the original is taken away they are helpless. However, in advancing the theory of motor amnesia as applicable to the majority of cases, I do not pretend that the law is invariable. In so involved a question one should guard against absolute affirmation. In cases of chronic aphasia PARTIAL AMNESIA. 161 tte patient often forgets vocal and written signs, or at least recognizes them only after great effort and prolonged hesitation. In such cases amnesia is not limited to the motor elements alone. On the other hand, we have seen that in certain cases the patient is able to repeat or copy words. Others can read aloud without being capable of extempore speech; but this is exceptional.* Many, however, are able to read mentally while they can not read aloud. It sometimes happens — although rarely — that the patient is able to ut- ter a portion of a phrase oflE-hand without being able to begin again. Brown-S^quard records the case of a physician who talked in his sleep, al- though when awake he was the victim of aphasia. These instances, infrequent as they are, show that motor amnesia is not invariable. It is the same with this as with other forms of memory : under certain exceptional conditions it revives. An analogy may be cited in passing. The sub- ject of aphasia, in attempting to repeat a word, re- sembles exactly a person who is only able to recall a fact with the assistance of another : the psycho- logical mechanism of forgetfulness of signs is the same as that of all forgetfulness. It consists of a disassociation. An impression is forgotten when it can not be revived by association, when it does not enter iato any series. In aphasia the idea is * Falret, op. cit, p. 618. 162 DISEASES OF MEMORY. Tillable to resuscitate its corresponding sign or motor expression. Here tlie disassociation is more complete. It affects not only tlie terms united by previous experience, but also ele- ments which, have been so closely welded to one another as to appear to the consciousness as an entity, to sustain whose relative independence would seem the refinement of analytical subtilty, if the disease did not itself afford demonstra- tion.* It is this close association of the idea, the sign (vocal or written), and the motor element, which renders it so difficult to establish in a definite and indisputable manner that amnesia of signs is, above all, a motor amnesia. As every conscious state tends to translate itself into movement, as, according to Bain, thought is only restrained ex- pression, it is not possible by analysis alone to show definite separation among these three ele- ments. It seems to me, however, that the mem- ory of vocal and written signs which survives in the intelligent subject of aphasia represents what * Oases long confounded under the general term aphasia have been carefully described of late under the head of terbal cecity and 'oerlal surdity (WortUindheit, Worttaubheit). The pa- tient is able to speak and write ; sight and hearing are conserved, and yet the words that he reads or hears pronounced convey no meaning to the mind; to him they are simple optical or acoustic phenomena ; they suggest no ideas, and have ceased to be signs. This is another and rarer form of disassociation. For details see Kussmaul, op. cit., ch. xxvii. PARTIAL AMNESIA. 163 is called the "inner voice," that minimum of de- termination without which the mind would be on the way to dementia, and, consequently, that the motor elements alone are effaced in such in- stances. On examining the opinions of the few physicians who have made a special study of the psychology of aphasia, I find that their theory does not differ sensibly from my own except in form. "I have asked myself," said Trousseau, "if aphasia is not simply forgetfulness of those instinctive and harmonious movements learned from early infancy and constituting articulate lan- guage ; and if, by this forgetfulness, the subject of aphasia is not in the condition of a child taught to stammer forth his first words, or of a deaf- mute who, suddenly cured of his deafness, at- tempts to imitate the speech of persons which he hears for the first time. The difference between the victim of aphasia and the deaf-mute would then be, that one had forgotten what he had learned, and that the other had not yet been taught."* Kussmaul says: "If we consider memory as a general function of the nervous system, there must be for the combination of sounds into words at once an acoustic memory and a motor memory. Memory of words is thus double : 1, there is a memory for words as far as they may be regarded * Op. cit., p. 718. 164: DISEASES OF MEMORY. as groups of acoustic phenomena ; 2, there is an- other memory for words as motor images {Be- wegungsMlder). Trousseau has observed that aphasia may always be reduced to a loss of memory either of vocal signs or of the means by which words are articulated. W. Ogle also dis- tinguishes two verbal memories, the first familiar to every one, through which we have conscious- ness of a word, and the second through which we are able to express it."* Is it necessary to admit that the residua cor- responding to an idea, those which correspond to its vocal sign, its graphic sign, and to the movements that express the one or the other ■ — ^must we believe that these are associated in the cortex? What anatomical conclusions are we to draw from the fact that there may be loss of memory of movements without that of innate ideas, of speech without that of writing, or of writing without that of speech? Are motor residua localized in Broca's convolution, as some physiologists think? "We can only suggest these queries, which we are unable to answer. The relation between sign and idea, a simple fact in s abjective psychology, becomes in positive psychology a complex problem which can only be solved with a further development of our knowledge of anatomy and physiology. * Op. cit., p. 156. PAETIAL AMNESIA. 165 Having examined into tlie nature of amnesia of signs, we have now: to study its evolution. I have endeavored to show that it is especially- concerned with the motor elements, and have there pointed out its chief characteristic, but whether this hypothesis is admitted or not makes no difference with what is to follow. Sometimes aphasia is of very brief duration. Sometimes it becomes chronic, and, if the pa- tient is seen after the lapse of several years, his condition is not found to be sensibly changed. But there are cases where renewed apoplectic attacks augment the intensity of the disease ; it then follows a progressive course which is of the greatest interest to us. Dissolution takes place by stages, so that the memory is effaced more and more in accordance vsdth a regular sequence. This sequence is, 1, words — that is to say, rational language ; 2, exclamatory phrases, interjections — what Max Miiller calls emotional language ; 3, in rare cases, gestures. Let us ex- amine these three periods of dissolution in de- tail; we shall then have made a comprehensive study of amnesia of signs. 1. The first period is much the most impor- tant, since it comprises the higher forms of language, those which are distinctively human, the products of the reasoning, faculties. Here again dissolution follows a determinate order. 15 166 DISEASES OF MEMORY. Physicians, even prior to contemporary investi- gation into the mechanism of aphasia, noticed that recollection of proper names is lost before that of substantives, and that the latter in turn precedes the loss of adjectives. This has been confirmed by subsequent observation. " Substan- tives," says Kussmaul, "and especially proper names and names of things {Sachnamen), are more easily forgotten than verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech." * This fact has only been noted by physicians in a casual way. Yery few have sought to discover the causes. It has, in fact, no special interest from a professional point of view, while of great importance in psy- chology. We see at first glance that the progress of amnesia is from the particular to the general. It first effaces proper names which are purely in- dividual, then the names of concrete things, then substantives not formed from adjectives, and, finally, adjectives and verbs which express quali- ties, states of being, and acts. Signs directly ex- pressive of quality are the last to disappear. The savant mentioned by Gratiolet, who, having forgot- ten proper names, said, "My friend who invented " so and so, had reached the stage of designation by qualities. It has also been noted that many idiots have memory only of adjectives (Itard). The notion of quality is the most stable because * Op. cit., p. 164. PAETIAL AMNESIA. 167 it is the first to be acquired, and because it is tlie basis of the most complex mental conceptions. As the particular is necessarily that which has the least extension, and the general that which has the most, we may say that the rapidity with which signs disappear from the memory is in inverse ratio to their extension ; and as, other things being equal, a term has more chances of beiug repeated and fixed in the memory the greater the number of objects it represents, and the least chance of being repeated and fixed in the memory the smaller the number represented, we see that the law of dissolution is definitively supported by experimental conditions. In con- nection with this subject the foUowing passage from Kussmaul may be read with advantage : "As the memory fails, the more concrete the con- cept the quicker its corresponding term will dis- appear. The cause of this is that our representa- tion of persons and things is less firmly associated with their names than with their relative abstract terms, such as apply to their condition, relations, or qualities. We can easily form mental images of persons and things without their names, be- cause the sentient image is more familiar than the other image, the sign — that is to say, the name. On the other hand, we acquire abstract concepts only by the aid of words which give them a stable form. That is why verbs, adjec- 168 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. tives, pronouns, and especially adverbs, preposi- tions, and conjunctions are more firmly fixed in the mind than substantives. We may suppose that in the plexus of cells in the cortex the phe- nomena of excitation and combination are much more numerous for an abstract concept than for a concrete concept; and, consequently, that the organic connections uniting the abstract idea vrith its sign are much more numerous than those recLuired in the case of a concrete idea." * , Expressed in psychological terms, this last phrase is equivalent to what we said above, viz., that the stability of the sign varies directly as its organization — that is to say, as the number of experiences repeated and registered. The science of language also provides us with valuable illustrations which I can not ignore, even at the risk of wearying the reader with a super- abundance of evidence. The evolution of lan- guage takes place, as we would naturally infer, in an inverse order to that of its dissolution in aphasia. But before having recourse to the law of the historical development of language, it would seem reasonable that we should first ex- amine its individual development. This, how- ever, is impossible. "When we learn to speak, our language is borrowed. Although a child, as * Op. cit., p. 164. PARTIAL AMNESIA. 169 M. Taine has well said, "learns a language al- ready made as a musician learns counter-point and a poet prosody, tliat is to say, as a creative genius," in fact he creates nothing. We are therefore obliged to confine ourselves to historic evolution. It is now well established that the Indo-European languages have their origia in a certain number of roots, and that these roots are of two kinds : verbal or predicative, and pronomi- nal or demonstrative. The first class, comprising verbs, adjectives, and substantives, are, according to Professor Whitney, signs indicative of acts or qualities. The second class, whence come the pro- noun and adverb (the preposition and conjunction are of secondary formation), are not so numerous, and iadicate relative position. The primitive form of word-signs is, therefore, an affirmation of qual- ity. Then the verb and adjective are differentia- ted. "Names are derived from verbs by the in- termediation of participles, which are simply ad- jectives, with the verbal derivation effaced."* The transformation of common nouns into proper nouns is plain. Does not the natural evolution of language explain the various stages of its dissolution in aphasia, as far as a spontaneous creation and the decay of a language artifically learned are comparable ? * F. Baiidry, "De la science dn langage," p. 16. For further details see the works of Max Muller and Professor Whitney. 170 DISEASES OF MEMOET. 3. In examining in a general way tlie law of the regression of memory, we saw tliat tlie mem- ory of sensations was effaced after that of ideas. By analogy we are led to tlie conclusion that in the special case which we are considering — ^pro- gressive amnesia of signs — the language of the emotions should disappear before the language of reason. This deduction is fully proved by obser- vation. The best observers (Broca, Trousseau, Hugh- lings Jackson, Broadbent, etc.) have recorded many instances where victims of aphasia, com- pletely deprived of speech and iacapable of articu- , lating a single word voluntarily, were able to utter not only exclamations, but complete phrases in which they expressed anger or spite, or deplored their infirmity. One of the most persistent forms of language under such conditions is that of oaths. We have remarked in a general way that states of most recent formation are the first to disappear, whUe the oldest are the last to be ef- faced. We have here a confirmation : the lan- guage of the emotions is formed before the lan- guage of ideas ; it disappears after. Again, the complex disappears before the simple, and the language of reason compared with that of the sen- sations is of extreme complexity. 3. The foregoing is applicable to gestures. PARTIAL AMNESIA. 171 This form of language, the most natural of all, is not (like the interjection, for instance) simply a mode of reflex expression. It appears in the child long before articulate language. In certain savage tribes it plays a more important part than spoken words. This innate language is rarely lost. "Those cases of aphasia in which we find imitative disorders are always," says Kussmaul, "of an extremely complex nature. Sometimes the patient realizes that his gestures are deceptive, sometimes he is not conscious of their meaning." * Hughliugs Jackson, who has given special atten- tion to this point, notes that in certain cases the patient can neither laugh, nor smile, nor weep, except under stress of great emotion. He also remarks that some affirm or deny by gestures, without discriniination. One who still retained a few interjections and gestures used them in an unintelligible way and in a contrary sense. An instance cited by Trousseau is a remarkable ex- ample of purely motor amnesia as affecting ges- tures. "I held my hands before me and moved my fingers as if I were playing the clarionet, and requested the patient to imitate me. He did so with perfect precision. 'You see,' I said to him, ' I am making the motions of a man who plays the clarionet ? ' He responded with an affirma- tion. A few minutes later I asked him to go * Op. cit., p. 160. 172 DISEASES OE MEMOET. througli tlie same movements. He reflected for a time, but was entirely unable to reproduce a mim- icry so simple." Reviewing what we have gone over in this sec- tion, we see that amnesia of signs progresses from proper names to substantives, then to adjectives and verbs, then to the language of the emotions, and finally to gestures. This destructive move- ment does not take place at random ; it is gov- erned by a rigorous principle — ^from the least or- ganized to the most organized, from complex to simple, from the least automatic to the most automatic* What has been said above with regard to the general law of reversion of memory might be repeated here, and it is not one of the least significant proofs of its exactitude that it should be verified in cases of partial amnesia, the most important, the most systematic, and the best known of aU affections of the memory. There is still space for a counter-proof. When amnesia of signs is complete and recovery begins, do they return in inverse order to that in which they disappeared ? Illustrations are rare. I find, however, a case recorded by Dr. Grasset of a man who was seized with " complete inability of expressing his thoughts either by speech, by writ- ing, or by gestures. After a time the faculty of * It is a remarkable fact that many subjects of aphasia who are unable to write are still capable of signing their names. PAETIAL AMNESIA. 173 expression returned little by little, first manifest- ing itself through gestures, then through speech and writing." * It is probable that other exam- ples of this kind might be found if special atten- tion were given to the subject by qualified ob- servers. * " Kevue des sciences m6dicales," etc., 1873, t. ii, p. 684. CHAPTER IV. EXALTATIONS OF ME5I0ET, OK HTPEEMNESIA. Up to tMs point our pathological study has been limited to forms destructive of memory ; we have thus seen its diminution or effacement. But there are cases entirely opposite in character, where functions that were apparently obliterated are revived, and vague recollections attain to ex- traordinary intensity. Is this exaltation of mem- ory, which physicians term hypermnesia, a morbid phenomenon ? It is, at least, an anomaly. And, as it is always associated with some organic dis- order,- or with some curious or unusual condition, there can be no doubt that it comes within the province of this work. Its study is less instruc- tive than that of amnesia, but a monograph should neglect nothing that may throw light upon the subject in hand. We shall see, moreover, that it teaches us something with regard to the persistence of recollections. Excitations of memory are general or par- tial. EXALTATIONS OF MEMORY, OE HYPERMNESIA. 175 I. General excitation of memory is difficult to de- fine, since the degree of excitation is entirely rela- tive. It would be necessary to compare memory with memory as existing in the same person. The power of memory varying with the individual, there is no common measure ; amnesia with one may be hypermnesia in another. It is, in fact, a change of tone produced in the memory as ia aU other forms of psychical activity, thought, imagi- nation, sensibility. Moreover, when we say that excitation is general, we only state a reasonable induction. As memory is subject to the condi- tion of consciousness, and as consciousness is only evolved in the form of a succession, all that we can say is that, during a greater or less period of time, a multitude of recollections spring up on every side. General excitation of memory seems to depend entirely upon physiological causes, and particularly upon the rapidity of the cerebral cir- culation. Hence, it frequently appears in acute fevers. It is stiU more common in maniacal exci- tation, in ecstasy, in hypnotism ; sometimes it ap- pears in hysteria and in the early stages of certain diseases of the brain. Aside from these cases which are distinctively pathological, there are others of a more extraordi- nary nature, which probably arise from the same 1Y6 DISEASES OF MEMOEY. caiise. There are several accounts of drowned persons saved from imminent death, wlio agree that at the moment of asphyxia they seemed to see their entire lives unrolled before them in the minutest incidents. One of them testifies that "every instance of his former life seemed to glance across his recollection in a retrograde suc- cession, not in mere outline, but th.e picture being filled with every minute and collateral feat- ure," forming " a kind of panoramic picture of his entire existence, each act of it accompanied by a sense of right and vsTong." An analogous case is that of "a man of remarkably clear head," who "was crossing a railway in the country when an express train at full speed appeared closely ap- proaching him. He had just time to throw him- self down in the center of the road between the two lines of rails, and as the vast train passed over him, the sentiment of impending danger to his very existence brought vividly into Ms recol- lection every incident of his former life in such an array as that which is suggested by the promised opening of 'the great book at the last great day.'"* Even allowing for exaggeration, these instances show a superintensity of action on the part of the memory of which we can have no idea in its normal state. * For these oases, and others of like nature, see Forbes Wins- low, op. cit., p. 303, et seq. EXALTATIONS OF MEMORY, OE HTPERMNESIA. 177 I sliaU cite a final illustration of exaltation of memory due to intoxication from tlie use of opium, and request the reader to note in wliat manner it confirms the explanation given above with regard to the mechanism of recollection. "Sometimes," writes De Quincey in his "Confes- sions of an English Opium-Eater," "sometimes I seemed to have lived for seventy or a hundred years in one night. . . . The minutest incidents of childhood, or forgotten scenes of later years, were often revived. I could not be said to recol- lect them ; for, if I had been told of them when waking, I should not have been able to acknowl- edge them as parts of my past experience. But, placed as they were before me, in dreams like in- tuitions, and clothed in all their evanescent cir- cumstances and accompanying feeltags, I recog- nized them instantaneously " (p. 259). AIL general excitations of memory are transi- tory; they never survive the inducing causes. Are there cases of permanent hypermnesia? If the term is made to assume a slightly forced meaning, it may be applied to the singular devel- opment of memory that sometimes follows certain injuries. Upon this point plenty of oft-repeated stories may be found in old writers (Clement YI, MabUlon, etc.). These statements may be ac- cepted as true, for modem observers, Romberg among others, have noted a remarkable and per- 16 178 DISEASES OF MEMORY. manent development of memory after shocks, at- tacks of small-pox, etc. The mechanism of this metamorphosis being inscrutable, there is no rea- son why we should dwell upon it here. II. Partial excitation is from its nature fixed within definite limits. The ordinary tone of the memory being generally maintained, special de- velopment of any form is very noticeable. Hy- permnesia of this kind is the necessary correla- tive of partial amnesia ; it proves once more and in another way that the memory is made up of memories. In the evolution of partial hyper- mnesia no law is discernible. Each case presents itself as an isolated fact — ^that is to say, as the re- sultant of certain conditions which we are unable to determine. Why should a certaia group of cells forming a given dynamical association be spurred into action more than any other ? We can give no reason, either physiological or psy- chological. The only cases where there would seem to be any trace of a law are those men- tioned in the following pages where several lan- guages returned successively to the memory. Partial excitation nearly always results from mor- bid causes indicated above ; but it sometimes oc- curs in a state of health, as will be seen from the two examples following: — EXALTATIONS OF MEMOET, OR HYPERMNESIA. 179 "A lady, in the last stage of a chronic dis- ease, was carried from London to a lodging in the conntry ; there her infant daughter was taken to visit her, and, after a short interview, carried back to town. The lady died a few days after, and the daughter grew up without any recollec- tion of her mother till she was of mature age. At this time she happened to be taken into the room in which her mother died, without knowing it to have been so ; she started on entering it, and, when a friend who was along with her asked the cause of her agitation, she replied : ' I have a distinct impression of having been in this room before, and that a lady, who lay in that comer, and seemed very ill, leaned over me and wept.'" * A clergyman endowed with a decidedly artis- tic temperament (a fact worth noting) went with a party of friends to a castle in Sussex, which he did not remember ever to have previously vis- ited. "As he approached the gateway, he be- came conscious of a very vivid impression of having seen it before ; and he ' seemed to him- self to see ' not only the gateway itself, but don- keys beneath the arch, and people on the top of it. His conviction that he must have visited the castle on some former occasion made him inquire from his mother if she could throw any light on the matter. She at once informed him that, be- * Abercrombie, "Essay on the Intellectual Powers," p. 120. 180 DISEASES OF MEMOKT. ing in that part of the country when he was about eighteen months old, she had gone over with a large party, and taken him in the pan- nier of a donkey ; that the elders of the party, having brought lunch with them, had eaten it on the roof of the gateway where they would have been seen from below, while he had been left on the ground with the attendants and donkeys."* The mechanism of recollection in these two cases leaves no room for misunderstanding. There was in each instance revivification by contiguity in space. These examples only present in a more striking and less common form what is constantly occurring every day of our lives. Who has not, in order to recover an impression momentarily lost, made his way to the spot where the idea first arose in order to place himself as far as possible in the same material situation, and at length find it suddenly revived? As to hyper- mnesia from morbid causes, I shall give but one example which may serve as a type : "A case has been related to me," says Aber- crombie, "of a boy who at the age of four re- ceived a fracture of the skull, for which he un- derwent the operation of trepan. He was at the time in a state of perfect stupor, and after his recovery retained no recollection either of the accident or of the operation. At the age of fif- * Carpenter, op. eit., p. 431. EXALTATIONS OF MEMOET, OR HYPEEMNESIA. 181 teen, during the delirium of a fever, lie gave Ms mother a correct description of the operation, and the persons who were present at it, with their dress and other minute particulars. He had never been observed to aUude to it before, and no means were known by which he could have ac- quired the circumstances which he mentioned."* The complete recovery of a forgotten language merits attention. The case reported by Coleridge is well known, and there are many others of the same kind to be found in the works of Aber- crombie, Hamilton, and Carpenter. The anses- thetic sleep induced by chloroform or ether some- times produces the same effects as does febrile excitation. "An old forester had lived in his boyhood on the frontier of Poland, where he had never spoken anything but the Polish tongue. Afterward he lived in the German districts, and his children assert that for thirty or forty years he neither heard nor pronounced a single Polish word. During an attack of anaesthesia which lasted nearly two hours, he spoke, prayed, and sang, using only the Polish language." t More curious than the return of one language is the progressive return of several languages. Unfortunately, authors who have reported facts * Op. cit., p. 149. t Duval, " Nouveau diet, de mddecine," article " Hypnotisme," p. 144. 182 DISEASES OF MEMORY. of tMs kind speak of tkem as simple curiosities without giving the information necessary for their iaterpretation. The most clearly described case is recorded by Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia. "Dr. Scandella, an ingenious Italian, who visited this country a few years ago, was master of the Ital- ian, French, and English languages. In the be- ginning of the yellow fever, which terminated his Ufe, ... he spoke English only; in the middle of the disease, he spoke French only ; but, on the day of his death, he spoke only ia the lan- guage of his native country."* The same author speaks in a very confusing way of a woman sub- ject to attacks of temporary insanity. At first she spoke bad Italian ; at the most acute period of the disease, French ; during the subsidence of the attack, German ; and, when she had entered upon the road to convalescence, she returned to her mother-tongue, English. Setting aside regres- sion through several lauguages for more simple cases, we find illustrations in abundance. A Frenchman living in England, speaking English perfectly, received a blow on the head. During the illness that followed he was only able to reply to questions in French. But there is no observa- tion more instructive than the following, also re- ported by Dr. Rush. He knew, he tells us, a * " Medical Inquiries and Observations upon Diseases of the Mind," p. 277. EXALTATIONS OF MEMORY, OR HYPERMNESIA. 183 German, for many years minister of the Lutheran Clmrcli in Philadelphia, "who, ia visiting the old Swedes who inhabited the southern district of the city, upon their death-beds, was much struck in hearing some of them pray in the Swedish lan- guage, who he was sure had not spoken it for fifty or sixty years before, and who had probably for- gotten it." * Forbes Winslow also notes a case of a physician who had in early life renounced the principles of the Roman Catholic Church, and who, during an attack of delirium preceding his death, prayed only in the forms of the Church of Rome, all recollection of the prescribed formulae of the Protestant religion being obliterated.! This return of languages and forgotten phrases seems to me, when properly interpreted, to be only a particular case of the law of regression. In the progress of a morbid action which nearly always ends in death, the most recent formations of memory are first destroyed, and the destructive work goes on, descending, so to speak, from layer to layer, until it reaches the oldest acquisitions — ^that is to say, the most stable— incites them to temporary activity, brings them for a time into consciousness, and then wipes them out for ever. Hypermnesia would then be only the result of * Op. cit., Hid. t Op. cit., p. 266. [Chapter xv, on "Chronic Affections of the Memory," contains many interesting ilhistrations. — Tr.] 184 DISEASES OF MEMORY. conditions entirely negative ; regression wonld result, not from a normal return to consciousness, bnt from the suppression of more active and more intense states, like a weak voice tliat could only- make itself heard when more powerful organs of speech had relapsed into silence. These acquisi- tions of infancy and youth come into promiaence, not because of some ulterior force pushing them out from their environment, but because there is nothing left to interfere with their freedom of action. Revivifications of this kind are, strictly speaking, only a return to pristine vigor, to con- ditions of existence which had apparently disap- peared for ever, but which the retrograde work of dissolution brings again iato operation. I shall abstain from reflections naturally suggested by these facts, leaving such themes to the moralists. Perhaps they will be able to explain how certain religious ecstacies manifested in last moments are in the view of psychology only the necessary ef- fects of irremediable dissolution. Independently of this unexpected confirmation of the law of re- gression, another notable fact in the study of hypermnesia is the surprising persistence of those latent conditions of recoUection which are termed residua. If it were not for the diseases of memory, we should never suspect their ex- istence ; for consciousness left to itself can only affirm the conservation of states that go to make EXALTATIONS OF MEMORY, OE HYPEEMKESIA. 185 up the current of life, and of a few others de- pendent on the will and fixed by habit. Must we infer from these revivifications that absolutely nothing is lost upon the memory? that whet a perception or impression has once entered there it is indestructible ? that even the most fleeting impression may be at any moment revived? Many authorities, particularly Maury, have supported these queries with striking illus- trations. However, if any one chooses to main- tain that, even without the assistance of morbid causes, residua sometimes disappear, there are no means of disproving the assertion.* It is pos- sible that certain cellular modifications and dy- namic associations are too unstable to last. But we may at least say that persistence, if not abso- lute, is the general rule, and that it includes an immense majority of cases. As to the method by which these distant recollections are conserved and reproduced we know nothing. I can only explain how the hypothesis adopted throughout this work may be applied here. If we assume cellular modifications and dy- namic associations as the material basis of recol- lection, there is no memory, it matters not how crowded it may be, that is not able to retain all that comes within its grasp, for, if possible cellu- * See article by M. Delboeuf in the "Kevue Philosophique," February 1, 1880. 186 DISEASES OF MEMORY. lar modifications are limited, the possible dynamic associations are innumerable. We may suppose that the old associations reappear when the new, temporarily disorganized, leave the field free. The possible number of revivifications being greatly diminished, the chances are proportion- ately increased for the return of the most stable — that is to say, the longest-formed — associations. But I can not dwell upon a hypothesis incapable of proof, since my purpose is to keep within the boundaries of positive knowledge. There is an illusion of a curious nature that can not be referred to any of the morbid types which precede. It is not of frequent occurrence, or at least is rarely observed, only three or four cases being known, and it has not yet received any particular designation. Wigan calls it, im- properly, double consciousness ; Sander, an illu- sion of memory {Erinnerungstauschung). Oth- ers have given it the name of pseudo-memory, which seems to me to be preferable to either of the foregoing. It consists in the belief that a new state has been previously experienced, so that when produced for the first time it seems to be a repetition. Wigan, in his well-known work on "Duality of the Mind," tells us that when present at the funeral of the Princess Char- lotte, in Windsor Chapel, he suddenly had the EXALTATIONS OF MEMORY, OR HYPERMNESIA. 187 conviction that he had witnessed the same scenes somewhere before. This illusion was momentary, but there are instances of others more durable. Lewes associates the phenomenon with other illu- sions of more frequent occurrence. Sometimes in a strange region a sudden turn ia the road brings us face to face with a landscape which we seem to have beheld before. Coming into the presence of a person for the first time, we feel as if we had already seen him. Eeading a book with which we are unfamiliar, the thoughts and the language appear as if they had been previ- ously presented to the mind.* The illusion is easily explained. The received impression evokes analogous impressions in the past, vague, confused, and scarcely tangible, but sufficiently distinct to induce the belief that the new state is a repetition. There is a basis of resemblance between two states of consciousness which is readily perceived and which leads to an imaginary identification. It is an error, but only in part, since there is really in the recorded impressions of the past something resembling a first experience. If this explanation is sufficient for very simple cases, there are others where it is inadmissible. An invalid, Sander tells us, upon learning of the death of a person whom he knew, was seized * Lewes, 3f. Jameses Gazette. " Dr. Luys, at the head of the great French Insane Asylum, is one of the most eminent and successful investigators of cerebral science now living; and he has given unquestionably the clearest and most interesting brief account yet made of the structure and operations of the brain. We have been fascinated by this vol- ume more than by any other treatise we have yet seen on the machinery of sen- sibility and thought ; and we tiave been instructed not only by much that is new, but by many sagacious practical hints such as it is well for everybody to under- stand."— y^g Pojmlar Science Monthly. THE CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MODERN PHYSICS. Ey J. B. Stallo. latno. Cloth, $1.75. * " Judge Stallo's work is an inquiry into the validity of those mechanical con- ceptions of the universe which are noyg held as fundamental in physical science. He takes up the leading modern doctrines which are based upon this mechanical conception, such as the atomic constitution of matter, the kinetic theory of gases, the conservation of energy, the nehular hypothesis, and other views, to find how much stands upon solid empirical irround, and how much rests upon metaphys- ical speculation. "Since the appearance of Dr. Draper's 'Religion and Science,' no book has been published in the country calculated to make so deep an impres- sion on thoughtful and educated readers as this volume. . . . The range and minuteness of the author's learning, the aruteness of his reasoning, and the singular precision and clearness of his style, are quahties which very seldom have been jointly exhibited in a scientific treatise."— iVewj York Sun. THE FORMATION OF VEGETABLE MOULD, THROUGH THE ACTION OF WORMS, WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR HABITS. By Charles Darwin, LL. D., F.E. S., author of "On the Origin of Species," etc., etc. With Illustrations. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.50. " Mr. Darwin's little volume od the habits and instincts of earth-worms is no less marked than the earlier or more elaborate efforts of his genius by freshness of observation, unfailing power of interpreting and correlating facts, and logical vigor in generalizing upon them. The main purpose of the work is to point out the ehare which worms have taken in the formation of the layer of vegetable mould which covers the whole surface of the land in every moderately numid country. All lovers of nature will unite in thanking Mr. Darwin for the new and interesting light he has thrown upon a subject po long overlooked, yet so full of interest and instruction, as the structure and the labors of the earth-worm."— Saturday Eeview. " Respecting worms as among the most useful portions of animate nature, Dr. Darwin relates, in this remarkable book, their structure and habits, the part they have played in the burial of ancient buildings and the denudation of the land, in the disintegration of rocke, the preparation of soil for the growth of plants, and in the natural history of the world."— JSos^on Advertiser. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York. Scientific Publications. STJiriDE : Ad Essay in Comparative Moral Statistics. By Henry Moebelli, Pro- fessor of Paychological Medicine in Royal UniverBity, Turin. 12mo, Cloth, $1.76, " Suicide " is a scientific inquiry, on the basis of the statistical method, into the laws of suicidal phenomena. Deahng with the subject as a branch of social science, it con- siders the increase of suicide in difl'erent countries, and the comparison of nations, races, and periods in its manifestation. The influences of age, sex. constitution, ch- mate, season, occupation, religion, prevailing ideas, the elements of character, and the tendencies of civilization, are comprehensively analyzed in their bearing upon the pro- pensityto self-destruction. Professor Morselli is an eminent European authority on this subject. It Is accompanied by colored maps illustrating pictorially the results of statistical inquiries. VOIiCANOES : "What they Are and -what they Teach. By J. W. Jttdd, Professor of Geology in the Royal School of Mines (London). With Ninety-six Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $ii.0O. " In no field has modern research been more fruitful than in that of which Professor Judd gives a popular account in the present volume. The great lines of dj-namical, geological, and^meteorological inquiry converge upon the grand problem of the interior constitution of the earth, and the vast influence of eubten-anean agencies. . . . His book is very far from being a mere dry description of volcanoes and their eruptions ; it is rather a presentation of the terrestrial facts and laws with which volcanic phenomena are associated."— i^z/Zflr Sciemie Monthly. " The volume before us is one of the pleasantest science manuals we have read for some ^m^y^—Atherimum. " Mr. Judd's summary is so full and so concise that it is almost impossible to give a fair idea in a short review." — Pall Mall Gazette. THE SUN, By C. A. Yoting, Ph. D., LL. D., Professor of Astronomy in the College of New Jersey. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. " Professor Young is an authority on 'The Sun,' and vmtes from intimate knowl- edge. He has studied that great luminary all his life, invented and improved instru- ments for observing it, gone to all quarters of the world in search of tbe best places and opportunities to watch it, and has contributed important discoveries that have extended our knowledge of it. " It would take a cvclopaidia to represent all that has been done toward clearing up the solar mysteries. Professor Young has summarized the information, and presented it in a form completely available for general readers. There is no rhetoric in his book; he trusts the grandeur of his theme to kindle interest and impress the feelings. His statements are plain, direct, clear, and condensed, though ample enough for his purpose, and the substance of what is generally wanted will be found accurately given in his pages."— Popular Science Monthly. IliliUSIONS : A Psychological Study. By James So-llt, author of "Sensa- tion and Intuition," etc. l'2mo. Cloth, $1.50, This volume takes a wide survey of the field of error, embracing in its view not only the illusions commonly regarded as of the nature of mental aberrations or hallucina- tions, but also other Illusions arising from that capacity for error which belongs essen- tially to rational human natiire. The author has endeavored to keep to a strictly scien- tific treatment— that is to say, the description and classification of acknowledged errors, and the exposition of them by a reference to their psychical and physical conditions. " This is not a technical work, but one of wide popular interest, in the principles and results of which every one is concerned. The illusions of perception of the senses and of dreams are first considered, and then the author passes to the illusions of introspec- tion, errors of insight, illiislons of memory, and illusions of belief. The work is a note- worthy contribution to the original progress of thought, and may be relied upon as representing the present state of knowledge on the important subject to which It is devoted."— /to/wmr Science Montfdy. D. APPLiETON & CO,, Publishers, 1. 3, and 5 Bond Street, New Tork. Scientific Publications. GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY OF MXTSCLES AND NERVES. By Dr. I. Rosenthal, Professor of Physiology at the University of Krlangen. With seventy-five Woodcuts. (" International Scientific Series.") 18mo, cloth, $1.50. " The attempt at a connected account of the general physiology of muscles and nerves is, as far as I knowj the first of its kind. The general data for thiri branch of science have been gained only within the past thirty years." — Extract from Preface. SIGHT : An Exposition of the Principles of Monocular and Binocular Vision . By Joseph Le Conte, LL.D., author of "Elements of Geology"; "Re- ligion and Science " \ and Professor of Geology and Natural History in the University of California. With nunaerous Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. '* It is pleasant to find an Atnerican bnok which can rank with the very b?Bt of foreign works on this subject. Professor Le Conte has long been known as an original investigator in this department ; all that he gives us is treated with a master-hand." — The Nation. ANIMAL LIFE, as aflTected l>y the Natural Conditions of Existence. By Eabl Semper, Professor of the University of Wiirzburg. With 2 Maps and 106 Woodcuts, and Index. 13mo, cloth, $2.00. " This is in many respects one of the most interesting contributions to zoological literature which has appeared for so-me time." — Nature. THE ATOMIC THEORY. By Ad. Wcrtz. Memhre de I'lnstitut ; Doyen Honoraire de la Faculty de MSdecine ; Professeur a la Faculty des Sciences de Paris. Translated by E. Cleminshaw, M. A., F.C.S., P. I. C, Assist- ant Master at Sherborne School. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. " There was need for a book like this, which discusses the atomic theory both in its historic evolution and in its present form. And perhaps no man of this age could have been selected so able toperform the ta^ in a masterly way as the illustrious French chemist, Adolph Wurtz. It is impossible to convey to the reader, in a notice like this, any adequate idea of the scope, lucid instructivenees, and scientific interest of Professor Wurtz' s book. The modem problems or chemistry, which are commonly so obscure from imperfect exposition, are here made wonderfully clear and attractive."— TXe Popular Science MonllUy. THE CRAYFISH. An Introduction to the Study of ZoOlogy. By Professor T. H. HuxLET, F. E. S. With 83 Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1,75. " Whoever will follow these pages, crayfish in hand, and will try to verify for himself the statements which they contain, will find himself brought face to face with all the great zoological questions which excite so lively an Interest at the present day." "The reader of this valuable monograph will lay it down with a feeling of wonder at the amount and vjiriety of matter which has been got out of so seem- ingly slight and unpretending a subject."— 5ater(ioy JBeview. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New Tore. Scientific Publications. THE HUMAN SPECIES. By A. De Quatkefages, Professor of Anthro- pology in the Museum of Natural History, Paris. ISmo, cloth, $2.00. The work treats of the unity, origin, antiquity, and original localization of ttie human species, peopling of the glohe, acclimatization, primitive man, forma- tion of the human races, fossil human races, present human races, and the physi- cal and psychological characters of mankind. STUDENTS' TEXT-BOOK OF COIOR ; or, MODEBN CHROMAT- ICS. With Applications to Art and Industry. With 130 Original Illus- trations, and Frontispiece in Colors. By Ogden N, Eood, Professor of Physics in Columbia College. 12mo, cloth, J2,00. "In this interesting book Professor Eood, who, as a distinfniished Professor of Physics in Columbia College, United States, must be accepted as a competent authority on the branch of science of which he treats, deals briefly and succinctly with what may be termed the ecientiflc ratkmale of his subject. But the chief value of his work is to be attributed to the fact that he is himself an accom- plished artist as well as an authoritative expounder of science." — EditiJlMTgh Renew y October, 1879, in an article on " The PhUosophy of Color" EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. By Alexander Bain. LL. D. lamo, cloth, $1.75. " This work must be pronounced the most remarkable discussion of educa- tional problems which has been published in our day. We do not hesitate to bespeak for it the widest circulation and the most earnest attention. It should be in the hands of every school-teacher and friend of education throughout the land."— iViSM York Sun. A HISTORY OF THE GROWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. By EoEEKT H. TutiRSTON, A.M., C. B., Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N. J., etc. With 163 niuBtrations, including 16 Portraits, lamo, cloth, $2.50. " Professor Thurston almost exhausts his subject ; details of mechanism are followed by interesting biographies of the more important inventors. If, as is contended, the steam-engine is the most important physical agent in civilizing the world, its history is a desideratum, and the readers of the present work will agree that it could nave a no more amusing and intelligent historian than our author."— .Bostora Gazette. STUDIES IN SPECTRUM ANALYSIS. By J. Norman Lockteb, F. E. S., Correspondent of the Institute of France, etc. With 60 Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $2.60. "The study of spectrum analysis is one fraught with a pecnliar fascination, ?.nd some of the author's experiments are exceedingly picturesque in their re- sults. They are so lucidly described, too, that the reader keeps on, from page to page, never flagging in interest in the matter before him, nor putting down the book until the last page is reached."— iVew York Evening Express. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New Tork. Scientific Publications. TEXT-BOOK OF SYSTEMATIC MINEKAtOGY. By HenbT Baitek MAN, F. G. S., Associate of the Royal School of Mines. (New volume in the "Text-Books of Science Series.") 16mo, cloth. Price, f 2.50. ANTHKOPOIiOGY ! An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization. ByEDWAKD B. Ttlob, D.C.L., P. R. S., author of "Primitive Culture," "The Early History of Mankind," etc. With 78 Illustrations. 12mo. With Index. Cloth, $2.00. " Mr. Tylor's admirable little book certainly deserves the success with which it will doubtless meet."— Pall Mall Gazette. SCIENTIFIC CUIiTUBE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By Joseph Paksons CooKE, Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in Harvard College. One vol., square 16mo, cloth. Price, $1.00. POPULAR LECTURES ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. By H. Helm- HOLTZ, Professor of Physics at the University of Berlin. Second Series. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. The favor wHh which the first series of Professor Helmholtz's lectures was received justifies, if a justification is needed, the publication of the present volume. THE POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS. By CHARLES DaewiK, LL. D.jI'.R. S., assisted by Feancis Dakwin. With Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $2.00. "Mr. Darwin's latest study of plant-life shows no abatement of his power of work or his habits of fresh and original ohservatiqn. We have learned to expect from him at intervals, never much prolonged, the results of special research in some by-path or other subordinated to the main course of the biological system associated with his name; and it has been an unfailing source of interest to see the central ideas of the evolution and the continuity of life developed in detail through a series of special treatises, each wellnigh exhaustive of the materials available for its Bnhject."— Saturday Beview. A PHYSICAL TREATISE ON ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM. By J. E. H. GoBDON, B. A., Assistant Secretary of the British Association. With about 200 full-page and other Illustrations. 2 vols., 8vo, cloth, $7.00. H We welcome moat heartily Mr. Gordon's valuable contribution to the experimen- tal side of the science. It at once takes its place among the books with which every investigator and every teacher who goes beyond the merest rudiments must needs equip himself. There is certainly no book in English — we think there is none in any other language — which covers quite the flame ground. It records the most recent ad- vances in the experimental treatment of electrical problems, it describes \^ith minute carefulness the instruments and methods in use in physical laboratories, and is prodi- gal of beautifully executed diagrams and drawings made to scale." — LoTidon Times. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Stbeet, New Yore. Scientific Publications. THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF MODERN PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHT, CRITICALLY AND HISTORICALLY CONSID- ERED. By Eddolph Eucken, Pli. D., Professor in Jena. With an Introduction by Noah Portek, President of Yale College. One voL, 12mo, 304 pages. Cloth. Price, $1.75. Prepident Porter declares of this work that "" there are few books within his knowledge which are better fitted to aid the student who wishes to acquaint him- self with the course of modem speculation and scientific thinking, and to fonn an intelligent estimate of most of the current theories." MIND IN THE LOWER ANIMALS IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. By W. Lauder Lindsay, M. D., F. R. S. E., etc. 2 vols., 8vo. Cloth, $4.00. " The atithor of this work, which, regarded merely as an accumulation of verified and classified facts, is a unique and precious contribution to the data of comparative psychology, claims that he entered on his inquiry without any theory to defend, support, or illustrate. We are hound to say that, while his general conclusions are boldly and continually avowed, his claim of fairness and caution is justified by his method of examining particular phenomena ; that he seems willing at all times to renounce any impression or belief which ie shown to be scientifically untenable. "—iVe^w York Sun. "In this work— two volumes of over 500 pages— Dr. Lindsay marshals a pro- portionately large number of facts against those philosophers who maintain that the intelligence of man differs in kind and not simply in degree from that of the lower animals. It is one purpose of his book to snow that the main differences between man and the lower animals exist rather in their physical than in their mental structure. In this way of thinking, all animals poBseee not the semblance of, but the true substance of mind and will."— iVtfWJ York World. " So far as we are aware there has been no treatise upon the subject of animal intelligence so broad in its foundations, so well considered, or so scientific in its methods of inquiry, as that which has been prepared by Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay in two large volumes, the first being devoted to a study of animal mind in health, and the second to auimal mind in disease. We may safely say that bis work is, in some respects, the most important essay of the kind that has yet been under- taken. His observations have been supplemented by a thorough mastery of the history aud literature of the subject, and hence his conclusions rest upon the broadest possible foundation of safe induction. There is a ffood analytical index to the book, as there ought to be to every work of ihe kind."— iVew Tork^vening Post. THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC AGRICULT- URE, By N. T. LupTON, LL. D., Professor of Chemistry in Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenu. l8mo. Cloth. Price, 45 cents. A GLOSSARY OF BIOLOGICAL, ANATOMICAL, AND PHYSIO- LOGICAL TERMS. By Thomas Dunman. Small 8vo. Cloth. ,161 pages. Price, $1.00. " It has been the author^a task to furnish here a small and convenient but very complete glossary of those terms; and he hasdone this so well, both in his choice of terms for definition and in his clear exposition of their etymological and tech- nical meaning, as to leave nothing to be desired in this direction."— iVew York Evening Post. Fo7' sale by all booksellers, or any work sent by maU, post-paid, on receipt of price. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, and 5 Bond Street, New York. D. APPLET ON & CO:S PUBLICATIONS. MYTH AND SCIENCE. By Tito VisHOU. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Contents • The Ideas and Sources of Myth ; Animal SeDsation and Percep- tion : Human Sensation and Perception ; Statement of the Problem ; The Ani- mal and Human Exercise of the Intellect in the Perception of Things ; The Intrinsic Law of the Faculty of Apprehension ; The Historical Eyolution of Myth and Science ; Of Dreams, Illusions, Normal and Abnormal Hallucinations, Delirium, and Madness. " His book Is ingenious ; ... his theory of how science gradually differen- tiated from and conquered myth is extremely well wrought out, and is probably in essentials aoix&ct."— Saturday Beview. PHYSICAIi EDUCATION; or. The Health I^aws of Nature. By Felix L. Oswald, M. D. lamo. Cloth, $1.00. The greater part of the contents of this volume appeared in a series of papers in "The Popular Science Monthly," where they attracted wide atten- tion on account of the freshness of many of the ideas and the force with which they were presented. No recent book on this subject is marked with so much special learning, original illustration, and Incisive argument. Contents: Diet; In-door Life; Out-door Life; Gymnastics- Clothing; Sleep; Recreation; Remedial Education ; Hygienic Precautions ; Popular Fal- lacies, " The title would seem to point to a dry, technical essay, on a much-diecussed subject, but the reader who, entertaining tliat idea, passes it by, misses a strong, pungent book, full of common-sense suggestions, many of which, however, run counter to the popular idea. The author believes that the principal cause of human degeneration is the use of unnatural too^"— Boston Traneeript, " There is no question about the great value of these essays as instructors in what is most healthful in diet, gymnaBtics, in-door and out-door sports, clothing, sleep, and recreation, and as furnishing hints on remedial education and hy- gienic precautions." — Utica Herald. *'Dr. Oswald is as epigrammatic as Emerson, as spicy as Montaigne, and as caustic as Heine." — Philadelphia Press. HISTORY OF FRANCE. New volume in " History Primers," edited by J. R. Gkeen. By Chablotte M. Tonqe. 18mo, cloth, flexible. 45 cents. THE SONG WATE : A Collection of Choice Music, with Elementary Instrnctiou. For the School-Room, lu&titute-Hall, and Home Circle. Containing a brief, practical, and comprehensive course of elementary in- struction, with a great variety of selections, adapted to all occasions, including standing favorites and many new songs. 8vo, boards, 80 cents. DIE ANNA-IiISEi A German Play by Hermann Hersch, with an Interlinear Translation, and Directions for learning to read German. By C. F. Krobh, A.M., Professor of Modem Languages in the Stevens Institute of Technology. 12ino. Cloth, $1.00. For sale by aU booksellers ; or sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price. New York; D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. D. APPLETON & CO:S PUBLICATIONS. CAPITAL AND POPUIiATION : A Stody of tlie Economic Eflects of their Relations to Each Other. By Fredeuick B. Hatvlet. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. " It would be false modesty in me to seem imaware that the economic law I have attempted to establieh equals in its influence upon economic conclusions any hitherto ascertaiued. Granted its truth, it throws new and decisive light on nearly all the unsolved problems of the science/'— £'a;irac^ from Preface. SHAKESPEARE PROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW; in- cluflinff an Inquiry b.h to hi» Religious Faith nnd to his H-nowl- edge of Lavr ; vrith the Baconian Theory considered. By Gsoboe Wn-KEs. Third edition, revised and corrected by the author. 8vo. Cloth, $3.50. THE RHYMESTER; or, The Rules of Rhyme. A Guide to English Versification. With a Dictionary of Rhymes, an 'Examination of Classicul Measures, and Comments upon Burlesque. Comic Verse, and Song-Writing. By the late Tom Hood. Edited, with Additions, by Abthub Pehm. 18mo, cloth, gilt or red edges. Uniform with *'The Ortbo6pist" and "The Verbalist." $1.00. Three whole chapters have been added to this work by the American editor — one on the sonnet, one on the rondeau and the ballade^ and a third on other fixf.d forms of verse ; while be has dealt freely with the English author's text, making occasional alterations, frequent insertions, and revising the dictionary of rhymes. STUDIES IN THE I.IFE OF CHRIST, By the Eev. A. M. Faiebaibn, D.I)., Principal of Airedale College, Bradford, and author of "Studies in the Philosophy of Eeligion and History." 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Contents : The Historical Conditions— The Narratives of the Birth and In- fancy—The Growth and Education of Jesus ; His Personality— The Baptist and the Christ— The Temptation of Christ— The New Teacher; the Kingdom of Heaven— Galilee, Judea, Samaria— The Master and the Disciples— The Earlier Miracles— Jesus and the Jews— The Later Teaching — The LaterMiracles — Jericho and Jerusalem- Qethsemane— The Betrayer— The Chief Priests — The Trial— The Crucifixion — The Resurrection. " These ' Studies in the Life of Christ ' are not exhaustive and critical discus- sions on the Gospel History, but are simply attempts at orientation— at reaching points of view from which the life of Christ may be understood and construed. . . . The author sends the volume forth in the hope that it may help to make the Person it seeks to interpret more real, living, and lovable, to the men of to-day." —From Preface. " Professor Fairbaim's thoughtful and brilliant sketches. Dr. Fairbairn's is not the base rhetoric often employed to hide want of thought or x)Overty of thought, but the noble rhetoric which is alive with thought and imagination to Its utmost and finest extremities."— Rev. Samuel Cox, in t?ie Expositor. '' We can scarcely describe the depth and truthfulness and power of his teach- ing as given here. From the beginning to the end, with not more than two f-r tliree exceptions, what the author says is more than satisfactory. The volume is one more euitefl for study than for mere reading ; and yet, as regards the matter of style, it is fully equal to Canon Farrar's popular delineation, while, as regards wisdom, it is vastly superior to \V—The Churchman. " These ' studies ' are admirable.' They are evangelical and modem, and in thought and style of expression are strong, clear, and fresh. They do not ignore the objections and arguments of skeptics, but clearly Christ is to the author more than a mere mental abstraction." — 'i he United Presbyterian. For sale by oM booksellers ; or sent by maU, post-paid, on receipt of price. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. D. APPLETON & CO:S PUBLICATIONS. THE PRIN CIPLES OF THE LiAW s An Examination of the taw of Personal Rights, to diacoTer the Principles of the Liaw, as ascertained from the Practical Rules of the Lair, and harmo- nized with the Nature of Social Relations. By A. J. Willakd. 8vo, cloth. Price, $2 50. THE ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS. By Henrt Dunkikg Maclbob, M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Inner Temple, barriater-nt- law selected by the Royal CommissionerB for the digest of the law to pre- pare the digest of the law of bills of exchange, bank notes, etc. Lecturer on Political Economy in the University of Cambridge. In two volumes. Volume I now ready. ISmo, cloth. Price, $1.75. " Mr. Maclcod's works on economic science have one great merit, they belong to the class of books that assist inquiry by setting their readers thinking. The views they set forth are not only often valuable in themselves, but they are the generative cause of ideas which may also be valuable in their readers. His books, moreover, are written in the proper way. The subject is divided care- fully in accordance with the opinions held by the author ; all classifications when made are adhered to, and the descriptions and definitions adopted are admirable rem his point of view, and in some cases from a wider stand-point." — The Statist. TWO YEARS IN OREGON. By Watlis Nash, author of " Oreijon, There and Back in 1877." With Illustrations. 13mo, cloth. Price, $1.50. "While I have striven to write what is really a guide-book to Oregon for the intending emigrant, others may be interested in the picture of a young com- munity shaping the details of their common life, and claiming and taking pos- session of a heritage in the wilderness. No one can go farther West than we have done ; it is fair, then, to suppose that the purposes of the Western move- ment will be seen here In their fullest operation."— JiV<»?i Preface. THE FARMER'S ANNUAL HAND-BOOK FOR J8S2. Prepared by H. P. Akmsbt, Ph. D., Professor of Agricultural Chemistry in the Storrs Agricultural School ; and B. H. Jenkins, Ph. D., Chemist to the Connecti- cut Agricultural-Experiment Station, 16mo, cloth. Price, 50 cents. THE ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION AND THE PRIMITIVE CON- DITION OF MAN, Mental and Social Condition of Savages. By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., P. R. S., President of the British Association. With Illustrations. Fourth edition, with numerous Additions. Svo, cloth. Price, $5.00. For sale by all booksellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. .Kow York ; D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 6 Bond Street. D, APPLETON S 00:S PUBLICATIONS. HOIUES AND HAUNTS OF OUR EliDEU POETS. Consisting of Bio- graphical and Descriptive Sketches of BRYANT, EMERBON, LONGFELLOW, "WHITTIEE, HOLMES, and LOWELL. By R. H. Stoddard, P. B. San- born, and H. N. Powbrb. With Portraits and numerous Illustrations engraved on wood in the best manner. Exquisitely printed on toned paper. Imperial 8vo. Cloth, extra gilt, price, $5.00; full morocco, $10.00. The Portraits of Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, arc from drav^ings by Wyatt Eaton, and the Views, from drawings or sketches by E. Swain GiFFORD, Homer Martin, Francis Lathrop, K. Riordan, G. M, White, C, A. Van- DERHOOP, A. R. Watid, and Appleton Brown. HALF-HOURS WITH GREEK AND LATTN AUTHORS. From Various English TranslatiooH. With Biographical Notices. By G. H. Jennings and W. 8. Johnstone, authors of '' A Book of Parliamentary Anecdote." ]2mo, cloth. Price, $2.00. " A book of this sort deserves nothing but praise, though it is almost entirely a sompilation. Messrs. Jennings and Johnstone have simply token what seemed to them the most striking extracts from standard translations of the classics, and have strung them together after the fashion of an Enfleld''s 'Speaker,'' or of the admirable volumes of Charles Knighfs, from which the title is borrowed, with short biographical introductions."— r/te AGademy, ENGLISH CLASSICS. A series of small volumes, elegantly printed, consist- ing of works in English literature acknowledged as classics. Now ready : Eng- lish Odes. Collected by E. W. GosSB. In Memoriam. By Alfred Tenny- son. The Pbinobsb. By Alfred Tennyson. Siiakespbarb's Sonnets. Edited by Edward Dowdbn. With Frontispiece on India paper, ISmo, cloth, green and gold. Price, $1.00 each. A WORLD OF WONDERS; or. Marvels in Animate and Inanimate Nature. With 823 Illustrationa on Wood. Large 12mo, 496 pages, illumi- nated cover. Contents : Wonders of Marine Life ; Curiosities of "Vegetable Life; Curiosities of the Insect and Reptile World; Marvels of Bird and Beast Life; Phenomenal Forces of Nature. Price, $2.00. " ' A World of Wonders' reproduces foryouthftil learners in natural history a wide array of marvels from every department of the science. The curious grovrths of the BOBS and rivers, remarkable plants and wonderful trees; singular insects and their still more singular Instincts; birds of strange form and plumage; serpents and rep- tiles; striking phenomena of the air and water, ice and fire, are all set forth with brief and simple descriptions and an abundance of excellent pictures which will take th« attention of the most indifferent."— J?bme Journal. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 8, & 5 Bond" Street. D. APPLETON & GO:S PUBLICATIONS. FLORIDA FOR TOURISTS, INVALIDS, AND SETTLERS: Con- taining Practical Information regarding Climate, Soil, and Productions; Cities, Towns, and People ; Scenery and Resorts ; tlie Culture of the Orange and other Tropical Fraits ; Farming and Gardening ; Sports ; Routes of Travel, etc., etc. By Geoegk M. Bakbour. With Map and numerous Illustrations. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.50. This is the most comprehensive and authentic book on Florida that has been pub- lished. The following Testimonial is proof of its value and trustworthiness : " It is known to the undersigned that the author, Mr. George M. Barbour, has traveled almost the whole of Florida, under circumstances peculiarly advantageous for enabling him to acquaint himself with the varied resources of the State, and with the attractions which it offers to the tiiree classes to whom his work is addressed— Tourists, Invahds, and Settlers. Our knowledge of his abilities as a writer on Florida subjects, and of the opportunities he has enjoyed in preparing his book, are such that we can commend it as at once trustworthy and comprehensive — greatly superior in these re- spects to anything hitherto published descriptive of the entire State and its soil and productions. " W. D. Bloxham, Governor of Florida; George F. Drew, ex-Governor of Flor- ida; SethFeenoh, ex-Commissioner of Immigration; Samuel Faiebakks, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration." IN THE BRUSH ; Or, Old-Tiine Social, Political, and Religious Life in tlie Southwest. By Rev. Hamilton W. Pieeson, D. D., ex-President of Cumberland College, Kentucky. "With Illustrations by "W. L. Sheppard. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.50. " Many years ago Dr. Pierson was active in the Southwest in the cause of education and Bible-distribution, and he has here, under the title of ' In the Brush ; or, Old-Time Social, Political, and KeHgious Life in the Southwest,' preserved some of the most salient and memorable of his experiences. The book smacks of the soil, and of a state of things most unique and interesting, yet now rapidly fading from memory and reminiscence. ... Its vivid, lively, and withal most truthful descriptions of a slate of society now passed away for ever, will be read with interest." — N&w York Eaangelist. THE BLOODY CHASM. A Novel. By J. "W. De Forest, author of " The Wetherel Affah:," " Overland," etc. 16mo, cloth. Price, $1.00. "At last, it seems, we have the 'American novel, with lettera royal to attest its birthright. The author has well chosen his time, just when ' the war of secession was ended.' The persons he brings forward are real people, our own people ; we know them. They are never overdrawn, but most intensmy ative they are with the passions and prejudices of those times. The heroine is a South Carolinian— Mr. De Forest does not exaggerate in his pictures of her bravery in facing poverty, her audacity of speech, and the bitterness of her sectional hatred. He always keeps on the tip of his pencil, though, a certain leaven of honey that makes us love her and cry ' Bravo ! to her inconsistencies. There are other characters in the book, notably that of Aunt Cliloe, the delineation of which has never been surpassed. . . . '■ The story seems well adapted to dramatization, it is so fUU of incident, so aUve with striking situations, varied characters, pithy and vivacious dialogue." The scene opens in Charleston soon after the war. and the story turns, as the title implies, upon the sectional passions pertaining to the struggle, which were then at their height. F(yr sale by aU booksellers ; or sent by maily post-paid^ on receipt of price. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. •-V^. ^ -■L,..X.-.l....?t tll M llJ J .. Jl l. iy THK 4^% SCIENTIFIC SERIES MUiliMMMIMIiil gjit' > *^*^f*fei m > i i i >ji^i M 1 1 1 m m-wn j nw, ^