come. Where there were stately cities and the hum of busy life we encounter ruins and a scarcely broken silence,* for only what perennially enters into our daily task and our homely thought is guarded against the wasting influences of time. Facts and fancies come to us thick as snowflakes. Most of these fall on uncongenial soil, and are no more; some of them lie on the ground for hours or days; nearly all are gone with the season; and a few only remain on the mountain tops. As a knight's shining armour, to put the matter differently, requires constant furbishing, so we are compelled continually to relearn as well as to re-develop. The majestic mountain masses and passes of Switzerland, the images of which lovingly lingered for years, are paling gradually but surely. The memories of the Capitol, St. Peter's, the Pitti Gallery, where they are not replaced by the images of photographs and pictures of those places, are lost in the hazy distance. The corridors of the Louvre, the Rue de Rivoli, the Avenue de l'Opéra, are fancies rather than facts now. Influences which promised never to abandon us, are growing dim and distant. Hence we have to reread our books every lustrum if we have not outgrown them, and our beliefs must be re-examined if our faith in them is to have a reasonable foundation. A large portion of our life is thus given to fixing and refixing the shadows of things.† 115. THE PROCESS OF DE-Development. There are a number of factors which conduce to obliviscence or dismemberment. The first in order is superficial primary attention (sec. 110a), and here it could easily be proved that we membered in the first instance, though we are unable to re-develop what we had membered. [Prove.] Next comes attention at the margin (sec. 110a), as in marginal sight, and here again a thing is no sooner observed than it is forgotten. [Test.] A similar factor induces forgetfulness in secondary attention. This happens when we are only interested in the most general features of an image. Under these circumstances, and they are most common, less and less of the image is re-developed until the barest outline remains. [Examine experimentally.] Over and above these attention aspects, comes the fact of simple forgetting or de-development. For instance, I look at the underside of the seat of some particular chair, carefully and at leisure, and enter in my note book what I have observed. After twenty-two days it occurs to me to test my memory as regards the chair. For half-an-hour I try to re-produce the appropriate image as completely as possible, and I find that insistence does assist. I then enter into my note book the result of my reflections. When, for purposes of comparison, I look at the notes containing the first set of observations, I am unable to re-member anything more, though I strain hard for some minutes. Lastly, I view the upturned chair carefully once "Time mutilates our memories. Like names written on the bark of a tree, they have become distorted by change of years (Verdon, Forgetfulness, 1877, p. 447). + Galton (Inquiries, 1883, pp. 185-203) has a short discussion which bears on the subject of this section. more. To my surprise I discover that my image is very incomplete as well as misleading, and it further transpires that what I observe is wholly unfamiliar. [Experiment collectively with physiological and other diagrams.] In such an experiment, then, it is made clear that lapse of time of itself mutilates and ultimalely kills memory. * Hence if we grant that memory is ever fading, we can understand the importance of recurring to a subject, or, as with the very young child, the significance of ceaseless repetition of every kind of activity. From the last chapter we know that, roughly speaking, images develop out of other images or sensations, and that spontaneous images, apart from neural excitement, are practically unknown (secs. 90-2). At the same time development has its limitations. For example, the letter a being connected with the other letters of the alphabet, and these in turn with primary and secondary systems of every class, we might imagine that the letter a would tend to develop the whole of what we know. This is so far from being the fact that the letter a will generally suggest nothing. To be able to re-develop a fact which we are observing there must be close intimacy between it and some known fact, for when an observed fact is not related to anything established, there will be no obvious means of recalling it, and it will, therefore, tend to be forgotten. On this account it is well so to connect all that is worth re-developing that it may be developed pretty frequently, and since systems are seldom carefully connected with this end. in view, most things are naturally forgotten. Furthermore, disintegration being a constant factor, it follows that what is little attended to becomes indistinct, and for that very reason it is neglected, dismissed and forgotten. Lastly, change of interest, largely due to periodic needs and the rivalry of primary systems, further weakens and destroys the traces of the past until there remains only a small residue of typical and firmly connected units of thought and action. 116. —RE-DEVELOPMENT IS ATTENTION TO SURVIVING TRACES. In section 108, and again in section 109, I referred to the immediate constituents of primary and secondary systems. This, of course, includes what is re-developed. Let us pursue the theme a little further. is an excellent mimic. I have reason to believe that he is a good visual and audile-one who well images sights and sounds. I ask him, "Do you re-member the hearth in Y.'s study?" "Perfectly," he replies, "I see it before me as if I stood in front of it." His eyes appear meantime rivetted on some uncanny object. "Can you tell me," I then continue, "the number of circles round the marble rosettes?" He is non-plussed, and that because there are limits to second sight. [Test yourself and others in this respect.] It is astonishing how much some people observe and re-figure; but though a man can re-member much, he soon breaks *An experimental study of this subject is found in Philippe, Sur les Transformations de nos Images Mentales, 1897. down under a close examination. If we consider that to observe is to attend, we shall see how absurd it is to expect flawless observation by means of re-collection. If an object as such were presented to a consciousness, this would be probable because the object would be in consciousness. Not so on the theory of attention. When we look at an object, there is a constant flow of fresh images, for new systems are persistently being developed. Memory is re-development, and a full complementary image of an object would imply that we have exhausted the possibilities of observation. There is another aspect of the above problem. I show to a friend—a good visualiser a striking cartoon. He just glances at the sketch before I remove it, and I then put to him a number of questions as to the details he has observed. It is surprising how often he is right, and it is instructive to notice how often he is wrong. He sees three buttons where there is one. He describes the coachman's boots, whereas in the cartoon they are covered with a rug. Positive error thus enters into his image. [Experiment.] The last statement provokes a question. If I changed the picture to suit his description and showed it to him, what would he say? For my own part I have little doubt as to how the query would be met. Judging from general observation I conclude that he would reply: This picture is different from the one you first showed me. He would find that the secondary combinations led to absurd images, and that when they were brought together they excluded each other. He would also on seeing the first sketch, re-member its details much better. [Test this.] They would have an intimacy, comparable with that referred to in the example of looking over a little volume we have just finished reading (sec. 108). can often identify to a nicety an object when face to face with it, while free reproduction is yet denied to us. In other words, recognition is superior to free re-development. 117.-NO DETAILED IMAGE IN THE MEMORY. The description of the image, in the case of the cartoon, is rejected in favour of the actual delineation. Was there then no fixed image or counterpart of the object? The next section answers our question in the negative. Observation is essentially organised. It is as far removed as possible from resembling the ordinary process of photography. Not only do we in practice chiefly see what we have seen before; but the whole attitude of observation is utilitarian. We are arrested for a moment by one or two attractive features. We do not fix an object with our eye camera; we walk around it. We do not take the whole of a scene in at once; but in a rambling fashion we observe a few details often and many details not at all, slurring over some, and dwelling upon others. The eyeproduct, leaving aside after-images (sec. 125), is, therefore, substantially different from a photograph. Except with systems which we have developed repeatedly, and with such as we have just developed, images rich. in detail do not exist normally. [Have you detailed images?] There is usually present a summary feeling conveying the total impression, and a number of more or less hazy and scrappy images. Lotze (d. 1881) (Microcosmus, trs., 1885, i, pp. 326, ff.) holds that memory implies too complex a process to be accounted for neurally. He says that an object differs so much with the closeness and the position of the spectator that the corresponding image would, but for spiritual activity, be a mass of confusion. Wundt's explanation of Lotze's diffi culty is of the composite photograph type. He writes: "If we think of an acquaintance, we never image him precisely as we saw him at a certain moment; our idea, on the contrary, is composed of many observations the constituents of which partly complete and partly dislodge each other" (Bemerkungen zur Associationslehre, 1891, p. 339). The subject is one eminently fitted for experimental observation, and I have, accordingly, gone somewhat carefully into the matter. Testing the memory contents by the rule of objectivity (sec. 136), I find that the images of acquaintances are with me individual and not superimposed (sec. 76a). A particular re-developed system, or several particular ones, stand for the man or the woman. I cannot find any image which resembles a composite photograph or which is not individualised. Experiment confirms this. I have specially observed a multiplicity of objects both stationary and in motion; some once, some repeatedly; some for a long time together, others for fractions of a second. The images never fused, though I often desired them to do so. Most of them could be re-developed for a second or two; but they were soon forgotten. Changing objects, such as trees which I approached, offered several particular images, according to the transformations which I noted; exceptionally I could image the object as changing. There was neither a composite image nor a supra-mundane one. One minute's continuous observation could not be re-instated, owing to rapid oblivion. Some favoured snapshots survived, and those were the ones which went to swell the entries in my memory. However many deliberate experiments I made, the result remained the same. I claim, therefore, that Lotze and Wundt, and those who agree with them, are wrong as far as my memory is concerned. The only fact to be explained is why the second snapshot is more easily taken and preserved than the first. [Diligently study your stored images, the creation of images, and the growth of typical images, as far as all the senses are concerned.] If we turn to a related class of facts, those of summary feelings and combination feelings, we come to a different conclusion. For instance, in reading a book, my opinion of it seemingly grows or changes as I read. So with the impression left on us by a visit in the country. Objects have thus a constant influence on us, leaving traces which in a remote way resemble composite photographs. However, this holds only of feelings. 118.-IMAGES ARE SOON EXHAUSTED. An image scarcely arrives but it is gone, developing and disappearing within less than a second. [Test.] This might be explained, and, to a certain extent rightly, by saying that we dwell organically on images for a very short time. We have speedily dismissed, pre-developed and re-developed pictures millions of times [is this so?], it is argued, and, therefore, we are now unable to keep them before us. A different explanation appears more satisfactory. In studying, for instance, one of Raphael's Madonnas, there evolves a comprehensive summary feeling like the moods we have spoken of in sec. 109. I did not study the picture down to its minutest details; I was interested only in a general way. The attention given to sundry aspects differed, and I know the picture consequently as a whole rather than in its parts. When I stand before it, my attention is employed in rapidly and tentatively sweeping over various portions, and these are not fixed in my conception. In re-development, then, what happens is this: the outlines are vaguely re-instated, and along with these, or preceding or succeeding them, is the persisting feeling which evolved on the occasion when we took our many observations. This mood tells us, or can be made to tell us, how we were affected in the first instance. Fitfully one minor feeling relieves another, and these suggest the contents, or often they only hint at them. The crude and incomplete sets of outlines, indicative of the reality, hover about. Beyond details here and there I observed little, as my eyes, like search-lights, swept rapidly hither and thither. Hence attention,—at least in those who have not made a special study of that Madonna,-when directed towards this image, finds almost nothing to do, and seeks for pastures new. [Test experimentally.] The incompleteness and waywardness of the attention chiefly account for the imperfection of the re-produced system. Let us apply this explanation to facts which are easily verified. Looking at a tree in winter we observe manifold branches and twigs. The whole appearance is like that of a gigantic coral. Could any one, I ask, re-integrate such a tree so completely that he could forthwith start counting the leafless boughs one by one, as he might in a perfect after-image? Most assuredly not. He has only scrutinised the tree superficially; he has guessed rather than observed; he has only scanned some of its outlines and its general appearance; and he has gazed more or less inattentively and intermittently now at this detail and now at that. There was not one view; but there were various views, each incomplete. Walking along a country lane, I notice the grasses which line both sides. What man could count the green blades and measure their length by developing the image of the country lane? This last case throws light on the question of what a casual observer re-collects of the Madonna. Suppose the whole figure covered with type such as that in which this book is printed. Could the observer at a glance read the whole type off the picture? Now the letters only give concreteness to the multiplicity of details of which the picture is made up, for just as the type yields a blur in the image, so the average view will, except for general outlines and special details, be a blur. Correct observation is the art of the specialist, and as a class of objects is more and more exhaustively attended to by us; as discrimination deals with more and more details; as innumerable details become well connected, so observation yields increasingly higher results. For this reason a breeder of horses recognises or connects a quantity of details where the nonspecialist hardly sees any. Similarly, the lady of fashion, after a single set of observations lasting a second or two, can give a surprisingly detailed account of her rival's dress. So also the captain on a stormy sea quickly takes in the situation. In these cases recognition, being easy, proceeds generally apace. Speaking broadly, we only see a thing so far as it is known; so far as it is not known it is not seen, but represents a blur and is speedily forgotten. [Observe a large number of objects with the purpose |