Except for a few exceedingly clear observations, which I shall give later on, I have only vague replies regarding the revivability of sorrow, or moral pain, after the elimination of the conditions in which it had its origin. One person represents to himself “a general inertia and a febrile condition.” Another, who, during his time of military service, underwent periods of depression and ennui, “a year later, when the recollection comes back to him, sees everything of a grey hue.” We shall see presently that in some individuals the revival of moral pain is as acute as the initial state.

Pleasant States.—The same results are obtained, mutatis mutandis, as with the preceding group. I note a very marked predominance of the motor elements. The pleasures most frequently mentioned are those of skating, swimming, the trot or gallop of a horse, and various physical exercises. Those who really revive agreeable recollections, describe a general state of excitement, a dilatation of the chest, a lighting up of the countenance, a tendency towards childish gestures. One, in thinking of his rides, feels the pleasure of rapid motion, the wind playing over his cheeks, etc. Musicians can easily revive their pleasure by means of inner hearing alone. We find one who cannot think of the Walkürenritt without feeling himself lifted as if by motor impulses.

4. Emotions.—The phenomena of this group, though more complex, are, in fact, only a prolongation of our third group. But, in order to obtain a correct notion of their revivability, we must not proceed by way of generalities. To ask any given individual whether he is capable of reviving past emotions would be a useless question. I have always asked persons to try and recall a particular case of a particular emotion (fear, anger, love, etc.). The answers are reducible to three categories, which I shall enumerate in the order of their frequency.

In the greater number of cases, only the conditions, circumstances, and accessories of the emotion can be recalled; there is only an intellectual memory. The past event comes back to them with a certain emotional colouring (and sometimes even this is absent), a vague affective trace of what has once been but cannot be recalled. In the affective order these subjects are analogous to those of moderately good visual and auditory memory in the intellectual order. C——, who, when standing on a rock, narrowly escaped being surrounded by the tide, sees the waves rising, and recalls his desperate rush for the shore, which he reached in safety; but the emotion as such does not return to him. At Constantine, some years ago, I nearly fell into the gorge of the Rummel. When I think of the incident I can see before me quite clearly the landscape, the state of the sky, all the details of the spot; but the only return of feeling is a slight shiver in the back and legs.

Others (far less numerous) recall the circumstances plus the revived condition of feeling. It is these who have the true “affective memory”; they correspond to those who have good visual or good auditory memories. This is the case with the majority of emotional temperaments. As we here touch on the most obscure and disputed part of our subject, it will be convenient to give some examples.

Irascible subjects, on hearing the name of their enemy, at the mere thought can revive the rising feelings of anger. The timid person shudders and turns pale when recalling the danger once incurred. The lover, thinking of his mistress, completely revives the state of love. If we compare the recollection of an extinct passion with the occurrence to the mind of a passion still existing, we shall clearly perceive the difference between intellectual and affective memory, between the mere recollection of the circumstances and the recollection of the emotion as such. It is a serious error to assert that only the conditions of the emotion can be revived, not the emotional state itself. I now only touch on this question, to which I shall return.

Several of my correspondents affirm that the memory of an emotion affects them as strongly as the emotion itself, which I have no difficulty in believing. Does not the recollection of a foolish action make one blush? One asserts that “her representation of emotions is more acute than the emotions themselves, and that she can recall them much better than visual, auditive, and other sensations.” But a few detailed observations will make the nature of true affective memory clearer.

Littré relates that, at the age of ten, he lost a young sister under very painful circumstances. He felt acute grief at the time; “but a boy’s sorrow does not last long.” At an advanced age this grief suddenly returned, without apparent cause. “Suddenly, without wish or effort on my part, by some phenomenon of affective automnesia, this same event reproduced itself with feelings no less painful, certainly, than those I had experienced at the moment of its occurrence, and which went so far as to bring tears into my eyes.” It was several times repeated in the course of the following days; then it ceased and gave place to the habitual recollection, i.e., to the purely intellectual form of memory.^[103]

It is natural to suppose that emotional revival must be of frequent occurrence in poets and artists. M. Sully-Prudhomme, whose philosophical aptitudes are well known, has favoured me with a written communication on this subject, from which I extract some passages, with his permission.

The whole experiment lasts a little more than ten minutes. To sum up, we have, first, a feeling of weight and oppression, a shudder in the back, but no clear representation of surrounding objects; then a feeling of discomfort becoming more and more intense, visual representations varying either in their nature or their intensity; and finally, the total disappearance of these visual representations, the feeling of ennui being persistent throughout.

Here nothing is wanting, either the circumstances, or the repetition of the emotion itself; and this case shows that the complete revival of an emotion is the beginning of the emotion itself.

Lastly, there remains a third category of answers, of which I have only four cases. I mention these merely as a curiosity, and in order to omit nothing. These persons represent the emotion objectively to themselves, by localising it in another. One can only represent anger to himself under the force of some particular angry man. Another incarnates fear and hatred in a certain person whose countenance or attitude expresses fear or hatred. The emotional state is, for these, only represented under its bodily form.

Is this because they have, personally, little experience of these different emotions?

III.

This series of facts, with their multiform and often contradictory manifestations, may perhaps leave the reader in perplexity, which would be still greater were I to enumerate all. Let us try to bring them into some sort of order, and understand their significance.

If—placing ourselves at the point of view of the question stated above, the possibility of a revival not produced by an actual occurrence—we propose to ourselves to classify all images whatsoever, we shall see that they fall into these groups, viz.:—

Those of direct and easy revivability (visual, auditory, tactile-motor, with some reservations for the last named).

Those of indirect and comparatively easy revivability: pleasures and pains, emotions. They are indirect, because the emotional state is only induced through the intermediary of the intellectual states with which it is associated.^[104]

Those of difficult revivability, either direct or indirect. This heterogeneous and difficult group includes tastes, odours, and internal sensations.

What are the reasons for these differences? I reduce them to two principal ones, which I may briefly state thus—

The revivability of an impression is in direct ratio to its complexity, and consequently in inverse ratio to its simplicity.

The revivability of an impression (with certain exceptions to be mentioned afterwards) is in direct ratio to the motor elements included in it.

1. It is an incontestable fact that an isolated state of consciousness, with no relation to what precedes, accompanies, or follows it, has small chance of fixing itself in the memory. I hear a word of an unknown language, it immediately vanishes; but if I read and write it, if I associate it with some object or with various circumstances, it is fixed. It is easier to remember a group or a series than an isolated and unrelated term. Now, by their very nature, the visual images arrange themselves in complex aggregates, and the auditive in sequences (or even, in the case of harmony, in simultaneities), while the motor images are associated in series, every term of which awakens and brings with it the last. They accordingly fulfil the conditions of immediate and easy revivability. It is the same with pleasures, pains, emotions. Always connected with intellectual states (perceptions, representations, or ideas), they form part of an aggregate, and are involved in its resurgent movement.

The case is different with the images of our third group. They are not associated with one another; they have an isolated and individual character; they contract no relations, either of space or time, among themselves.

Let us take the case of odours. One excludes another; they are not associated in the imagination as visual images are in the recollection of a beautiful landscape. One of my correspondents is able to recall at will the scent of pinks; she tried to do so while walking in a wood full of decaying leaves and their smell, but without success; one odour excluded the other. Neither can they be arranged in sequences. I am aware that an English chemist, Piesse, has claimed the ability to class scents in a continuous series, like notes, patchouli corresponding to lower c in the key of F, and civet to the upper f in the key of G—the whole in tones and semitones; but no one, so far as I know, has taken this fancy seriously.

In the same way, tastes may be associated with other images, as of hunger (I have collected several cases of this), which makes their revival more difficult. Among themselves they do not form associations, but combinations. If associations ever occur they are extremely rare and limited in character.

Hunger and thirst are special, indecomposable states. Disgust and fatigue are revived easily enough, and, as we have seen, by almost every one; but it must be remembered that these states are composed of somewhat heterogeneous—sensory and motor—elements, and that they approach the character of aggregates.

This antithesis between the first two groups and that of odours, tastes, and internal sensations, depends, no doubt, on certain physiological conditions. As we can do nothing but hazard conjectures on this point, it is better to abstain.

2. The second theory stated above—viz., that the revivability is in direct ratio to the motor elements included in the image—is more open to question. I only give it as a partial, secondary, subsidiary explanation, applicable to many cases but not to all, and allowing of numerous exceptions. Since we have to do with an empirical law—a pure generalisation from experience—we must test it by facts, in order to fix its bearing and value. This rapid examination will justify my restrictions and reservations.

Among all our impressions, those of sight and hearing are those most easily revived. Now, though the visual faculty has at its disposal a very rich, varied, and delicate motor apparatus, this is not the case with the auditory. Considering the superior position of the latter among the senses, it is very poor in motor elements; movements of the head, accommodatory movements of the tympanal membrane, in extreme cases movements of the vocal organs, and, according to the latest hypotheses, a certain function of the semi-circular canals. The difference between the two senses in respect of motor elements is very striking.

The sense of smell is much more varied and of greater extent than that of taste. It is far superior as a means of information, yet inferior as regards the sum of the movements at its disposal for exercising itself.

Pleasures, pains, and pleasurable or painful emotions, all include motor elements. So much is evident, yet let us remark what follows: if we divide the affective states—roughly, yet sufficiently for our purpose—into two groups, on one side pains and painful emotions, on the other pleasures and pleasurable emotions, a difficulty presents itself. The first group, that of the “asthenic” states, manifests itself by a diminution of movements, circulation, respiration, etc. The second group, that of the “sthenic” states, manifests itself by the reverse phenomena, increased movement, circulation, etc. Shall we say that the second group, which contains more motor elements, is revived more easily and more frequently than the first? The conclusion would be logical, but contrary to experience. We should even find, I believe, that the contrary opinion has more supporters.^[105]

Organic sensations appear to depend principally on the chemical action taking place in the organism; it is thus with hunger, thirst, suffocation, disgust, fatigue, etc. Here the part played by the motor element is but trifling. As this revival is vague, this group seems to conform to the law stated above.

To sum up: when examined in detail our formula is only a partial explanation, a generalisation of limited application.

IV.

We have now arrived at the principal question, for which all that has hitherto been said was only a preparation: Is there such a thing as a real revival of impressions? Although most psychologists do not put this question at all, or only treat it in a cursory manner, the majority of answers are certainly in the negative. It is maintained that we remember the conditions and circumstances of an emotional occurrence, but not the emotional state itself.

I feel obliged completely to reject this theory, which would never have been maintained if the subject had not been treated a priori, in an offhand manner, without sufficient observations. A closer study, supported by the facts which I have adduced, and others which will follow, shows that there are two quite distinct cases. Some people have a false or abstract memory for feelings, others a true or concrete one. In the former the image is scarcely revived, or not at all; in others it is revived in great part, or totally. In order the better to explain the difference between these two forms of memory, let us examine the constituent elements and the mechanism of each separately.

1. The false or abstract memory of feeling consists in the representation of an occurrence, plus an affective characteristic—I do not say an affective state. This is certainly the most frequent form. What remains of the small incidents of a long journey but the recollection of the places where they happened, the details, and the fact that they were once disagreeable. What remains of a vanished love-affair but the impression of a person, of attentions paid to her, of adventures, and, besides, the recollection that this was once happiness? How much does the adult retain of the memory of his childish games? How much of his former religious or political belief remains to a person who has become totally indifferent? In all cases of this kind, and there are thousands, the remembered emotional characteristic is known, not felt or experienced; this is only an additional intellectual character. It is added to the rest as an accessory; pretty much as, in picturing to ourselves a town, a monument, a landscape visited long ago, we add the recollection of a bright or cloudy sky, of rain or fog which surrounded it.

I call an emotional memory “abstract,” and I justify this term. Emotional states are just as susceptible of abstraction and generalisation as intellectual states. One who has seen many men, who has heard many dogs bark or frogs croak, forms to himself a generic image of the human figure, of the barking of dogs, or the croaking of frogs. This is a schematic, half-abstract, half-concrete representation, formed through the accumulation of rough resemblances and the elimination of differences. In the same way, a person who has several times suffered from toothache, colic, or headache, who has had paroxysms of anger or fear, hate or love, forms to himself a generic impression of these different states by means of the same procedure. This is the first step. It would be beside the point to follow here in detail the ascending progress of the mind to higher and ever higher generalisations. In their highest degree, concepts like force, movement, quantity, etc., suppose two things: a word which fixes and represents them, and a potential or latent knowledge, hidden under the word and preventing it from being a mere flatus vocis. He who does not possess this potential knowledge, who is incapable of resolving the superior abstractions, first into medium, then into inferior ones, then into concrete data, possesses only an empty concept. So for the affective states the terms emotion, passion, sensibility, etc., are nothing but abstractions, and in order to verify these terms and give them a real significance, we must have experiences in the region of feeling, concrete data. People who speak of a state of feeling which they have never experienced, which they know only by hearsay, have an empty concept. States of feeling are a material susceptible of all degrees of abstraction, like sensory material.

The false or abstract memory of feeling is only a sign, a simulacrum, a substitute for the real occurrence, an intellectualised state added to the purely intellectual elements of the impression, and nothing more.

2. The true or concrete memory of impressions consists in the actual reproduction of a former state of feeling, with all its characteristics. This is necessary—at least in theory—if it is to be complete. The nearer it approaches to totality, the more accurate it is. Here the recollection does not consist merely in the representation of conditions and circumstances, in short, of intellectual states, but in the revival of the state of feeling itself as such, i.e., as felt. I have already given instances of this: Fouillée’s experiment, the cases of Littré and Sully-Prudhomme; those numbered III. and IV., so clear and precise, show that a true memory of impressions, independent of its intellectual accompaniment, is no chimera.

Bain says that the emotions, “in their strict character of emotions proper, have the minimum of revivability; but being always incorporated with the sensations of the higher senses, they share in the superior revivability of sights and sounds.” On which Professor W. James makes the following comment: "But he fails to point out that the revival of sights and sounds may be ideal without ceasing to be distinct; whilst the emotion, to be distinct, must become real again. Professor Bain seems to forget that an ‘ideal emotion,’ and a real emotion prompted by an ideal object, are two very different things."^[106]

I maintain, on the contrary, that we have here only two different stages of the same thing; the first ineffectual and abortive, the second complete; and the subject which now occupies us must either have been in a very confused state, or very negligently treated, for a clear mind like that of W. James not to have seen that affective memories, like others, aim at becoming actual states of feeling. We ought not, however, to forget the indisputable fact that our consciousness only exists in the present. For a recollection, however distant, to exist, as far as I am concerned, it must re-enter the narrow area of present consciousness; otherwise it is buried in the depths of the unconscious and equivalent to the non-existent. We have thus (not to speak of the present-future) a present-present and a present-past—viz., that of memory; and this is only distinguished from the other by certain additional marks which it is needless to enumerate, but which consist principally in its appearing like an initial state, though, in general, less intense. Now these indispensable conditions of memory are the same for both intellectual and emotional states. If, with my eyes shut, I can call up the vision of St. Peter’s at Rome (if I were an architect, with a good visual memory, I should see it in all its details), my impression is an actual one, and only becomes a memory by the addition of secondary characteristics, such as repetition and a lower degree of intensity. The two cases are similar; in both, the revived impression, according to the law formulated by Dugald Stewart and Taine, is accompanied by a momentary belief which places it in the position of an actual reality. But the recollection of a feeling, it will be said, has this special property, that it is associated with organic and physiological states which make of it a real emotion. I reply that it must be so, for an emotion which does not vibrate through the whole body is nothing but a purely intellectual state. To expect that we should actually revive a state of feeling without reviving also its organic conditions, is to expect the impossible, to state the problem in contradictory terms. We should, in that case, simply have its substitute, its abstraction, i.e., the false affective memory which is a variety of intellectual memory; the emotion will be recognised, not revived.

Finally, the ideal of every recollection is that, while keeping its character of being already experienced, it should be adequate in such measure as was possible for the original impression. The revival of impressions is an internal operation, whose extreme form is hallucination. For the two forms of memory, intellectual and emotional, the ideal is the same, only each has its special mechanism for realising it.

There are all possible degrees of transition from the simple bald representation of the words pleasure or pain, love or fear, to the acute, fully and entirely felt representation of these states. In a crowd of people taken at random, one might, with the help of adequate information, determine all the intermediate degrees, from the abstract to the concrete. Still more, these may be met with in the same individual. When the poet says that “Sadness departs upon the wings of Time,” his meaning, in psychological language, is that the affective memory is gradually transformed into an intellectual memory. We know that certain artists, in order to get rid of the memory of a sorrow or a passion, have fixed it in a work of art. This was Goethe’s method; every one knows the story of Werther, to quote but one example. One of my correspondents employs the same procedure with success; i.e., in the case we are dealing with, the question is how to transfer emotion to the region of the imagination, and, consequently, intellectualise it.

I have said that in certain persons the revival of emotional states seems to be complete. Is it so in fact? I believe that it is impossible to give a precise answer to this question; and here we have a point where the emotional memory differs from the intellectual memory.

A given recollection is considered accurate; but in the majority of cases this is only an illusion. Nearly always, in revived impressions, there are deductions and losses, sometimes additions; sometimes they include plus, sometimes minus factors. At any rate, in the intellectual order, there are certain cases where one can say that the recollection is perfect, without the least gap or error; and this affirmation is legitimate because verifiable. It is quite sufficient to compare the copy with the original. If I enter a hall of the Alhambra with my eyes closed, I can ascertain whether the inner vision which I have retained from a former visit is adequate to the reality. I can check my recollection of a passage of music by the actual hearing of the same. The painter mentioned by Wigan who executed his portraits from memory, Mozart reconstructing Allegri’s Miserere, are the classic examples of perfect cases where the impression is revived with irreproachable exactitude.

But in the region of the feelings this comparison is impossible, because two subjective states, of which one is the original and one the copy, cannot co-exist in the same individual, and because the primary impression cannot be objectivised. I see but one way of getting over the difficulty so as to arrive at an approximately correct answer. This would consist in comparing the revived emotional state with a written document dating from the moment of the first impression; and even this impression is open to doubt. J. J. Rousseau, speaking of the enthusiasm aroused by the love-letters of the Nouvelle Héloïse, tells us that they were inspired by his own love for Madame d’Houdetot, and adds, “What would they have said could they have read the originals!” It is possible that Rousseau was more or less mistaken; but this is a comparison of the kind I am suggesting. A correspondent, well equipped for psychological observations, and accustomed to note down the day’s impressions, had promised me to attempt such a comparison between the actual recollection and the written document; but various causes have prevented the accomplishment of this purpose. One might possibly, without much trouble, chance to recover a letter written under the impression of the moment, and compare it with the present emotional recollection which, rightly or wrongly, we consider most correct. For my part, I am inclined to doubt whether, in the case of feelings, there is ever a complete correspondence between the original and the copy; but this is merely a hypothetical view.

It still remains to say a few words on forgetfulness in the region of the emotions. Affective amnesia is found in two forms—one pathological, the other normal.

I pass over in silence the morbid manifestations, whose study would be both extensive and curious, but would lead me away from my principal aim, which is a practical one. We find numerous examples of the loss of altruistic, moral, or religious feelings, of partial or total indifference to the past, of complete insensibility—the Gemütslosigkeit of the German alienists.

I confine myself to the consideration of affective amnesia under its simplest and most widely-known form. Nothing is more frequently met with. In the first place, the single fact that most psychologists either neglect or deny the phenomenon of emotional memory, constitutes a presumption that its function is not a very obvious one. Moreover, that emotional memory which I have designated the false or abstract one, may, without prejudice, be considered as a mitigated form of forgetfulness. Finally, eliminating the non-emotional temperaments as irrelevant to our subject, we may find, even among the emotional, many who feel acutely, but do not retain their emotions. Every one knows people whose whole nature is shaken by sorrow, joy, love, indignation; they seem for a long time as if possessed; a few weeks later, not a trace remains. Emotions glide off their minds as a thunder-shower does off the roofs. Now this affective amnesia has a great influence on conduct.

Here, in fact, are two general truths derived from experience, and in my opinion incontestable:—

On the one hand, pleasant and painful sensations are the most powerful, if not the only motive forces of human activity.

On the other, there are people in whom emotions are revived strongly, weakly, or not at all.

The conclusion is that the portion of individual experience resulting from the pleasures and pains experienced, will show itself, as to its efficacy, strongly, feebly, or not at all, according to the individual. The prodigal who has ruined himself and is restored to opulence by an unexpected chance, if he has not preserved a lively recollection of his privations, will begin his extravagant career over again; if his painful recollections are of a stable character, they will act on his natural tendencies as a restraining or inhibitory force. The drunkard and the glutton will not repeat their excesses as long as the impression of the after-effects remains vivid. The educator, as every one knows, has no hold over a child on whom the recollection of rewards and punishments has no effect. I have already mentioned the state of mind which frequently succeeds dangerous confinements; this, again, is a case of affective amnesia. The absence of sympathy, in many men, is only an incapacity for reviving the recollection of the ills they have suffered themselves, and consequently for feeling them in others. These are well-known facts, of which it is needless to lengthen the list; but however well known they may be, their psychological reason is, in my opinion, not always apprehended, because the importance of the emotional memory has not been recognised.

Affective amnesia, therefore, plays a much more important part in human life than we are apt to think. It often lets us into the secret of strange modes of action, though I would not assert that it alone is sufficient to explain these everywhere and always.

V.

The study just made seems to me to lead to the following conclusions:—

1. There exists an AFFECTIVE TYPE as clear and well-defined as the visual, the auditory, and the motor types. It consists in the easy, complete, and preponderant revival of affective impressions.impressions.

I have simply applied to an almost unexplored region of memory the methods of research inaugurated for objective sensations by Taine and Galton, continued by many others, and successful in their hands. It will, perhaps, be objected that the complete emotional type is rarely found; but neither is it certain that the visual, auditory, and motor types are of very frequent occurrence in a pure state. This, however, is of little consequence, the essential point being to determine its existence. Those who belong to this type will easily recognise it. I foresee that those whose memories are of the opposite type will refuse to admit it; but the members of the Royal Society and the Académie des Sciences,—being for the most part possessed of non-visual memories,—when questioned by Galton, failed to understand his queries, and would probably have rejected his conclusions. Many men have an incurable tendency to wish that every one were constituted like themselves, and to refuse to admit the existence of any departures from their type. Yet in psychology, even more than elsewhere, we must be distrustful of too extensive generalisations.

2. There exists not only a general emotional type; it admits of varieties, and it is even probable that partial types are the most frequent. Here I note a resemblance between my researches and those made with regard to impressions of objective origin. It is known that some persons have an excellent memory for faces, figures, concrete objects, but not for colours or visual signs, such as printing and writing. Others have an excellent memory for languages but none for music, or inversely. Moreover, have not numerous pathological phenomena demonstrated the fact that, in a determinate category of images, a whole group may disappear, without appreciable injury to the rest?

I have not at present a sufficient supply of documents to enter on the study of the varieties of the affective type; but it is certain that they exist; that, for some, a clear and frequent revival only takes place in the case of pleasurable impressions; in others, of gloomy or of erotic images. I have obtained conclusive affirmative answers on this point, but will only transcribe a case which deals with fear.

It might be said that in this case the revival is often artificially produced, and associated with special circumstances; but it seemed to me of too clear and definite a character to be omitted.

I need not point out that these individual differences in the revivability of emotional states certainly play a great part in the constitution of different types of character. Moreover, the existence of variations of the emotional type cuts short the question, acrimoniously debated by some writers, whether pains can be more easily remembered than pleasures. Optimists and pessimists have fought fiercely over this phantasmal problem; but it is a vain and factitious question so long as we suppose that it admits of but one solution. There is not, and cannot be, a general answer.

Certain individuals revive joyful images with astonishing facility; sad memories, when they arise, are immediately and easily trodden down. I know an inveterate optimist, successful in all his undertakings, who has much difficulty in picturing to himself the few reverses that he has experienced. “I remember joys much more easily than painful states” is an answer I frequently meet with in my notes.

On the other hand, there are many who say, “I remember sorrows much more easily than pleasurable states.” In the course of my inquiries I have found that the latter are the most numerous; but I do not see my way to draw any conclusion from this fact. One says, “I find it much easier to revive unpleasant feelings, whence my tendency to pessimism. Joyous impressions are evanescent. A painful recollection makes me sad at a joyful moment; a joyful recollection does not cheer me at a sad one.”

These are straightforward cases. Outside them the question above stated can only be solved at haphazard, and by a merely mental view.

3. Revivability depends on cerebral and internal conditions (whatever these may be, known or unknown) rather than on the primary impression itself. To feel emotions acutely and revive them acutely are two widely different operations; one does not imply the other. We have seen that, in many cases, revivability even seems to be in inverse ratio to the intensity of the initial phenomenon. This brings us back to the question of characters. It does not matter whether the impression is a vivid one; what is wanted is that it should be fixed. Often it is heightened by a process of latent incubation depending on individual temperament. Chateaubriand, speaking of a gamekeeper to whom he was much attached, and who was killed by a poacher, says, “My imagination (at sixteen) pictured to me Raulx holding his entrails in his hands, and dragging himself to the hut where he died. I conceived the idea of revenge; I wished to fight the murderer. In this respect I am singularly constituted; at the moment of a blow I scarcely feel it, but it engraves itself on my memory; the recollection, instead of being weakened, grows stronger with time; it sleeps in my heart for years together, then the most trivial circumstance awakens it with renewed force, and my wound becomes more painful than on the first day.”^[107] Here we have another analogy with what takes place in the order of objective impressions. It is not sufficient to have good eyes in order to have a good visual memory, and I know short-sighted persons whose inner vision is excellent.^[108]

I may terminate this inquiry, which is a sketch rather than a study of the subject, by reminding the reader that the facts ascertained for the other, the intellectual part of memory, have not been the work of one man or of one day.^[109]