Page:Bergson - Matter and Memory (1911).djvu/128

 the accompanying circumstances B, C, D, remain associated with it by contiguity. If I call the same perception renewed A′, as it is not with A′, but with A that the terms B, C, D are bound up, it is necessary, in order to evoke the terms B, C, D, that A′ should be first called up by some association of resemblance. And it is of no use to assert that A′ is identical with A. For the two terms, though similar, are numerically distinct, and differ at least by this simple fact that A′ is a perception, whereas A is but a memory. Of the two interpretations of which we have spoken, the first, then, melts into the second, which we will now examine.

It is alleged that the present perception dives into the depths of memory in search of the remembrance of the previous perception which resembles it: the sense of recognition would thus come from a bringing together, or a blending, of perception and memory. No doubt, as an acute thinker has already pointed out, resemblance is a relation established by the mind between terms which it compares and consequently already possesses; so the perception of a resemblance is rather an effect of association than its cause. But, along with this definite and perceived resemblance which