Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/328

 314 SOPHIA BRYANT : originals as brilliant or lively. The conditions also under which revival occurs differ in the two cases. It seems to be a fact of experience that impressions endure throughout a lifetime with more or less certainty in propor- tion to their original degree of consciousness. A healthy vigorous person expects this durability of consciousness in himself whatever has been conscious is in some sense in his mind. The conscious effects are, as it were, more durable. Physical shocks take place in us every day, and we outgrow them. More precisely the life of the organism as determined towards some physical type keeps its way and holds its own and thereby nullifies many minor effects wrought in it from time to time. Unconscious nature " takes no notice " of small distractions. But a distraction which wakens consciousness works an effect the nature of which is to last through life. We speak of such an effect as entering into the life-experience and think of it as not extinct even when forgotten. We know that, however long past and seemingly completely forgotten, it may turn up again under stress of great excitement or under circumstances peculiarly suited for its revival. Thus there is a peculiar relationship between consciousness and durability. From this it would seem naturally to follow that impres- sions are more durable in proportion as they are more vivid. Or, in other words, the more the element of assthesis pre- ponderates in the reaction on a stimulus the more durable per se the consciousness is. We might even say that to be conscious of an impression is to store it. By a deep con- sciousness to-day I may store an impression which to-morrow, being still present, begins to work in stimulating other re- actions. This postponement of mental activity, i.e., kinesis, is indeed a commonly-observed fact. In my experience it clearly goes with great concentration of consciousness. Mental activity for the time is almost non-existent, but the impression lasts with undiminished force till, perhaps days later, it becomes the centre of thought. Whether its vivid- ness is reduced or stimulated by this late-coming activity depends on the nature of the case as determining whether the circles of thought move simply from it or return to it with fresh stimulus. I have noticed that the effect of much practice in immediacy of action, as when decisions have to be frequently and swiftly made, is to diminish the aesthetic factor in experiences generally in proportion as the opposite habit becomes easier. It would, however, be premature to decide that the aesthetic