Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/329

 THE DOUBLE EFFECT OF MENTAL STIMULI. 315 type has all the advantages in the way of memory. Totals of experiences that have subsided into the subconscious state are recovered by the stimulus due to new impressions which are partly identical with them. There is an element in the new impression which has occurred before, and this element by its kinesis restimulates the other elements of the old impression, hence reinstating it as a whole. Thus the reinstatement of the old turns upon (1) the implicit analysis and (2) the kinesis of the new. The latter fact it is that interests us here, since it points to the conclusion that the kinetic type of mind is favourable to memory under its other name of recollection. The aesthetic type stores more securely ; the kinetic type recollects what is stored with more ease. Since the ordinary play of memory consists in bringing back impressions that had passed out of consciousness for a time, it might seem now that the kinetic type has the ad- vantage in the ordinary operations of memory, although more liable to oblivescence than its contrast. Before decid- ing this point completely, however, we must inquire whether the process of recollection by the association of old with new is the only process 1 by which the old is revived. Is there, besides, a process of spontaneous revival ? It is difficult to deal experimentally, or even in the experi- mental spirit, with such a question as this. There is no doubt that memory occurs through the association of ideas : we all observe this every day. Here, therefore, is a cause by which we seek to explain all the cases that occur : and no room is left for the hypothesis of spontaneous revival unless we find cases which cannot be thus explained. Now it is very difficult to be sure that associations, more or less obscure, have been absent in a case of apparently spontane- ous memory. Sometimes the associations are very obscure, as we know by our failure to discover them at first, though we do find them in the end with certainty. Nevertheless we must not conclude too hastily. Some- times we do find ourselves with a memory whose genesis at that moment we cannot account for, and it is noticeable that such memories are marked by vivid aesthesis in their originals. Scenes that have impressed me very much, such as the dawn on Monte Rosa seen from the opposite slopes, or the Atlantic colours on the Irish west coast, seem to keep a perpetual existence so near the threshold of consciousness that they have a continual tendency to rise above it of their own accord, and do so in many fresh and vivid moments. It should be noted that there is a sense in which any present