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44 conscious recognition of the continuity of a psychic life-history, the referring of the fact represented, as an experience, to the same subject whose is the representative image, — in the unity of one time. But when he proceeds to explanatory science, and lays bare the causes of this mysterious phenomenon, it is only the fact of recurrence which comes in for any adequate share in the account. At the close of his discussion, a passage from a work of mine is cited at length; which passage concludes as follows: "When, then, we speak of a physical basis of memory, recognition must be made of the complete inability of science to suggest any physical process which can be conceived of as correlated with that peculiar and mysterious actus of the mind, connecting its present and its past, which constitutes the essence of memory."

This conclusion of mine Professor James considers "characteristic of the reigning half-way modes of thought " (I, p. 688). And he inquires: "Why not 'pool' our mysteries into one great mystery, the mystery that brain-processes occasion knowledge at all?" In reply I might say that "pooling" is not, in my judgment, precisely the most satisfactory way of settling controverted questions in psychology. And whether the view advocated by my book be a "half-way mode" of thinking, or not, it is certainly designed in the interests of a more thorough analysis than my critic furnishes. The general mystery (the "pool," into which all psychological mysteries may be conveniently dumped) of "blank unmediated correspondences" between brain-processes and thoughts and feelings, that are of no mind and require no metaphysical postulate of even a psychic unifying energy, is as great to me as it possibly can be to Professor James. But in memory, as, indeed, in all the particular problems of psychology, I find abundant tokens that his view of psychology as a natural science is totally inadequate to suggest — not to say actually to furnish — any precise explanation of the most important facts of psychic life.

I agree with Professor James in finding evidence of a "blank unmediated correspondence" between facts of the recurrence of brain-states and facts of the recurrence of particular mental