Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/337

* MEMNONIUM. 303 MEMORY. Osiris, ami Isis, and on tlic left a small vestibule leading to three small ehambers. The reliefs on the walls of the chapels represent ceremonies in honor of the respective gods. The wing, which runs to the southeast at right angles to the rear of the main structure, contains a numlier of chanihers, but many of them are in ii had state of preservation. The most important is a long gallery known as the Gallery of Kings. On the right wall of tliis room arc depicted King Seti I. and his son Rameses adoring their royal an- cestors whose cartouches are inscribed in two long lines. The list contains the names of sev- enty-six kings of Egypt, beginning with Menes (q.v.) and ending with Seti I. (q.v.). but it is far from complete. It does not contain the names of monarchs regarded as illegitimate or unim- portant, and it omits all the rulers from the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Dynasty. C'opies of the list are to be found in Meyer, Oeschichte des alten Aegyptens (Berlin, 1887), and in Flinders Petrie, A History of Eijypt (New York, 1807). Similar lists exist at Karnak and at Sakkaran (q.v.). Consult: Mariette, .4?«/(/o,<! (Paris. ISG'J- 80) ; The Monuments of Upper Egypt (London, 1877) ; Baedeker, Aegypten (4th ed., Leipzig, 18!»7). MEM'OBABIL'IA (Lat., memorable things). Something worthy of being remembered or noted down, especially the Latin title of Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates. MEMORY (OF. memorie, mcmore, memoire, Fr. memoire, from Lat. memoria, from memor, mindful; connected with Gk. /ifp/iepug, mcrmeros, anxious, Skt. smar, to remember). The con- scious representation of past experience. To say that a man has 'a good memory' means that he is able to recall past events fully and accurately. The term is also used, more broadly and loosely, to include the capacity of retention. Thus mem- ory is figuratively called a storehouse. This im- plies that 'within memory' are preserved bits of experience which may reappear in consciousness from time to time in the form of recollections. It is well to keep distinct the terms retention, which properly considered is a physiological fact, a matter of cerebral mechanics, and conscious representation, or recollection — memory in the strictly psychological sense. Recollection involves no new or peculiar men- tal processes. The core of a recollection or 'a memory,' as it may be called, is the 'nu^morj'- idea.' This may appear either as an image — ■ visual, auditory, tactual, etc. (see Imaoination) ■ — or as a word or a .series of words. The thing that brands the image or word as a memory-idea is its reference. One may have the visual imago of a castle, which is no particular castle; or of a pin, which is no particular jiin; this is merely a mental image withoiit a setting: or one may have a visual image of a recent event which comes to mind as 'a-part-of-yesterday' or 'a-thing-that-oc- cnrred-last-spring.' The latter images refer to the past as 'my own past.' They bear the marks of private ownership. The onl.v way in which the memory-idea is unique is, then, in its func- tion, its office in joining items of experience which have different temporal localization. In- termediate steps between the ])erception and the memory-idea are furnished by (1) the after- image (q.v.) ; (2) the memory after-image (i.e. the event that persists in 'standing before the mind' after the external stinuilus has ceased to act, as Lady JIacbeth's horror of the King's blood) ; and (3) the feeling that 'I have known this thing before;' finally comes (4) the free memory-idea. The "reference' in the memory- image is given, first, by the setting, i.e. by the associations which cluster around the idea; sec- ondly, by the degree of clearness and stability of the various parts of the image; and, thirdly, by the 'at home" mood or the mood of familiarity (see F.MiLiAKiTY) which attaches to whatever 'fits in' with one's own list of experiences. The verbal memory-image or idea came in, of course, after the acquisition of language; and it is probable that the more direct 'intuitional' inuxges of sense also appeared (|uite late in the life- series. The complete disjunction of 'present' and 'past' demands an advanced stage of mental de- velopment. Memory is intimately related to recognitioa (q.v.). Indeed, one often says to an acquaint- ance "I remember 3"ou;" meaning that the ac- quaintance is recognized, that his face is famil- iar. ■ But recognition need not imply a reference to a definite past at all ; it may rest simply on the feeling of familiarity that is aroused by the meeting. Recognition starts from a present per- ception ; memory or recollection from an image or idea. Recollection is either active or passive. The effort to 'call up' a name or a situation in which a known event occurred is an instance of active recollection ; whereas, in passive recollection, memories 'come of themselves,' as in the case of a reverie or in the successive appearance of the words and music of a remembered song. The former demands active attention, the latter pas- sive. Almost any phase of consciousness may initiate recollection : the perception of a color may do it, or that of a sound, or a shiver of cold, a feeling, a 'bracing effort,' etc. See AssociA- Tiox OF Ideas for the incentives to recollection. Retention rests u])on some modification of the cortex during excitation. The most acceptable theory of retention is the theory of 'functional dispositions' (Wundt). Excitation so disposes nerve elements (probably in their molecular ar- rangement) that their functions are more or less permanently altered. In this manner, a reexcita- tion 'renews' a function which has alread.v been impressed upon the nervous substance. The con- cept of physical memory has been extended to cover all changes in organic matter which outlast the operation of their causes. It is thus made .synonymous with ])hysiological habit. See Habit. Experiment has attacked most of the major problems of memory within the last fifteen years. Three general methods have been used: (1) re- production: the observer 'reproduces,' e.g. a line of poetry or a tone that he has heard previously; (2) recognition: e.g. a color is shown twice in succession, and the observer reports whether he recognizes it the second time as the same color or whether it looks 'lighter' or 'greener' or 'paler'; (3) comparison: emphasis is laid on the niemorv-image, which is compared with a similar perception. The first important work was done by H. Ebbinghaus in ISS.'i under the first method. Series of 'nonsense-syllables' (e.g. bul. rom, cil) were read over and over, and then an attempt was made to write them from memory. The investi- gator found that as the interval between learning and reproducing was gradually lengthened, the amount remembered fell off at first rapidly and