§ 1. Definition of Memory. — Sometimes the word memory is used as synonymous with retentiveness in general. This application of the term is inconveniently wide. It is better to confine it to ideal revival, so far as ideal revival is merely reproductive, and does not involve transformation of what is revived in accordance with present conditions. This reproductive aspect of ideal revival is best exemplified in those cases in which the controlling interest requires the objects of past experiences to be reinstated as far as possible in the order and manner of their original occurrence. Hence the word memory is applied with special appropriateness to these cases. A witness giving evidence in a lawcourt is a typical example. His mind is bent on recalling past objects and events, as they actually occurred in his previous experience, omitting the inferences which he has subsequently drawn from them, or is inclined to draw at the present moment. The inferences which he drew from them when they occurred he recalls as far as possible only as inferences, and not as actual percepts.

The witness in a lawcourt recalls his own personal experiences as far as possible in the same timerelations in which they actually occurred. This may be called personal memory; but there is a large class of cases in which memory is impersonal. What is remembered in these instances is the knowledge acquired by personal experience, and not the particular incidents connected with the process of acquiring it. When a boy first begins to study his Euclid, his natural tendency is to learn the propositions by heart, so as to reproduce the very words of the book. When the process of learning is complete, what remains in his mind may be only the general method of proof. He will to a large extent have forgotten the words of the book, and he will certainly have forgotten much that happened in the process of learning; the particular occasions on which he sat down with Euclid in hand to learn a proposition; his blunders in attempting to reproduce it, and so on. He will finally tend to recall only what he has an interest in recalling, forgetting what is irrelevant. The process is quite analogous to the formation of Habit, as described in bk. i., ch. ii., § 11 (Habit and Automatism). As in the formation of habit, two distinct conditions are involved: "The first is retentiveness; the second lies in the essential nature of conation, according to which cognitive processes cease, if and so far as their end is attained."* This holds good even in learning by rote. In learning by rote the dates of accession and death of the kings of England, a boy will go over them again and again in his book, and will again and again attempt to repeat them; but in the long run he will forget these particular incidents. He will forget his successive attempts to "commit to memory" and his occasional failures and errors in attempting to reproduce.

* See p. 101.