Chapter XI: The Memory of Feelings (1)

_Can emotional images be revived, spontaneously or
voluntarily?—Summary of scattered facts relating to this
subject—Inquiry into this question, and method
followed—Emotional and gustative images—Internal sensations
(hunger, thirst, fatigue, disgust, etc.)—Pleasures and pains;
observations—Emotions: three distinct forms of revivability
according to observations—Reduction of the images to three
groups: revivability direct and easy, indirect and comparatively
easy, difficult and sometimes direct, sometimes indirect.—The
revivability of a representation is in proportion to its
complexity and the motor elements included in it.—Reservations
to be made on this last point—Is there such a thing as a real
emotional memory?—Two cases: false or abstract, and true or
concrete memory—Peculiar characters and differences of each
case—Change of the emotional into an intellectual
recollection—Emotional amnesia: its practical consequences—There
exists a general emotional type and partial emotional
types—Confirmatory observations—Comparative revivability of
agreeable and disagreeable states—To feel acutely and to recall
an acute impression of the feeling are two different
operations._

I.

After the numerous researches made, during the last twenty years, into the nature and the revivability of visual, auditory, tactile-motor, and verbal images, it seems paradoxical to maintain that there is still an unexplored region in the domain of memory. As a matter of fact, however, we find at most a few scattered remarks on the images derived from smell, taste, internal sensations, pleasure, pain, and emotion in general. The question of the emotional memory remains nearly, if not quite, untouched.[96] The object of this chapter is to begin its study.

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Footnote 96:

I see no reason for mentioning any authorities except H. Spencer,
_Principles of Psychology_, i., §§ 69 and 96; Bain, _Emotions_,
ch. v.; W. James, _Psychology_, ii. pp. 474, 475; Fouillée,
_Psychologie des Idées-forces_; Höffding, _Psychologie_ (3rd
German edition), vi., B. 3; Lehmann, _Hauptgesetze_, pp. 261-263.

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The impressions of smell and taste, our visceral sensations, our pleasant or painful states, our emotions and passions, like the perceptions of sight and hearing, can leave memories behind them. This is a matter of common experience on which it is needless to insist. These residua, fixed in an organisation, may return into the consciousness; and it is known that images may be revived in two ways—by provocation, or spontaneously.

Revivability on provocation is the simplest of all. It consists in an actual occurrence awakening the images of similar occurrences at some former time, and takes place, beyond possibility of doubt, in the class of images which occupies us just now. The actual sensation of fatigue, of the smell of a lily, of the taste of pepper, of pain in a certain tooth, appear to me as the repetition of sensations formerly experienced, similar to the present one, or at least apparently identical, so that, consequently, it revives them.

But can the images of olfactory and gustatory sensations, of internal sensations, of past pains and pleasures, of emotions formerly experienced, be revived in the consciousness spontaneously, or at will, independently of any actual occurrence which might provoke them? We know that, in some painters, the inner vision is so clear that they can draw a portrait from memory; that, in some musicians, the inner hearing is so perfect that they can, like Habeneck, ideally hear a symphony just played, recalling all the details of the execution, and the slightest variations in the time. Are there in the order of emotional representations any cases analogous to these? Such is, in its precise form, the question which we shall examine in detail. We shall subsequently see that it has a practical bearing, and is not a mere psychological curiosity.

Before entering on the subject, I will summarise the principal facts relating to this question to be found scattered through the works of various authors. I divide them into four groups:—

1. We may take taste and smell together. This last sense is much more extensive, much richer and more varied than the other; common speech often confounds them, enriching taste at the expense of smell. Although unscientific, this confusion does not greatly concern us.

Every one knows that professional tasters, cooks, certain chemists and perfumers, can distinguish the most delicate gradations and correctly identify them with previous sensations; but this is a provoked recollection. Does a spontaneous or voluntary relation exist between these two groups of images? Examining the fullest monographs drawn up by physiologists[97] we find scarcely any information on this point. Cloquet, Müller, Valentin have reported cases of subjective sensations attributed by them to internal causes; but other physiologists, such as Ludwig, without denying these, are of opinion that sapid particles in the mouth, and odoriferous molecules on the mucous membrane of the nose, may act in a similar manner; so that the alleged images would, in fact, be sensations.

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Footnote 97:

See Von Vintschgau, art. “Geruch” and “Geschmack” in Hermann’s
_Handbuch der Physiologie_, vol. iii.; Gley, art. “Gustation”;
François-Franck, art. “Olfaction” in the _Dictionnaire
encyclopédique des sciences médicales_.

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Dreams may afford us a better starting-point. Among the numerous writers who have treated of this subject, some resolutely deny the existence of representations of taste and smell. It is impossible to accept this opinion. Though they are comparatively rare, examples may be found which are proof against all criticism. A person who, for hygienic reasons, has abstained from wine for several years, assures us that he has had a very clear impression of its taste in the course of a dream. We may recall the hypnagogic hallucinations so well described by A. Maury, who was subject to them; he mentions the taste of rancid oil, and the smell of burning as occurring apart from any objective cause.

Among hallucinations properly so called, it is known that those of smell are of very frequent occurrence. Many authorities hesitate to admit those of taste, which they reduce to the status of mere illusions; but we know that the distinction formerly maintained between these two pathological manifestations has been, in our day, much disputed.

2. Internal sensations play a prominent part in the emotional life. Are these susceptible, in the normal condition, of spontaneous or voluntary revival? I have not been able to find any precise information on this point. In the pathological condition we can find numerous examples in hypochondriacs, hysterics, and neuropaths, in insane patients who complain of the suppression of some of their organs, of inversion of the stomach. In any case it would be necessary to determine the part played by the organ itself, and its actual state in the majority of these cases of revival, which is extremely difficult.

3. As for pleasures and pains, under their double (physical and mental) form, there is no doubt. The recollection of a blinding light, of a discord or a strident sound, of the extraction of a tooth, or some more serious operation; the prospect of a good dinner to an epicure, of the approaching holidays to a schoolboy—all the states of psychic life generally included under the designation of imaginary pleasures and pains, show how frequent is the revival of impressions on the feelings. And, in fact, the difficulty is not to establish their existence, but to determine their nature.

We may also recall the facility with which, in hypnotised subjects, pleasant or painful conditions of all sorts may be induced by suggestion.

Finally, in certain cases, the impression may even become completely hallucinatory—_i.e._, equal in intensity to the reality itself. “A student,” says Gratiolet, “playfully struck his companion’s out-stretched finger with the handle of a scalpel. The latter felt a pain so acute that he thought the instrument had pierced his finger to the bone.” During a popular tumult in the reign of Louis-Philippe, a combatant received a slight contusion from a spent bullet on his shoulder. The skin was not even scratched, but “he felt a torrent of blood flowing from the wound over his breast.” Bennett relates that a butcher remained hanging by one arm from a hook. He was taken down by the terrified bystanders, uttered frightful cries, and complained that he was suffering cruelly, while all the time the hook had only penetrated his clothes, and the arm was uninjured.[98] This condition might be termed a _hallucination of the feelings_.

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Footnote 98:

Hack Tuke, _Influence of Mind upon the Body_, p. 181, where other
facts of the same kind may be found.

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4. The supply of observations and documents relating to the revivability of the emotions and passions is a very scanty one. In fact, we may admit that what has already been said as to pleasures and pains is also applicable to this last group. But it is not on the question of fact that the attention of psychologists has been concentrated. They are occupied entirely with theory, and in determining the nature of emotional memory. The majority consider the recollection to be merely that of the accompanying circumstances of emotion. Others hold it to be a recollection of the emotion itself, as such. As this is the principal point of my subject, and will have subsequently to be discussed in detail, I must limit myself, for the moment, to the mere indication of the two opinions.

In short,—confining ourselves to the normal, and setting aside the pathological states,—the facts collected seem to me utterly inadequate for answering the question stated above.

II.

It was for this reason that I proposed to myself the task of collecting fresh documents, and of inquiring whether there are not great differences between one individual and another as regards the memory of impressions. This would explain the want of harmony among authorities on this point.

Having eliminated all vague and doubtful answers, and those which are not to the point, I have collected about sixty _dossiers_. Each person (all being adults, of both sexes, and various stages of culture) was directly questioned by myself, and the answers immediately noted. Besides these, I have received several long written communications, which I reckon among my best material. The nature of the questions asked will be sufficiently evident from the following summary, which contains the principal results of my inquiry. I shall confine myself to a bare statement of the facts; the interpretation will come later.

1. _Images of taste and smell._—I was disposed to admit that they are not subject to any spontaneous revivability, and still less to a voluntary one, being, for my own part, quite incapable of recalling a single one, even in the faintest degree. The answers have put me completely in the wrong—the negatives being 40 per cent., the positives 60 per cent. More accurately, 40 per cent. persons revive no image, 48 per cent. revive some, 12 per cent. declare themselves capable of reviving all, or nearly all, at pleasure.

The majority of cases, therefore, allows of the spontaneous revival of some odours only. Those most frequently mentioned are pinks, musk, violets, heliotrope, carbolic acid, the smell of the country, of grass, etc. The conditions under which the image appears are various. For some persons this is unaccompanied by any visual, tactile, or other representation. With the majority, the imaginary odour ultimately excites the corresponding visual image (that of a flower, a bottle of scent, etc.). Many have first to evoke the visual image, and, in time, succeed in exciting the olfactory one. Two individuals affirm that, on reading the description of a landscape, they immediately perceive the characteristic odours. Here the sign is sufficient. One of them, a novelist, is sometimes conscious of thirst under the same conditions.

In the two following cases the “olfactory image” only exists in a single instance, and appears to be produced by the combined operation of concomitant circumstances.

Case 1. “I had been to the hospital, to see my friend B., who was
suffering from a cancer in the face.... When he spoke it was
necessary to come quite close in order to hear what he said, and
thus, in spite of the antiseptic dressings, an acrid, fetid odour
forced itself on one’s nostrils.... I was to go again to see him—I
had promised to do so; but this prospect was intensely repugnant
to me. While walking in a part of Paris, where neither space nor
fresh air was wanting, I reproached myself silently for not having
gone to see the poor patient.... At this very moment I perceived,
as though I had been close to him, the same acrid odour,
recognisable as that of a cancerous tumour—so suddenly that I
instinctively held my sleeve to my nose in order to see whether I
had not brought away the smell in my clothes. This, however, was
immediately succeeded by the reflection that I had not been to the
hospital for five days, and that, moreover, I was not wearing the
same overcoat as on the occasion of my visit.”

Case 2. "I can only recall two odours: one inextricably connected
with the memory of a sick-room—a stale smell of drugs and vitiated
air, truly disagreeable when it recurs, as at the present
moment....

“It has happened to me to discover a very peculiar and indefinable
odour in the presence of a hypnotiser (M. R——) when he was putting
me to sleep, and I had not quite reached the lethargic state. I
have since noticed that very often (not always) the memory of this
curious odour accompanies the recollection of the hypnotiser. This
seems to me all the more convincing, because, the odour being very
subtle when M. R—— is near me, the revival must be absolute to
allow of the return of the sensation, in however slight a degree.”

I should hesitate to admit the spontaneous or voluntary revival of almost all odours, if this fact had not been affirmed to me, in perfect good faith, by educated and competent witnesses. I give some extracts from these declarations: “I can perceive nearly all characteristic odours, and can call them up at will; at this moment I am thinking of the country of the Rhine, and am fully conscious of its odour.” “I can recall the greater number of odours (but not all) either spontaneously or voluntarily. (In the latter case time is required.)—Can you perceive, _here_ and _now_, the scent of roses, and, if so, of what kind?—I perceive it _in genere_; but, on further persevering, I find it to be the scent of withered roses. The visual representation occurs afterwards.” The only person who has told me that he finds all odours perceptible at will always finds a preliminary visual representation necessary.[99]

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Footnote 99:

Galton, in a note entitled “Arithmetic by Smell,” has described an
arrangement by means of which he convinced himself that some
arithmetical operations can be carried out by the help of
olfactory images, as is done by means of visual and auditory
representations. He trains himself to regard two whiffs of
peppermint as equivalent to one of camphor, and three of
peppermint with one of carbolic acid; he performs small additions,
and, later on, operates with images only (visual and auditory
representations being excluded). For details, see _Psychological
Review_, January 1894.

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As to the recollections of tastes, by themselves, the answers are very vague. One remembers “easily, and at will, the taste of salt, with a very clear visual impression,” but less easily the other three fundamental tastes. Another, who uses for his throat three different kinds of lozenges, “feels the taste of them beforehand, as soon as he needs them, on either seeing or touching them.” In general, the revivability of tastes appears to me especially connected with that of ordinary food, and with the state of the alimentary canal (hunger).

2. _Internal sensations._—My inquiry does not include the whole of these, but only the commonest and most easily observed.[100]

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Footnote 100:

The memory of internal sensations, though distinct from that of
states of feeling properly so called, approximates so closely to
it that the two subjects appear to me inseparable.

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As regards hunger, I have received 51 definite answers, 24 persons saying they can distinctly recall it, 27 that they cannot. (The question has always been put at an hour when the real sensation did not exist, and some have told me that in their normal condition they never feel either hunger or thirst.) It is usually described as a tactile sensation in the œsophagus, or a twitching pain in the stomach, etc. One person only affirms that he can, “at will, feel hunger and thirst, even after having eaten and drunk.”

Thirst is imagined much more frequently than hunger, and, as it seems, more clearly (36 affirmative to 15 negative answers). It is described as dryness in the throat, heat, etc.

As regards the representation of fatigue, the answers have without exception been affirmative. The modes of representation are various. Some feel it (ideally) in the muscles; others under a cerebral form. Here are some examples: “muscular twitchings in the calves of the legs, the back, and the shoulders; the eyes feeling swollen, but no heaviness in the head;” “a feeling of relaxation, of a weight, localised in the shoulders, because, in a normal state, I find stooping very difficult;” “slowness of movement, with a feeling of weight in the head;” “general lassitude, of a diffused kind, especially a feeling of weight in the head, and mental weariness;” “pains in the joints, and a heavy feeling in the brain.” Although all my correspondents can revive the feeling of fatigue, three or four can only succeed in doing so “with difficulty and to a slight extent.”

We find the same results with regard to the representation of disgust. I find only three negative answers, all accompanied by the remark, “I have a good digestion.” One of these cases is the more singular because the subject has suffered from sea-sickness. In its acute form the representation is described as “like the beginning of nausea.” For others, it is “a pain in the stomach, with a retractile movement, connected with the idea of cod-liver oil, or of tainted meat.” Among those who have experienced the sensation of sea-sickness, I have not met with one who cannot easily revive it (giddiness, feelings of a rocking motion, which disinclines them to persist in reviving the impression). M. X—— (a very competent observer in psychological questions) says: “I have a pretty good visual memory, but no auditive, either musical or linguistic; I cannot spell a foreign language. Except for muscular memory, which in me is _nil_ (so that I have never succeeded in acquiring any physical exercise, or playing on any instrument), I can revive all internal sensations: hunger, thirst, disgust, fatigue, giddiness, difficulty in breathing; I prefer not to insist upon this last state, as were I to think of it any longer I should actually bring it on.”[101]

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Footnote 101:

A great swimmer has had feelings of suffocation which he can
recall with much vividness.

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3. _Pains and Pleasures._—To the question, “Can you revive in yourself the memory of a given physical pain, a sorrow, a pleasure, or a pity?” the answer is nearly always in the affirmative. But, put in this bald way, it teaches us nothing. We require more detailed information. We here return to the main point of our subject, and I am obliged slightly to anticipate my conclusions. The observations, carefully taken, show that there are two distinct forms of emotional memory, one _abstract_, the other _concrete_. Later on, I shall insist on their differences; for the moment, I shall confine myself to the enumeration of facts.

_Painful States._—Toothache, being very common, has supplied me with many answers. I note in nearly all of these the predominance of the motor elements: shooting and throbbing pains, contortions of the jaw, etc. When the extraction of a tooth is recalled there is a jarring of the whole head, a feeling of twisting, snapping, noises, etc. In many cases the painful element seems to be scarcely revived, or not at all; in many others it reappears with the utmost clearness.

Case 3. “I send you a personal observation made during the last
few days. I had suffered from toothache, which was very acute, and
certainly intenser than the unpleasant feeling experienced when
the dentist operates on your teeth with his revolving machine. Yet
when I think of it now, and try to recall, on the one hand the
pain, on the other the rubbing of the teeth by the machine, it is
the latter which seems to me, in my recollection, the most
disagreeable. I explain this by the fact that this rubbing is
accompanied by a noise which I can recall most vividly, and this
auditive representation is by itself sufficient to evoke a
disagreeable feeling. The pain in the teeth is also connected with
different accessories: inclination of the head, closing of the eye
on the side affected, movement of the hand to the corresponding
cheek, etc., but these accessories have no great influence on me;
they are not so characteristic of toothache as the peculiar noise
of the machine. This last representation is very vivid; when I
think of it I feel a chill run down my back and a slight trembling
in the arms. The representation of the actual pain is, in my case,
much more vague; it is diffused, I have to eke it out with verbal
descriptions, and it does not act on me so disagreeably as the
first.”

Cuts, burns, etc., are remembered tolerably well. “In my youth I was wounded by a pistol-shot; I have a perfect recollection of the shock, which first produced a tactile sensation radiating from a centre, and afterwards pain, but I have a difficulty in recalling the painful element in the sensation.” Another can well remember the vesical contractions of a cystitis; but not without the help of the motor elements, as in the case of toothache. M. B——, who appears to belong to the affective type (I shall explain later on what I mean by this), feels the beginnings of a lancinating neuralgia in the eye, a cramp in the stomach, a smarting of the anus, a bite on the tongue. Another (same type) says, “If I were to try, I could recall the feeling of neuralgia, but I cannot represent to myself the pain of a boil.” Another: “There are some pains which I can feel at will; I either feel nothing at all, or the representation is so vivid that it almost amounts to actual pain. This is true especially of cardiac pains.”

It was my intention to question those who had undergone important operations; but, from the very general use of anæsthetics, there was little to be hoped for from such an experiment. There remains a case of frequent occurrence—the pains of childbirth. The answers are contradictory. One woman, who has had five confinements, declares that “as soon as it is over, there is nothing more.” This is a woman of vigorous health and unshaken optimism. Another says, “As soon as the pain is over, I can forget it at once.” The physician of a lying-in hospital told me that “nearly all, during their confinement, say that nothing would induce them to undergo such suffering again; yet nearly all return to the hospital.” Others say that they have, afterwards, a very clear and precise recollection of the labour-pains. Though these answers are so contradictory, we shall see, further on, how they are to be reconciled with one another.

Case 4. No revivability of the impression of labour-pains. Nervous subject. Good visual memory; no auditive memory; cannot recall either a taste or a smell; has made observations on herself in view of the subject in hand, and has sent me the following notes:—

"The first acute pains appeared about every fifteen or twenty
minutes; during these intervals of repose they vanished, leaving
no trace. During the intervals between the crises, the patient
tried to represent to herself the pain she had just passed
through, and found it absolutely impossible to do so. She could
describe the pain in words,—pains in the back, the side, etc.,—and
it was this verbal description which came back to her whenever she
tried to recall her feelings at the time. Afterwards the pains
became more and more frequent, and she could make no more
observations. When they were extremely acute, she screamed and
talked the whole time. It is curious to note that she did not
pronounce her words as usual, but uttered each syllable several
times, as thus: ‘_ça, ça, ça, ça, fait, fait, fait, fait, très,
très, maaaaal_.’ She entreated her husband to kill her, to cut her
into small pieces, to tear her asunder, if only there might be an
end of it. After five hours of suffering, the doctor declared that
all these pains had in nowise advanced the situation—that
everything was as at the beginning. This declaration produced an
acute feeling of despair, added to the pain. Five hours later all
was over. Next day, when she tried to represent the pain to
herself, there came into her mind only the verbal description, and
afterwards the sum of her utterances during labour; she remembered
that she had been unable to contain herself, that she understood
the absurdity of what she had been saying to her husband, but
thought, at the same time, ‘People sometimes do absurd things—why
should he not do what I ask him?’ She remembered clearly that,
after the doctor’s declaration, she had a feeling of despair; but
she recalled it in words, not as a feeling."

In conclusion, I will quote from Fouillée, in connection with physical pain, an interesting observation made on himself:—

“If I want to recall any given attack of toothache, I must form a
mental image of the teeth where the pain was localised, and then
of the word _pain_ which serves as a sign; but how am I to form an
image of the pain _in itself_? Some philosophers declare the thing
impossible, and allege that we only reproduce perceptions,
intellectual states, and words. This is, in fact, what usually
happens; but one can also, in my opinion, reproduce in the
consciousness (though incompletely) the _painful_ element of
toothache. To this end we must employ an indirect method. This
procedure consists in directly calling up the images and motor
reactions which accompany or follow toothache. I make the
experiment, localising my thoughts in one of the molars on the
right side; then I wait. The first thing to revive is a vague and
general state, common to all painful sensations. Then this
reaction grows more precise, as I concentrate my attention more
and more on the tooth. At last I feel a greater afflux of blood
into the gum, and even throbbings. Then I represent to myself a
certain movement passing from one point of the tooth or gum to
another; this is the passage of the pain. Thus I also revive the
motor reaction caused by the pain, the convulsion of the jaw, etc.
Finally, by thinking fixedly of all these circumstances, I end by
feeling in a more or less dull way the rudiments of shooting
pains. In an experiment just made, I have brought on real
toothache in a molar, which, however, is subject to it.... The
experiment leaves behind it a general irritability of the teeth,
and an inclination to pass the tongue over the gums.”[102]

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Footnote 102:

Fouillée, _op. cit._, vol. i. pp. 200, 201.

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Except for a few exceedingly clear observations, which I shall give later on, I have only vague replies regarding the revivability of sorrow, or moral pain, after the elimination of the conditions in which it had its origin. One person represents to himself “a general inertia and a febrile condition.” Another, who, during his time of military service, underwent periods of depression and _ennui_, “a year later, when the recollection comes back to him, sees everything of a grey hue.” We shall see presently that in some individuals the revival of moral pain is as acute as the initial state.

_Pleasant States._—The same results are obtained, _mutatis mutandis_, as with the preceding group. I note a very marked predominance of the motor elements. The pleasures most frequently mentioned are those of skating, swimming, the trot or gallop of a horse, and various physical exercises. Those who _really_ revive agreeable recollections, describe a general state of excitement, a dilatation of the chest, a lighting up of the countenance, a tendency towards childish gestures. One, in thinking of his rides, feels the pleasure of rapid motion, the wind playing over his cheeks, etc. Musicians can easily revive their pleasure by means of inner hearing alone. We find one who cannot think of the _Walkürenritt_ without feeling himself lifted as if by motor impulses.

4. _Emotions._—The phenomena of this group, though more complex, are, in fact, only a prolongation of our third group. But, in order to obtain a correct notion of their revivability, we must not proceed by way of generalities. To ask any given individual whether he is capable of reviving past emotions would be a useless question. I have always asked persons to try and recall a _particular_ case of a particular emotion (fear, anger, love, etc.). The answers are reducible to three categories, which I shall enumerate in the order of their frequency.

In the greater number of cases, only the conditions, circumstances, and accessories of the emotion can be recalled; there is only an _intellectual_ memory. The past event comes back to them with a certain emotional colouring (and sometimes even this is absent), a vague affective trace of what has once been but cannot be recalled. In the affective order these subjects are analogous to those of moderately good visual and auditory memory in the intellectual order. C——, who, when standing on a rock, narrowly escaped being surrounded by the tide, sees the waves rising, and recalls his desperate rush for the shore, which he reached in safety; but the emotion as such does not return to him. At Constantine, some years ago, I nearly fell into the gorge of the Rummel. When I think of the incident I can see before me quite clearly the landscape, the state of the sky, all the details of the spot; but the only return of feeling is a slight shiver in the back and legs.

Others (far less numerous) recall the circumstances _plus_ the revived condition of feeling. It is these who have the true “affective memory”; they correspond to those who have good visual or good auditory memories. This is the case with the majority of emotional temperaments. As we here touch on the most obscure and disputed part of our subject, it will be convenient to give some examples.

Irascible subjects, on hearing the name of their enemy, at the mere thought can revive the rising feelings of anger. The timid person shudders and turns pale when recalling the danger once incurred. The lover, thinking of his mistress, completely revives the state of love. If we compare the recollection of an extinct passion with the occurrence to the mind of a passion still existing, we shall clearly perceive the difference between intellectual and affective memory, between the mere recollection of the circumstances and the recollection of the emotion as such. It is a serious error to assert that only the conditions of the emotion can be revived, not the emotional state itself. I now only touch on this question, to which I shall return.

Several of my correspondents affirm that the memory of an emotion affects them as strongly as the emotion itself, which I have no difficulty in believing. Does not the recollection of a foolish action make one blush? One asserts that “her representation of emotions is more acute than the emotions themselves, and that she can recall them much better than visual, auditive, and other sensations.” But a few detailed observations will make the nature of true affective memory clearer.

Littré relates that, at the age of ten, he lost a young sister under very painful circumstances. He felt acute grief at the time; “but a boy’s sorrow does not last long.” At an advanced age this grief suddenly returned, without apparent cause. “Suddenly, without wish or effort on my part, by some phenomenon of affective automnesia, this same event reproduced itself with feelings no less painful, certainly, than those I had experienced at the moment of its occurrence, and which went so far as to bring tears into my eyes.” It was several times repeated in the course of the following days; then it ceased and gave place to the habitual recollection, _i.e._, to the purely intellectual form of memory.[103]

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Footnote 103:

_Revue positive_, 1877, p. 660.

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It is natural to suppose that emotional revival must be of frequent occurrence in poets and artists. M. Sully-Prudhomme, whose philosophical aptitudes are well known, has favoured me with a written communication on this subject, from which I extract some passages, with his permission.

"... It is my habit to separate myself from the verses I have
written before finishing them, and to leave them for some time in
the drawers of my writing-table. I even forget them sometimes,
when the piece has seemed to me a failure, and it may happen to me
to find them again several years after. I then re-write them; and
I have the power of calling up again, with great clearness, the
feeling which had suggested them. This feeling I pose, so to
speak, in my inner consciousness, like a model which I am copying
by means of the palette and brush of language. This is the exact
opposite of improvisation. It seems to me that at such times I am
working on the recollection of an affective state.

"When I remember the emotions aroused in me by the entry of the
Germans into Paris after our last defeats, I find it impossible
not to _experience this same emotion afresh_, simultaneously and
indivisibly; while the mnemonic image of the Paris of that day
remains in my memory very distinct from any actual perception.
When I remember the kind of affection which, in my childhood, I
felt for my mother, I find it impossible not to become, in some
sort, a child again, at the very moment when I call up this
memory—not to allow my heart of to-day to participate in the
former tenderness due to recollection. I am almost inclined to ask
myself if every _recollection of feeling does not take on the
character of a hallucination_.

“When a student, I formed a connection in which I was grossly
deceived; so everyday an occurrence that the correctness of my
observations can probably be tested by most men from their own
recollections. There was nothing very deep in my love,
imagination being the principal factor, and I have long ago
forgiven the injury, which, after all, chiefly concerned my
vanity. Both rancour and affection vanished long ago. Under
these circumstances, if I call up the recollection, I recognise
at the outset that I am now a stranger to the feelings which I
can remember; but I soon notice that I only remain a stranger to
them so long as the memories are vague and confused. As soon as,
by an effort of recollection, I make them more precise, they
cease _ipso facto_ to be memories only, and _I am quite
surprised to feel the movements of youthful passion and angry
jealousy renewed in me_. It is indeed only this revival which
could enable me to retouch the verses which this little
adventure of long-past years induced me to perpetrate, and to
allow the expression of my former feelings to benefit by the
experience acquired in my art.”

Case 5. H—— (20 years). On the _memory_ of the feeling of _ennui_
experienced on the first day in barracks.—"In order to _represent_
to myself thoroughly this feeling of _ennui_, which was very
intense, and lasted a whole afternoon, I shut my eyes and abstract
my thoughts. I feel, first, a slight shiver down my back, a
certain _malaise_, a feeling of something unpleasant which I
should prefer not to feel over again. After this first moment
comes a certain uncomfortable state, a slight oppression of the
throat; this feeling is connected with vague representations which
do not fix themselves. In the experiment here described, I first
picture to myself the barrack-yard, where I used to walk; then
this picture of the yard is replaced by that of the dormitory on
the third floor. I see myself seated at a window, looking at the
view, of which I can see all the details. This, however, does not
last; the picture soon disappears; there remains only a vague idea
of being seated at a window, and then a feeling of oppression,
weariness, dejection, and a certain heaviness in the shoulders. At
this point I break off the experiment and open my eyes, still
experiencing a general sense of uneasiness, which soon passes
off."

The whole experiment lasts a little more than ten minutes. To sum up, we have, first, a feeling of weight and oppression, a shudder in the back, but no clear representation of surrounding objects; then a feeling of discomfort becoming more and more intense, visual representations varying either in their nature or their intensity; and finally, the total disappearance of these visual representations, the feeling of _ennui_ being persistent throughout.

Case 6. A woman, aged 28. “Three years ago, I used to go and see a
relative who was undergoing treatment at an establishment in the
neighbourhood of P——. My visits were very frequent, and always
began with a long wait in a room overlooking the garden. If I wish
to repeat the impressions of this time of waiting, which was
always disagreeable to me, all I have to do is to sit down in a
chair, as I was then seated, to close my eyes and put myself in
the same frame of mind, which I can do quite easily. Not half a
minute passes between the evocation and the clear and absolute
reconstruction of the scene. First, I feel the carpet under my
feet, then I _see_ its pattern of red and brown roses; then the
table with the books lying on it, their colour and style of
binding; then the windows, and through them the branches of the
trees, of which I hear the sound as they beat against the glass;
lastly, the peculiar atmosphere of the room, its unmistakable
smell. After this, I feel over again all the weariness of waiting,
complicated by an intense dread of the doctor’s arrival, a state
of apprehension ending in a violent palpitation of the heart,
which I find it impossible to escape. When once I have entered on
this train of thought, I have to follow it out to the end, passing
through the whole series of states which I passed through at the
time. If I wished to eliminate any of them I am sure that I could
not do so, as when, in a dream, one tries, without ever
succeeding, to avoid an unpleasant fall which one foresees.”

Here nothing is wanting, either the circumstances, or the repetition of the emotion itself; and this case shows that the complete revival of an emotion is the beginning of the emotion itself.

Lastly, there remains a third category of answers, of which I have only four cases. I mention these merely as a curiosity, and in order to omit nothing. These persons represent the emotion _objectively_ to themselves, by localising it in another. One can only represent anger to himself under the force of some particular angry man. Another incarnates fear and hatred in a certain person whose countenance or attitude expresses fear or hatred. The emotional state is, for these, only represented under its bodily form.

Is this because they have, personally, little experience of these different emotions?

III.

This series of facts, with their multiform and often contradictory manifestations, may perhaps leave the reader in perplexity, which would be still greater were I to enumerate all. Let us try to bring them into some sort of order, and understand their significance.

If—placing ourselves at the point of view of the question stated above, the possibility of a revival not produced by an actual occurrence—we propose to ourselves to classify all images whatsoever, we shall see that they fall into these groups, viz.:—

Those of direct and easy revivability (visual, auditory, tactile-motor, with some reservations for the last named).

Those of indirect and comparatively easy revivability: pleasures and pains, emotions. They are indirect, because the emotional state is only induced through the intermediary of the intellectual states with which it is associated.[104]

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Footnote 104:

A characteristic peculiar to emotional affective revivability is
the slowness with which it develops and the time required. While
the visual or auditory image may be called up instantaneously and
at command, the emotional representation arises slowly. This is
because it passes through two stages. The first (intellectual)
consists in the evocation of conditions and circumstances—a
toothache, a burn, a passion. Many do not get beyond this stage,
and the concomitant emotional tone, accordingly, is faint, or even
_nil_. The second or emotional stage adds to this the rise of
states of excitement and exultation, or of dejection and lowered
vitality. The latter requires organic conditions, a difference in
the organism, an excitement of the motor, vascular, respiratory,
secretory, and other centres.

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Those of difficult revivability, either direct or indirect. This heterogeneous and difficult group includes tastes, odours, and internal sensations.

What are the reasons for these differences? I reduce them to two principal ones, which I may briefly state thus—

The revivability of an impression is in direct ratio to its complexity, and consequently in inverse ratio to its simplicity.

The revivability of an impression (with certain exceptions to be mentioned afterwards) is in direct ratio to the motor elements included in it.

1. It is an incontestable fact that an isolated state of consciousness, with no relation to what precedes, accompanies, or follows it, has small chance of fixing itself in the memory. I hear a word of an unknown language, it immediately vanishes; but if I read and write it, if I associate it with some object or with various circumstances, it is fixed. It is easier to remember a group or a series than an isolated and unrelated term. Now, by their very nature, the visual images arrange themselves in complex aggregates, and the auditive in sequences (or even, in the case of harmony, in simultaneities), while the motor images are associated in series, every term of which awakens and brings with it the last. They accordingly fulfil the conditions of immediate and easy revivability. It is the same with pleasures, pains, emotions. Always connected with intellectual states (perceptions, representations, or ideas), they form part of an aggregate, and are involved in its resurgent movement.

The case is different with the images of our third group. They are not associated with one another; they have an isolated and individual character; they contract no relations, either of space or time, among themselves.

Let us take the case of odours. One excludes another; they are not associated in the imagination as visual images are in the recollection of a beautiful landscape. One of my correspondents is able to recall at will the scent of pinks; she tried to do so while walking in a wood full of decaying leaves and their smell, but without success; one odour excluded the other. Neither can they be arranged in sequences. I am aware that an English chemist, Piesse, has claimed the ability to class scents in a continuous series, like notes, patchouli corresponding to lower _c_ in the key of F, and civet to the upper _f_ in the key of G—the whole in tones and semitones; but no one, so far as I know, has taken this fancy seriously.

In the same way, tastes may be associated with other images, as of hunger (I have collected several cases of this), which makes their revival more difficult. Among themselves they do not form associations, but combinations. If associations ever occur they are extremely rare and limited in character.

Hunger and thirst are special, indecomposable states. Disgust and fatigue are revived easily enough, and, as we have seen, by almost every one; but it must be remembered that these states are composed of somewhat heterogeneous—sensory and motor—elements, and that they approach the character of aggregates.

This antithesis between the first two groups and that of odours, tastes, and internal sensations, depends, no doubt, on certain physiological conditions. As we can do nothing but hazard conjectures on this point, it is better to abstain.

2. The second theory stated above—viz., that the revivability is in direct ratio to the motor elements included in the image—is more open to question. I only give it as a _partial_, secondary, subsidiary explanation, applicable to many cases but not to all, and allowing of numerous exceptions. Since we have to do with an empirical law—a pure generalisation from experience—we must test it by facts, in order to fix its bearing and value. This rapid examination will justify my restrictions and reservations.

Among all our impressions, those of sight and hearing are those most easily revived. Now, though the visual faculty has at its disposal a very rich, varied, and delicate motor apparatus, this is not the case with the auditory. Considering the superior position of the latter among the senses, it is very poor in motor elements; movements of the head, accommodatory movements of the tympanal membrane, in extreme cases movements of the vocal organs, and, according to the latest hypotheses, a certain function of the semi-circular canals. The difference between the two senses in respect of motor elements is very striking.

The sense of smell is much more varied and of greater extent than that of taste. It is far superior as a means of information, yet inferior as regards the sum of the movements at its disposal for exercising itself.

Pleasures, pains, and pleasurable or painful emotions, all include motor elements. So much is evident, yet let us remark what follows: if we divide the affective states—roughly, yet sufficiently for our purpose—into two groups, on one side pains and painful emotions, on the other pleasures and pleasurable emotions, a difficulty presents itself. The first group, that of the “asthenic” states, manifests itself by a diminution of movements, circulation, respiration, etc. The second group, that of the “sthenic” states, manifests itself by the reverse phenomena, increased movement, circulation, etc. Shall we say that the second group, which contains more motor elements, is revived more easily and more frequently than the first? The conclusion would be logical, but contrary to experience. We should even find, I believe, that the contrary opinion has more supporters.[105]

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Footnote 105:

This opinion will be discussed later on.

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Organic sensations appear to depend principally on the chemical action taking place in the organism; it is thus with hunger, thirst, suffocation, disgust, fatigue, etc. Here the part played by the motor element is but trifling. As this revival is vague, this group seems to conform to the law stated above.

To sum up: when examined in detail our formula is only a partial explanation, a generalisation of limited application.

IV.

We have now arrived at the principal question, for which all that has hitherto been said was only a preparation: Is there such a thing as a real revival of impressions? Although most psychologists do not put this question at all, or only treat it in a cursory manner, the majority of answers are certainly in the negative. It is maintained that we remember the conditions and circumstances of an emotional occurrence, but not the emotional state itself.

I feel obliged completely to reject this theory, which would never have been maintained if the subject had not been treated _a priori_, in an offhand manner, without sufficient observations. A closer study, supported by the facts which I have adduced, and others which will follow, shows that there are two quite distinct cases. Some people have a _false_ or _abstract_ memory for feelings, others a _true_ or _concrete_ one. In the former the image is scarcely revived, or not at all; in others it is revived in great part, or totally. In order the better to explain the difference between these two forms of memory, let us examine the constituent elements and the mechanism of each separately.

1. The _false_ or _abstract_ memory of feeling consists in the representation of an occurrence, _plus_ an affective characteristic—I do not say an affective state. This is certainly the most frequent form. What remains of the small incidents of a long journey but the recollection of the places where they happened, the details, and the fact that they _were once_ disagreeable. What remains of a vanished love-affair but the impression of a person, of attentions paid to her, of adventures, and, besides, the recollection that this _was once_ happiness? How much does the adult retain of the memory of his childish games? How much of his former religious or political belief remains to a person who has become totally indifferent? In all cases of this kind, and there are thousands, the remembered emotional characteristic is _known_, not felt or experienced; this is only an additional intellectual character. It is added to the rest as an accessory; pretty much as, in picturing to ourselves a town, a monument, a landscape visited long ago, we add the recollection of a bright or cloudy sky, of rain or fog which surrounded it.

I call an emotional memory “abstract,” and I justify this term. Emotional states are just as susceptible of abstraction and generalisation as intellectual states. One who has seen many men, who has heard many dogs bark or frogs croak, forms to himself a generic image of the human figure, of the barking of dogs, or the croaking of frogs. This is a schematic, half-abstract, half-concrete representation, formed through the accumulation of rough resemblances and the elimination of differences. In the same way, a person who has several times suffered from toothache, colic, or headache, who has had paroxysms of anger or fear, hate or love, forms to himself a generic impression of these different states by means of the same procedure. This is the first step. It would be beside the point to follow here in detail the ascending progress of the mind to higher and ever higher generalisations. In their highest degree, concepts like force, movement, quantity, etc., suppose two things: a word which fixes and represents them, and a potential or latent knowledge, hidden under the word and preventing it from being a mere _flatus vocis_. He who does not possess this potential knowledge, who is incapable of resolving the superior abstractions, first into medium, then into inferior ones, then into concrete _data_, possesses only an empty concept. So for the affective states the terms emotion, passion, sensibility, etc., are nothing but abstractions, and in order to verify these terms and give them a real significance, we must have experiences in the region of feeling, concrete data. People who speak of a state of feeling which they have never experienced, which they know only by hearsay, have an empty concept. States of feeling are a material susceptible of all degrees of abstraction, like sensory material.

The false or abstract memory of feeling is only a sign, a simulacrum, a substitute for the real occurrence, an intellectualised state added to the purely intellectual elements of the impression, and nothing more.

2. The true or concrete memory of impressions consists in the _actual_ reproduction of a former state of feeling, with all its characteristics. This is necessary—at least in theory—if it is to be complete. The nearer it approaches to totality, the more accurate it is. Here the recollection does not consist merely in the representation of conditions and circumstances, in short, of intellectual states, but in the revival of the state of feeling itself as such, _i.e._, as _felt_. I have already given instances of this: Fouillée’s experiment, the cases of Littré and Sully-Prudhomme; those numbered III. and IV., so clear and precise, show that a true memory of impressions, independent of its intellectual accompaniment, is no chimera.

Bain says that the emotions, “in their strict character of emotions proper, have the minimum of revivability; but being always incorporated with the sensations of the higher senses, they share in the superior revivability of sights and sounds.” On which Professor W. James makes the following comment: "But he fails to point out that the revival of sights and sounds may be _ideal_ without ceasing to be distinct; whilst the emotion, to be distinct, must become real again. Professor Bain seems to forget that an ‘ideal emotion,’ and a real emotion prompted by an ideal object, are two very different things."[106]

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Footnote 106:

_Psychology_, ii. 474.

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