CHAPTER VIII REMINISCENCE, EXPECTATION AND TEMPORAL Imagination and Memory § 1. Having thus attempted to ascertain the formation of the ideational continuum out of the memory-train, the question arises: How now are we to distinguish between imagining and remembering, and again, between imagining and expecting? It is plainly absurd to make the difference depend on the presence of belief in memory and expectation, and on its absence in mere imagination; for the belief itself depends on this difference instead of constituting it. One real and obvious distinction, however and Hume pointed it out as regards memory-is the fixed order and position of the imagery of what is remembered or expected as contrasted with 'the liberty' of the imagination to transpose and change its ideas. This order and position in the case of memory, we have good reasons for supposing, are normally those of the original impressions. But it seems rather naïve of Hume to tell us that memory "is tied down to these without any power of variation," while imagination has liberty to transpose as it pleases, as if the originals sat to memory for their portraits, while to imagination they were but studies. Such correspondence being out of the question-as Hume takes care to state as soon as it suits him—all we have, so far, is just this fixity and definiteness of memory as contrasted with the kaleidoscopic instability of ideation. In this respect what is remembered or expected resembles what is perceived: the grouping not only does not change capriciously and spontaneously, but resists any mental efforts to change it. But, provided these characteristics are there, we should be apt to believe that we were remembering, just as, mutatis mutandis, with like characteristics we might believe that we were perceiving: illusion is possible in either case. This fixity of order and position is, however, not sufficient to constitute a typical reminiscence where the term is exactly used. But remembering is often regarded as equivalent to knowing and recognising, as when on revisiting some once familiar place one remarks, "How well I remember it!" What is meant is that the place is recognised, and that its recognition awakens memories. Memory includes recognition; recognition as such does not include memory. In human consciousness, as we directly observe it, mere recognition in situations of any interest is, perhaps, rare: the new presentation is not only assimilated to the old, but some former framing of circumstance is apt to be reinstated, and so perforce to be distinguished from the present. But even if there is no warrant for supposing that such redintegration of a preceding field is ever for us absolutely nil, still we are justified in regarding it as extremely vague and meagre both where mental evolution is but slightly advanced and where frequent repetition in varying and irrelevant circumstances has produced a blurred and neutral zone. The last is the case with a great part of our knowledge; eg. the writer happens to know that bos is the Latin for 'ox' and bufo the Latin for 'toad,' and may be said to remember both items of knowledge, if 'remember' is only to be synonymous with 'retain.' But if he came across bos in reading he would think of an ox and nothing more; bufo would immediately call up not only 'toad' but Virgil's Georgics, the only place in which he has seen the word, and which he never read but once. In the former there is so far nothing but recognition (which, however, of course rests upon retentiveness); in the latter there is also some remembrance of the time when, and of the circumstances in which, that piece of knowledge was acquired. Of course in so far as we are aware that we recognise, we also think that remembrance is at any rate possible; since what we know, we must previously have learned-recognition excluding novelty. But the point here urged is that actual reminiscence occurs only when the recognition is accompanied by a reinstatement of portions of the memory-train that are continuous with the previous presentation of what is now recognised. Summarily stated, we may say that between knowing and remembering on the one hand and imagining on the other the difference primarily turns on the fixity and completeness of the grouping in the former; as contrasted with the shifting play of images more or less 'generic' in the latter. Hence the first two approximate in character to perception, and are rightly called cognitions. Between them, again, the difference turns primarily on the presence or absence of 'temporal signs'.' In what is remembered, these are still intact enough to ensure its localisation in the past; in what is merely known, such localisation is prevented, either because of the obliviscence of its temporal connexions or because the reduplications of the memory-train, which consolidated the central group, have entailed the suppression of its collateral connexions. There is further the difference first mentioned, which is often only a difference of degree, viz. that reminiscences have more circumstantiality, so to say, than mere recognitions have more of the collateral accessories of the original concrete field of consciousness are reinstated. But of the two characteristics of memory proper-(a) concreteness or circumstantiality, and (6) fixation in the past—the latter is the more essential. It sometimes happens that we have the one with little or nothing of the other. For example, we may have but a dim and shadowy picture of a 'scene,' yet if it at once falls into and steadily retains a fixed place in the memory-train we have no doubt that some such experience was once actually ours. On the other hand, as in certain so-called illusions of memory, we may suddenly find ourselves reminded by what is happening at the moment of a preceding experience exactly like it—some even feel that they know from what is thus recalled what will happen next. And yet, because we are wholly unable to assign such representation a place in the past, instead of a belief that it happened, there arises a most distressing sense of bewilderment, as if one were haunted and had lost one's personal bearings. It has been held by some psychologists that memory proper includes the representation of one's past self as agent or patient in the event or situation recalled. And this is true as regards all but the earliest human. experience, at any rate; still, whereas it is easy to see that 1 Cf. below, § 3. 2 Any full discussion of paramnesia, as these very interesting states of mind are called, belongs to mental pathology. Cf. E. Bernard-Leroy, L'Illusion de fausse reconnaissance, 1898; H. Bergson, "Le Souvenir du présent, &c." Rev. phil. lxvi. (1908), pp. 561 ff., where a wide literature on the subject is cited. 3 As, e.g. James Mill (Analysis of the Human Mind, ch. x.), who treats this difficult subject with great acuteness and thoroughness. memory is essential to any development of self-consciousness, the converse is not at all so clear, and to assume it would involve us in a needless circle. Expectation-Past, Present and Future § 2. Intimately connected with memory is expectation. We may as the result of reasoning conclude that a certain event will happen; we may also, in like manner, conclude that a certain other event has happened. But as we should not call the latter memory, so it is desirable to distinguish such indirect anticipation as the former from that expectation which is directly due to the memory-train. Any man knows that he will die, and may make a variety of arrangements in anticipation of death. But he cannot with propriety be said to be expecting it, unless he has actually present to his mind a series of ideas ending in that of death, a series due to previous associations, and revived at this moment in consequence of the actual recurrence as a present experience of its first member. Now we know that familiarity with an object or event in very various settings may be a bar to memory, so too it may be to expectation: the average Englishman, e.g., is continually surprised without his umbrella, though only too familiar with rain; since in our climate one not specially attentive to the weather obtains no clear representation of its successive phases. But after a series of events A B C D E..... has been often experienced we instinctively expect the recurrence of D E... on the recurrence of A B C, i.e. provided the memory-train continues so far intact. The expectation, at first perhaps slight-a mere tendency easily overborne-becomes strengthened by every repetition of the series in the old order, till eventually, if often fulfilled and never falsified, it becomes certain and, as we commonly say, irresistible. To have a clear case of expectation, then, it is not necessary that we should distinctly remember any previous experience like that expected, but only that we should have actually present some earlier member of a series that has become firmly associated through previous experiences. This expectation may be instantly checked by reflexion, just as it may, of course, be disappointed in fact; but these are matters which do not concern the inquiry as to the nature of expectation while expectation lasts. W. P. 14 We shall continue this inquiry to most advantage by widening it into an examination of the distinction of present, past and future, and this inquiry in turn will open up the still wider question as to our knowledge of time generally. To a being whose experiences never passed through the transitions which ours undergo-first divested of the strength and vividness of impressions, again reinvested with them and brought back from the faint world of ideas—the sharp contrasts of 'now' and 'then,' and all the manifold emotions they occasion, would be quite unknown. Even we, so far as we confine our activity and attention to ideas, are almost without them. Timeorder-succession, antecedence, and consequence of course, there might still be. But in that sense of events as‘past and gone for ever,' which is one of the melancholy factors in our life, and in the obligation to wait and work in the hope or dread of what is 'still to come' there is much more than time-order. It is to presentations in their primary stage, to impressions, that we owe the striking difference we feel between now and then, whether prospective or retrospective; and it is to them also that we directly owe our sense of the real, of what is and exists as opposed to the imaginary that exists not. But the present alone and life in a succession of presents, or, in other words, continuous occupation with impressions, can give us no knowledge of the present as present. This we first obtain when our present consciousness consists partly of memories or partly of expectations as well. An event expected differs from a like event remembered chiefly in two ways, (1) in its relation to present impressions and images, and (2) in the active attitude to which it leads. The diverse feelings that accompany our intuitions of time and contribute so largely to their colouring are mainly consequences of these differences. Let us take a series of simple and familiar events A B C D E. Such series may be present in consciousness in such wise that a b c d are imaged while E is perceived anew, ie. the whole, symbolized as usual, being a b c d E; such eg. would be the state of a dog that had just finished his daily meal. Again, there may be a fresh impression of A which revives bc de; we should have then (1) A b c d e—the state of our dog when he next day gets sight of the dish in which his food is brought to him. A little later we may have (2) a b Cde. Here ab are either after-sensations or primary memory-images, or have at |