The psychology of memory and recollection : read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain, June 1st, 1876 / by Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Edward William Cox
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of memory and recollection : read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain, June 1st, 1876 / by Mr. Serjeant Cox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    memory is a capacity of the brain to reproduce any of its former molecular motions in the order in which they occurred, is so ineomprehensible in itself, and so entirely inconsistent with all the phenomena of memory and lecol- lection, as scarcely to call for serious refutation. The suggestion offered in this paper may not be accepted as sufficient, and may not endure the test of further exami- nation. On a subject so obscure, and upon which our knowledge is as yet so imperfect, it should not be rejected merely because it is new. If any thinking man can see in it anything that commends itself as true, I venture to hope that some thought may be given to it. The subject is certainly one that well deserves investigation by this Society, which is founded expressly to promote Psychological science by collection and investigation of fads. It is no part of the argument, but I may be excused for directing attention to some interesting conclusions that appear to flow from it. If Memory be the Treasury of the Conscious Self, and not of the molecular brain alone, and if that Conscious Self preserves its individual existence, with consciousness, after the garment of the molecular body has fallen from it, it follows that every the minutest thought and action of its world life will be then present to it, and this, not as they are now recalled, presented in slow succession, according to the conditions of the structure of the material organ by which they are conveyed and restored, but all together— the good and the bad—the whole life, in fact,—thus of itself making a heaven or a hell. And if it be (as some hold, because it is a notion difficult to sever from an immortality in the future) that the Conscious Self has pre-existed, it follows also that, when disembodied, the Memory of the Conscious Self would [143]