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
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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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    little practical investigation by scientific observation of and experiments upon tbe phenomena of Psychology, but the discovery of which is not hopeless, now that, according to the plan and purpose of this Society, inquiry is set upon the scientific pathway of exploration by fact instead of by vain metaphysical speculation—as hitherto has been the practice. We admit that the brain is the organ of the mind—the mental mechanism: that it receives the impressions con- veyed by the senses and has self-induced action. We admit that those brain impi'essions are molecular motions of the substance of the brain. But we contend that the process does not end with the motion of the brain. We say__that the impression so made upon the brain by the sense is communicated to that Something (not being the brain so moved) which we call the Conscious Self; that by this Conscious Self the impression so received is preserved and stored away (that is Memory) to be recalled under conditions and according to certain fixed laws. According to this suggestion of Psychology, Memory is a faculty of the non-molecular Conscious Self and not of the molecular brain structure. Other considerations go far to confirm this conclusion. If Memory be merely, as the Materialists assert, the repro- duction of certain positions or actions of the molecular structure of the brain, this difficulty presents itself. The substance of the brain is continually changing. The mole- cules of which it is made are not the same from year to year, or even from day to day. How, then, do they preserve a molecular position or action unchanged ? It is compre- hensible how this might be if all of such actions or positions were frequently reproduced. But how is it conceivable when many memories are presented without being recalled for years ? Again, the brain of the child is very much smaller than the brain of the mature man. But the brain [136]