The basis of memory / by W.R. Bousfield.

  • Bousfield, W. R. (William Robert), 1854-1943.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The basis of memory / by W.R. Bousfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    theory to the case of congenital instincts and to the ontogenesis of bees and ants is highly ingenious and suggestive, and we shall have occasion to refer to it later. We can without difficulty apply the engram theory to cases of somatic growth and development, but we shall point out the difficulties in the way of its application to psychic phenomena. In passing we may note Bergson’s view1 according to which “ the idea that the body preserves memories in the mechanical form of cerebral deposits —is not borne out either by reasonings or by facts.” He claims to have set forth reasons which make it impossible for us to admit or even to conceive traces of images deposited in any region of cerebral substance ”, and concludes that there cannot be in the brain a region in which memories congeal and accumulate ”. In his view “ in the form of motor contri¬ vances and of motor contrivances only, it (the body) can store up the action of the past ”. Bergson’s theory is that “ the past survives under two distinct 1 Matter and Memory.