Diseases of memory : an essay in the positive psychology / by Th. Ribot ; tr. from the French by William Huntington Smith.

  • Ribot, Th. (Théodule), 1839-1916.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of memory : an essay in the positive psychology / by Th. Ribot ; tr. from the French by William Huntington Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    26/241 (page 16)
    must also move his tongue, the facial muscles, and perhaps his feet.* In time he is able to suppress these useless discharges. And so, when we attempt for the first time any muscular act, we expend a great quantity of superfluous en- ergy, which we learn gradually to subdue. By exercise, certain movements are fixed to the ex- clusion of others. Thus there are formed, in the nervous elements corresponding to the motor or- gans, secondary dynamical associations, more or less stable (that is to say, a memory), which unite with the primitive and permanent ana- tomical associations. If the reader will observe these numerous and well-known secondary automatic actions, he will find that the organic memory thus formed re- sembles the psychological memory in all but one point—the absence of consciousness. Let us sum up their characteristics; the resemblance between the two will be readily apparent. Acquisition, sometimes immediate, sometimes gradual; repetition of the act necessary in some cases, useless in others; an inequality of the organic memory according to individuals—it is rapid with some, slow, or totally refractory, with others (awkwardness is the result of a deficient organic memory). With some, associations once formed are permanent ; with others, they are * Op. cit., p. 51.