Part 20 (1/2)
According to Berkeley and Hume recognition is not directed upon a different object, nor does it presuppose one; the activity of recognition consists either in the exhibition or the creation of the object. Recognition lends the idea an independence which does not belong to it and in that way turns it into a thing, objectifies it, and posits it as substantial. Maudsley makes use of the notion that it is possible to represent any former content of consciousness as attended to so that it may again come into the center of the field of consciousness. Dorner[3] explains recognition as follows: ”The possible is not only the merely possible in opposition to the actual; it is much more proper to conceive being as possible, i. e., as amenable to logical thinking; without this there could be no recognition.” K<u:>lpe[4] concerns himself with the problem of the difference between perceptive images and memory images and whether the latter are only weaker than the former as English philosophers and psychologists a.s.sert. He concludes that they are not so.
[3] H Dorner: Das menschliche Erkennen. Berlin 1877.
[4] O. K<u:>lpe: Grundriss der Psychologie. Leipzig 1893.
When we take all these opinions concerning memory together we conclude that neither any unity nor any clear description of the matter has been attained. Ebbinghaus's sober statement may certainly be correct: ”Our knowledge of memory rises almost exclusively from the observation of extreme, especially striking cases. Whenever we ask about more special solutions concerning the detail of what has been counted up, and their other relations of dependence, their structure, etc., there are no answers.”
n.o.body has as yet paid attention to the simple daily events which const.i.tute the routine of the criminalists. We find little instruction concerning them, and our difficulties as well as our mistakes are thereby increased. Even the modern repeatedly cited experimental investigations have no direct bearing upon our work.
We will content ourselves with viewing the individual conceptions of memory and recollection as occurring in particular cases and with considering them, now one, now the other, according to the requirements of the case. We shall consider the general relation of ”reproduction” to memory. ”Reproduction” we shall consider in a general sense and shall subsume under it also the so-called involuntary reproductions which rise in the forms and qualities of past events without being evoked, i. e., which rise with the help of unconscious activity through the more or less independent a.s.sociation of ideas. Exactly this unconscious reproduction, this apparently involuntary activity, is perhaps the most fruitful, and we therefore unjustly meet with unexceptionable distrust the later sudden ”occurrence,” especially when these occurrences happen to defendant and his witnesses. It is true that they frequently deceive us because behind the sudden occurrence there often may be nothing more than a better training and instruction from experienced cell-mates; though very often the circ.u.mstances are such that the suspect has succeeded through some released prisoner, or by a blackened letter, in sending a message from his prison, by means of which false witnesses of alibi, etc., are provided. Distrust is in any event justified, when his most important witnesses suddenly ”occur” to the accused. But this does not always happen, and we find in our own experience evidence of the fact that memory and the capacity to recall something often depend upon health, feeling, location, and chance a.s.sociations which can not be commanded, and happen as accidentally as anything in life can. That we should remember anything at all depends upon the point of time. Everybody knows how important twilight may be for memory. Indeed, twilight has been called the visiting-hour of recollection, and it is always worth while to observe the situation when anybody a.s.serts that some matter of importance occurred to him in the twilight. Such an a.s.sertion merits, at least, further examination. Now, if we only know how these occurrences const.i.tute themselves, it would not be difficult to study them out and to estimate their probability. But we do not know, and we have to depend, primarily, on observation
and test. Not one of the theories applied is supported by experience altogether.
They may be divided into three essential groups.
1. What is received, fades away, becomes a ”trace,” and is more or less overlaid by new perceptions. When these latter are ever set aside, the old trace comes into the foreground.
2. The ideas sink, darken, and disintegrate. If they receive support and intensification they regain complete clearness.
3. The ideas crumble up, lose their parts. When anything occurs that reunites them and restores what is lost, they become whole again.
Ebbinghaus maintains, correctly enough, that not one of these explanations is universally satisfactory, but it must be granted that now one, now another is useful in controlling this or that particular case. The processes of the destruction of an idea, may be as various as those of the destruction and restoration of a building. If a building is destroyed by fire, I certainly can not explain the image given by merely a.s.suming that it was the victim of the hunger of time. A building which has suffered because of the sinking of the earth I shall have to image by quite other means than those I would use if it had been destroyed by water.
For the same reason when, in court, somebody a.s.serts a sudden ”occurrence,” or when we want to help him and something occurs to him, we shall have to proceed in different fas.h.i.+on and determine our action empirically by the conditions of the moment. We shall have to go back, with the help of the witness, to the beginning of the appearance of the idea in question and study its development as far as the material permits us. In a similar manner we must make use of every possibility of explanation when we are studying the disappearance of ideas. At one point or another we shall find certain connections. One chief mistake in such reconstructive work lies in overlooking the fact that no individual is merely pa.s.sive when he receives sensations; he is bound to make use of a certain degree of activity. Locke and Bonnet have already mentioned this fact, and anybody may verify it by comparing his experiments of trying to avoid seeing or hearing, and trying actively to see or to hear. For this reason it is foolish to ask anybody how it happened that he perceived less than another, because both have equally good senses and were able to perceive as much. On the other hand, the grade of activity each has made use of in perception is rarely inquired into, and this is the more unfortunate because memory is often propor-
tionate to activity. If, then, we are to explain how various statements concerning contemporaneous matters, observed a long time ago, are to be combined, it will not be enough to compare the memory, sensory acuteness, and intelligence of the witnesses. The chief point of attention should be the activity which has been put in motion during the sense-perception in question.
Section 53. (b) The Forms of Reproduction.
Kant a.n.a.lyzes memory:
1. As apprehending something in memory.
2. As retaining it for a long time.
3. As immediately recalling it.
One might, perhaps add, as 4: that the memory-image is most conformable to the actual one. This is not identical with the fact that we recollect at all. It is to be a.s.sumed that the forms of memory- images vary very much with different persons, because each individual verifies his images of various objects variously. I know two men equally well for an equal time, and yet have two memory- images of them. When I recall one, a life-sized, moving, and moved figure appears before me, even the very man himself; when I think of the other, I see only a small, bare silhouette, foggy and colorless, and the difference does not require that the first shall be an interesting and the second a boresome individual. This is still clearer in memory of travels. One city appears in recollection with size, color and movement, real; the other, in which I sojourned for the same length of time and only a few days later, under similar conditions of weather, etc., appears like a small, flat photograph. Inquiry reveals that this is as true of other people as of me, and that the problem of memory is much differentiated by the method of recollection. In fact, this is so little in doubt that at some periods of time there are more images of one sort than of another and what is a rule for one kind of individual is an exception for another.
Now there is a series of phenomena for which we possess particular types of images which often have little to do with the things themselves. So Exner says: ”We might know the physiognomy of an individual very accurately, be able to pick him out among a thousand, without being clear about the differences between him and another; indeed, we often do not know the color of his eyes and hair, yet marvel when it suddenly becomes different.”
Kries[1] calls attention to another fact: ”When we try to mark in
memory the contour of a very well-known coin, we deceive ourselves, unbelievably-when we see the coin the size we imagine it to be, we wonder still more.”
[1] v. Kries: Beitr
Lotze shows correctly that memory never brings back a blinding flash of light, or the over-powering blow of an explosion with the intensity of the image in proper relation to the impression. I believe that it is not necessary to go so far, for example, and hold that not even the sparkling of a star, the crack of a pistol, etc., are kept in memory with more than partial implication of the event. Maudsley points out correctly that we can have no memory of pain-”because the disturbance of nervous elements disappears just as soon as their integrity is again established.” Perhaps, also, because when the pain has disappeared, the tertium comparationis is lacking. But one need not limit oneself to pain, but may a.s.sert that we lack memory of all unpleasant sensations. The first time one jumps into the water from a very high spring-board, the first time one's horse rises over a hurdle, or the first time the bullets whistle past one's ear in battle, are all most unpleasant experiences, and whoever denies it is deceiving himself or his friends. But when we think of them we feel that they were not so bad, that one merely was very much afraid, etc. But this is not the case; there is simply no memory for these sensations.
This fact is of immense importance in examination and I believe that no witness has been able effectively to describe the pain caused by a body wound, the fear roused by arson, the fright at a threat, not, indeed, because he lacked the words to do so, but because he had not sufficient memory for these impressions, and because he has nothing to-day with which to compare them. Time, naturally, in such cases makes a great difference, and if a man were to describe his experiences shortly after their uncomfortable occurrence he would possibly remember them better than he would later on. Here, if the examiner has experienced something similar, years ago, he is likely to accuse the witness of exaggeration under the belief that his own experience has shown the thing to be not so bad. Such an accusation will be unjust in most instances. The differences in conception depend to a large degree on differences in time, and consequent fading in memory. Several other particular conditions may be added.
Kant, e. g., calls attention to the power we have over our fancy: ”In memory, our will must control our imagination and our imagina-
tion must be able to determine voluntarily the reproduction of ideas of past time.”
But these ideas may be brought up not only voluntarily; we have also a certain degree of power in making these images clearer and more accurate. It is rather foolish to have the examiner invite the witness to ”exert his memory, to give himself the trouble, etc.” This effects nothing, or something wrong. But if the examiner is willing to take the trouble, he may excite the imagination of the witness and give him the opportunity to exercise his power over the imagination. How this is done depends naturally upon the nature and education of the witness, but the judge may aid him just as the skilful teacher may aid the puzzled pupil to remember. When the pianist has completely forgotten a piece of music that he knew very well, two or three chords may lead him to explicate these chords forward or backward, and then-one step after another-he reproduces the whole piece. Of course the chords which are brought to the mind of the player must be properly chosen or the procedure is useless.
There are rules for the selection of these clews. According to Ebbinghaus: ”The difference in the content of the recollected is due to discoverable causes. Melodies may become painful because of their undesirable obstinacy in return. Forms and colors do not usually recur, and if they do, they do so with noticeable claims on distinctness and certainty. Past emotional conditions are reproduced only with effort, in comparatively pallid schemes, and often only by means of the accompanying movements.” We may follow these clews, in some directions at least, to our advantage. Of course, n.o.body will say that one should play tunes to witnesses in order to make them remember, because the tunes have sunk into the memory with such undesirable obstinacy as to be spurs to recollection. It is just as futile to operate with forms and colors, or to excite emotional conditions. But what has been said leads us back to the ancient rule of working so far as is possible with the constantly well-developed sense of location. Cicero already was aware of this
”Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis, id quidem infinitum in hac urbe, quoc.u.mque enim ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium possumus.” Indeed he deduces his whole doctrine of memory from the sense of location, or he at least justifies those who do so.
If, then, we bring a witness, who in our court house recollects nothing, in loc.u.m rei sitae, all the mentioned conditions act favor-