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 assert 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 imagination must
be able to determine voluntarily the reproduction of ideas of past
time.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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