Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880.Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880.
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
It was as though there was a dislocation between
consciousness and the memory of self.
The distinctness of consciousness from memory is also shown by dreams.
Events which have passed are often recalled during the unconsciousness
of sleep. The curious although common carrying of the memory of a dream
over from the unconsciousness of sleep to the consciousness of waking
movements further illustrates the complete distinction between the two
cerebral functions.
If memory, then, be not part of consciousness, what is its nature? There
is a law governing nervous actions both in health and disease which is
known as that of habitual action. The curious reflex movements made by
the frog when acid is put upon its foot, as detailed in my last paper,
were explained by this law. The spinal cord, after having frequently
performed a certain act under the stimulus of conscious sensation,
becomes so accustomed to perform that act that it does it when the
oft-felt peripheral impulse comes again to it, although the cerebral
functions and consciousness are suspended. A nerve-centre, even of the
lowest kind, once moulded by repeated acts, retains their
impression--i.e. remembers them. Learning to walk is, as was shown in
the last paper, training the memory of the lower nerve-centres at the
base of the brain until at last they direct the movements of walking
without aid from consciousness. The musician studies a piece of music.
At first the notes are struck in obedience to a conscious act of the
will founded upon a conscious recognition of the printed type. By and by
the piece is so well known that it is played even when the attention is
directed to some other subject; that is, the act of playing has been
repeated until the lower nerve-centres, which preside over the movements
of the fingers during the playing, have been so impressed that when once
the impulses are started they flow on uninterruptedly until the whole
set has been gone through and the piece of music is finished. This is
the result of memory of the lower nerve-centres. At first, the child
reads only by a distinct conscious effort of memory, recalling painfully
each word. After a time the words become so impressed upon the lower
nerve-centres that we may read on when our attention is directed to some
other thing. Thus, often we read aloud and are unconscious of what we
have read, precisely as the compositor habitually sets up pages of
manuscript without the faintest idea of what it is all about. This law
of habitual action applies not only to the lower nerve-centres in their
healthy condition, but with equal force in disease. It is notorious that
one of the great difficulties in the cure of epilepsy is the habit which
is acquired by the nerve-centres of having at intervals attacks of
convulsive discharge of nerve-force. Some years since I saw in
consultation a case which well illustrates this point. A boy was struck
in the head with a brick, and dropped unconscious. On coming to be was
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