But the facts I have summarily exposed already reveal an important truth, which curable, transitory amnesia clearly demonstrates: this is, that souvenirs can exist in a latent state in the general consciousness, and be inaccessible to the personal consciousness. Let us suppose that A forgets the ten previous years of his life—the result of a fall or nervous crisis. This amnesia will perhaps last for six months, during which period he will believe himself to have returned to the age of fifteen, when he is really twenty-five. All the events of his life between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five will have entirely disappeared from his memory for six months; then they will, more or less abruptly, reappear. Their temporary disappearance clearly shows that these souvenirs have been preserved somewhere, and that they were not really lost. We cannot affirm that they were accessible to the general and impersonal consciousness in every case; but nevertheless we can affirm it for hysteria, according to the observations of Pitres, Janet, and others; and, according to Régis, for certain poisons. The facts studied by these savants show, that souvenirs inaccessible to the normal personality were known to the general consciousness. For example, an amnesic patient can recover all his souvenirs when he is put to sleep; this is what Régis has demonstrated even in certain cases of amnesia from blood-poisoning. Janet, on his side, has established that these souvenirs, forgotten by the personal consciousness, can be evoked by certain automatisms (notably automatic writing), and are therefore at the disposition of the impersonal consciousness, that is to say, of that general consciousness of which personal consciousness seems to be only a part. This fact, which the study of nervous pathology has demonstrated, is certainly general. The troubles of hysteria and other nervous diseases only exaggerate a normal phenomenon. Our personality does not burden itself with all the souvenirs, which our general consciousness appears to possess: the greater part of the things we have seen, learned, heard, etc., are forgotten; but this forgetfulness is probably relative, and only extends to the personal consciousness. It is also variable, and, according to circumstances, the souvenirs accumulated in the general consciousness are at one time more accessible to the personal consciousness, and less so at another time. If the personal memory be over-excited, _exalté_, we have hypermnesia. The facts which spring up in the personal consciousness have been so completely forgotten by it that they sometimes appear to be new; souvenirs present themselves to the consciousness without being identified by it, and we commit errors on the localisation of the mnesic image in time and space; this is what we call _paramnesia_.