That peculiar faculty of the knowing Subject which enables it to obey the will the more readily in repeating representations, the oftener they have already been present to it--in other words, its capacity for being exercised--is what we call _Memory_. I cannot agree with the customary view, by which it is looked upon as a sort of store-house in which we keep a stock of ready-made representations always at our disposal, only without being always conscious of their possession. The voluntary repetition of representations which have once been present becomes so easy through practice, that one link in a series of representations no sooner becomes present to us, than we at once evoke all the rest, often even, as it were, involuntarily. If we were to look for a metaphor for this characteristic quality of our representative faculty (such as that of Plato, who compared it with a soft mass that receives and retains impressions), I think the best would be that of a piece of drapery, which, after having been repeatedly folded in the same folds, at last falls into them, as it were, of its own accord. The body learns by practice to obey the will, and the faculty of representing does precisely the same. A remembrance is not by any means, as the usual view supposes, always the same representation which is, as it were, fetched over and over again from its store-house; a new one, on the contrary, arises each time, only practice makes this especially easy. Thus it comes to pass that pictures of our imagination, which we fancy we have stowed away in our memory, become imperceptibly modified: a thing which we realize when we see some familiar object again after a long time, and find that it no longer completely corresponds to the image we bring with us. This could not be if we retained ready-made representations. It is just for this reason too, that acquired knowledge, if left unexercised, gradually fades from our memory, precisely because it was the result of practice coming from habit and knack; thus most scholars, for instance, forget their Greek, and most artists their Italian on their return from Italy. This is also why we find so much difficulty in recalling to mind a name or a line of poetry formerly familiar to us, when we have ceased to think of it for several years; whereas when once we succeed in remembering it, we have it again at our disposal for some time, because the practice has been renewed. Everyone therefore who knows several languages, will do well to make a point of reading occasionally in each, that he may ensure to himself their possession.