The Trained Memory | Page 5

loss or destruction of tissue, but
consisting simply in a failure on the part of some bodily organ to perform its allotted
function naturally and effectively.
[Sidenote: Automatically Working Mental Mechanisms]
Thus, in hay fever or "rose cold" the tears, the inflammation of the membranes of the
nose, the cough, the other trying symptoms, all are linked with the sight of a rose, or dust,
or sunlight, or some other outside fact to which attention has been called as the cause of
hay fever, into a complex, "an automatically working mechanism." And the validity of
this explanation of the regular recurrence of attacks of this disease is sufficiently
demonstrated by the fact that a paper rose is likely to prove just as effective in producing
all the symptoms of the disease as a rose out of Nature's garden.
Another striking illustration of the working of this principle is afforded by two gentlemen
of my acquaintance, brothers, each of whom since boyhood has had unfailing attacks of
sneezing upon first arising in the morning. No sooner is one of these men awake and
seated upon the edge of his bed for dressing than he begins to sneeze, and he continues to
sneeze for fifteen or twenty minutes thereafter, although he has no "cold" and never
sneezes at any other time.
[Sidenote: Two Classes of "Complexes"]
Obviously, if absolutely all mental experiences are preserved, they consist altogether of
two broad classes of complexes: first, those that are momentarily active in consciousness,
forming part of the present mental picture, and, second, all the others--that is to say, all

past experiences that are not at the present moment before the mind's eye.
There are, then, conscious complexes and subconscious complexes, complexes of
consciousness and complexes of subconsciousness.
[Sidenote: The Subconscious Storehouse]
And of the complexes of subconsciousness, some are far more readily recalled than
others. Some are forever popping into one's thoughts, while others can be brought to the
light of consciousness only by some unusual and deep-probing stimulus. And _the human
mind is a vast storehouse of complexes, far the greater part buried in subconsciousness_,
yet somehow, like impressions on the wax cylinder of a phonograph, preserved with
life-like truth and clearness.
Turn back for a moment to our definition of memory. You will observe that its second
essential element is Recall.
Recall is the process by which the experiences of the past are summoned from the
reservoir of the subconscious into the light of present consciousness. We necessarily
touched upon this process in a previous book, in considering the Laws of Association, but
here, in relation to memory, we shall go into the matter somewhat more analytically.

THE LAWS OF RECALL
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CHAPTER IV
THE LAWS OF RECALL
[Sidenote: The Law of Integral Recall]
Law I. The primary law of recall is this: _The recurrence or stimulation of one element in
a complex tends to recall all the others._
In our explanation of "complex" formation we necessarily cited instances that illustrate
this principle as well, since _recall is merely a reverse operation from that involved in
"complex" formation_.
[Sidenote: What Ordinary "Thinking" Amounts to]
For example, in running through a book I come upon a flower pressed between its pages.
At once the memory of the friend who gave it to me springs into consciousness and
becomes the subject of reminiscence. This recalls the mountain village where we last met.
This recalls the fact that a railroad was at the time under process of construction, which

should transform the village into a popular resort. This in turn suggests my coming trip to
the seashore, and I am reminded of a business appointment on which my ability to leave
town on the appointed day depends. And so on indefinitely.
Far the greater part of your successive states of consciousness, or even of your ordinary
"thinking," commonly so-called, consists of trains of mental pictures "suggested" one by
another. If the associated pictures are of the everyday type, common to everyone, you
have a prosaic mind; if, on the other hand, the associations are unusual or unique, you are
happily possessed of wit and fancy.
[Sidenote: The Reverse of Complex Formation]
These instances of the action of the Law of Recall illustrate but one phase of its activity.
They show simply that groups of ideas are so strung together on the string of some
common element that _the activity of one "group" in consciousness is apt to be
automatically followed by the others. But the law of association goes deeper than this. It
enters into the activity of every individual group, and causes all the elements of every
group, ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular movements, to be simultaneously
manifested._
[Sidenote: Prolixity and Terseness]
There is no principle to which we shall more