Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) - Samuel Butler (digital e reader TXT) 📗
- Author: Samuel Butler
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Regulation Elsewhere." ("Method Of Regulation," P. 492.)
Jennings Makes No Mention Of Questions Of The Theory Of Heredity. He
Has Made Some Experiments On The Transmission Of An Acquired
Character In Protozoa; But It Was A Mutilation-Character, Which Is,
As Has Been Often Shown, {0j} Not To The Point.
One Of The Most Obvious Criticisms Of Hering's Exposition Is Based
Upon The Extended Use He Makes Of The Word "Memory": This He Had
Foreseen And Deprecated.
"We Have A Perfect Right," He Says, "To Extend Our Conception Of
Memory So As To Make It Embrace Involuntary [And Also Unconscious]
Reproductions Of Sensations, Ideas, Perceptions, And Efforts; But We
Find, On Having Done So, That We Have So Far Enlarged Her Boundaries
That She Proves To Be An Ultimate And Original Power, The Source And,
At The Same Time, The Unifying Bond, Of Our Whole Conscious Life."
("Unconscious Memory," P. 68.)
This Sentence, Coupled With Hering's Omission To Give To The Concept
Of Memory So Enlarged A New Name, Clear Alike Of The Limitations And
Of The Stains Of Habitual Use, May Well Have Been The Inspiration Of
The Next Work On Our List. Richard Semon Is A Professional Zoologist
And Anthropologist Of Such High Status For His Original Observations
And Researches In The Mere Technical Sense, That In These Countries
He Would Assuredly Have Been Acclaimed As One Of The Fellows Of The
Royal Society Who Were Samuel Butler's Special Aversion. The Full
Title Of His Book Is "Die Mneme Als Erhaltende Prinzip Im Wechsel Des
Organischen Geschehens" (Munich, Ed. 1, 1904; Ed. 2, 1908). We May
Translate It "Mneme, A Principle Of Conservation In The
Transformations Of Organic Existence."
From This I Quote In Free Translation The Opening Passage Of Chapter
Ii:-
Introduction Pg 17
"We Have Shown That In Very Many Cases, Whether In Protist, Plant, Or
Animal, When An Organism Has Passed Into An Indifferent State After
The Reaction To A Stimulus Has Ceased, Its Irritable Substance Has
Suffered A Lasting Change: I Call This After-Action Of The Stimulus
Its 'Imprint' Or 'Engraphic' Action, Since It Penetrates And Imprints
Itself In The Organic Substance; And I Term The Change So Effected An
'Imprint' Or 'Engram' Of The Stimulus; And The Sum Of All The
Imprints Possessed By The Organism May Be Called Its 'Store Of
Imprints,' Wherein We Must Distinguish Between Those Which It Has
Inherited From Its Forbears And Those Which It Has Acquired Itself.
Any Phenomenon Displayed By An Organism As The Result Either Of A
Single Imprint Or Of A Sum Of Them, I Term A 'Mnemic Phenomenon'; And
The Mnemic Possibilities Of An Organism May Be Termed, Collectively,
Its 'Mneme.'
"I Have Selected My Own Terms For The Concepts That I Have Just
Defined. On Many Grounds I Refrain From Making Any Use Of The Good
German Terms 'Gedachtniss, Erinnerungsbild.' The First And Chiefest
Ground Is That For My Purpose I Should Have To Employ The German
Words In A Much Wider Sense Than What They Usually Convey, And Thus
Leave The Door Open To Countless Misunderstandings And Idle
Controversies. It Would, Indeed, Even Amount To An Error Of Fact To
Give To The Wider Concept The Name Already Current In The Narrower
Sense--Nay, Actually Limited, Like 'Erinnerungsbild,' To Phenomena Of
Consciousness. . . . In Animals, During The Course Of History, One
Set Of Organs Has, So To Speak, Specialised Itself For The Reception
And Transmission Of Stimuli--The Nervous System. But From This
Specialisation We Are Not Justified In Ascribing To The Nervous
System Any Monopoly Of The Function, Even When It Is As Highly
Developed As In Man. . . . Just As The Direct Excitability Of The
Nervous System Has Progressed In The History Of The Race, So Has Its
Capacity For Receiving Imprints; But Neither Susceptibility Nor
Retentiveness Is Its Monopoly; And, Indeed, Retentiveness Seems
Inseparable From Susceptibility In Living Matter."
Semen Here Takes The Instance Of Stimulus And Imprint Actions
Affecting The Nervous System Of A Dog
"Who Has Up Till Now Never Experienced Aught But Kindness From The
Lord Of Creation, And Then One Day That He Is Out Alone Is Pelted
With Stones By A Boy. . . . Here He Is Affected At Once By Two Sets
Of Stimuli: (1) The Optic Stimulus Of Seeing The Boy Stoop For
Stones And Throw Them, And (2) The Skin Stimulus Of The Pain Felt
When They Hit Him. Here Both Stimuli Leave Their Imprints; And The
Organism Is Permanently Changed In Relation To The Recurrence Of The
Introduction Pg 18Stimuli. Hitherto The Sight Of A Human Figure Quickly Stooping Had
Produced No Constant Special Reaction. Now The Reaction Is Constant,
And May Remain So Till Death. . . . The Dog Tucks In Its Tail
Between Its Legs And Takes Flight, Often With A Howl [As Of] Pain."
"Here We Gain On One Side A Deeper Insight Into The Imprint Action Of
Stimuli. It Reposes On The Lasting Change In The Conditions Of The
Living Matter, So That The Repetition Of The Immediate Or Synchronous
Reaction To Its First Stimulus (In This Case The Stooping Of The Boy,
The Flying Stones, And The Pain On The Ribs), No Longer Demands, As
In The Original State Of Indifference, The Full Stimulus A, But May
Be Called Forth By A Partial Or Different Stimulus, B (In This Case
The Mere Stooping To The Ground). I Term The Influences By Which
Such Changed Reaction Are Rendered Possible, 'Outcome-Reactions,' And
When Such Influences Assume The Form Of Stimuli, 'Outcome-Stimuli.'
They Are Termed "Outcome" ("Ecphoria") Stimuli, Because The Author
Regards Them And Would Have Us Regard Them As The Outcome,
Manifestation, Or Efference Of An Imprint Of A Previous Stimulus. We
Have Noted That The Imprint Is Equivalent To The Changed
"Physiological State" Of Jennings. Again, The Capacity For Gaining
Imprints And Revealing Them By Outcomes Favourable To The Individual
Is The "Circular Reaction" Of Baldwin, But Semon Gives No Reference
To Either Author. {0k}
In The Preface To His First Edition (Reprinted In The Second) Semon
Writes, After Discussing The Work Of Hering And Haeckel:-
"The Problem Received A More Detailed Treatment In Samuel Butler's
Book, 'Life And Habit,' Published In 1878. Though He Only Made
Acquaintance With Hering's Essay After This Publication, Butler Gave
What Was In Many Respects A More Detailed View Of The Coincidences Of
These Different Phenomena Of Organic Reproduction Than Did Hering.
With Much That Is Untenable, Butler's Writings Present Many A
Brilliant Idea; Yet, On The Whole, They Are Rather A Retrogression
Than An Advance Upon Hering. Evidently They Failed To Exercise Any
Marked Influence Upon The Literature Of The Day."
This Judgment Needs A Little Examination. Butler Claimed, Justly,
That His "Life And Habit" Was An Advance On Hering In Its Dealing
With Questions Of Hybridity, And Of Longevity Puberty And Sterility.
Since Semon's Extended Treatment Of The Phenomena Of Crosses Might
Introduction Pg 19Almost Be Regarded As The Rewriting Of The Corresponding Section Of
"Life And Habit" In The "Mneme" Terminology, We May Infer That This
View Of The Question Was One Of Butler's "Brilliant Ideas." That
Butler Shrank From Accepting Such A Formal Explanation Of Memory As
Hering Did With His Hypothesis Should Certainly Be Counted As A
Distinct "Advance Upon Hering," For Semon Also Avoids Any Attempt At
An Explanation Of "Mneme." I Think, However, We May Gather The Real
Meaning Of Semon's Strictures From The Following Passages:-
"I Refrain Here From A Discussion Of The Development Of This Theory
Of Lamarck's By Those Neo-Lamarckians Who Would Ascribe To The
Individual Elementary Organism An Equipment Of Complex Psychical
Powers--So To Say, Anthropomorphic Perception And Volitions. This
Treatment Is No Longer Directed By The Scientific Principle Of
Referring Complex Phenomena To Simpler Laws, Of Deducing Even Human
Intellect And Will From Simpler Elements. On The Contrary, They
Follow That Most Abhorrent Method Of Taking The Most Complex And
Unresolved As A Datum, And Employing It As An Explanation. The
Adoption Of Such A Method, As Formerly By Samuel Butler, And Recently
By Pauly, I Regard As A Big And Dangerous Step Backward" (Ed. 2, Pp.
380-1, Note).
Thus Butler's Alleged Retrogressions Belong To The Same Order Of
Thinking That We Have Seen Shared By Driesch, Baldwin, And Jennings,
And Most Explicitly Avowed, As We Shall See, By Francis Darwin.
Semon Makes One Rather Candid Admission, "The Impossibility Of
Interpreting The Phenomena Of Physiological Stimulation By Those Of
Direct Reaction, And The Undeception Of Those Who Had Put Faith In
This Being Possible, Have Led Many On The Backward Path Of Vitalism."
Semon Assuredly Will Never Be Able To Complete His Theory Of "Mneme"
Until, Guided By The Experience Of Jennings And Driesch, He Forsakes
The Blind Alley Of Mechanisticism And Retraces His Steps To
Reasonable Vitalism.
But The Most Notable Publications Bearing On Our Matter Are
Incidental To The Darwin Celebrations Of 1908-9. Dr. Francis Darwin,
Son, Collaborator, And Biographer Of Charles Darwin, Was Selected To
Preside Over The Meeting Of The British Association Held In Dublin In
1908, The Jubilee Of The First Publications On Natural Selection By
His Father And Alfred Russel Wallace. In This Address We Find The
Theory Of Hering, Butler, Rignano, And Semon Taking Its Proper Place
As A Vera Causa Of That Variation Which Natural Selection Must Find
Introduction Pg 20Before It Can Act, And Recognised As The Basis Of A Rational Theory
Of The Development Of The Individual And Of The Race. The Organism
Is Essentially Purposive: The Impossibility Of Devising
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