y be misunderstood. For one who observes
external events only would not at first sight notice the difference
between what happens in the animal, or even in the plant, when
something appears in them resembling memory, and what is here
characterized as actual recollection in man. Of course, when an
animal has performed an action for a third or fourth time it may
perform it in such a way that the outer process gives the impression
that memory and the training associated with it are present. Nay, we
may even extend our conception of memory or of recollection as far
as some naturalists and their disciples, when they point out that
the chicken begins to pick up grain as soon as it comes out of the
shell; that it even knows the proper movements of head and body for
gaining its end. It could not have learned this in the eggshell;
hence it must have done so through the thousands and thousands of
creatures from which it is descended (so says Hering, for example).
We may call the phenomenon before us something resembling memory,
but we shall never arrive at a real comprehension of human nature if
we do not take into account that every distinctive element which
shows itself in the human being as an inner process, as an actual
perception of earlier experiences at a later date, is not merely the
working of earlier conditions in later ones. In this book it is this
perception of what is past that is called memory, not alone the
reappearance (even though transformed) of what once existed, in a
later form. Were we to use the word memory for the corresponding
processes in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, we should be
required to use a different word in speaking of man. In the
description given here the important thing is not the particular
word used, but rather that in attempting to understand human beings
this distinction should be recognized. Just as little do the
apparently very intelligent actions of animals have any relation to
what is _here_ called memory.

3 The term "Verstandesseele" is sometimes translated by "rational
soul." From a certain point of view one might prefer the term
"intellectual soul," because it expresses better the activity of the
soul than does "rational soul." In the latter one thinks of the
knowledge abou