t recognize them. They may be very old memories, forgotten
during waking hours, drawn from the most obscure depths of our past;
they may be, often are, memories of objects that we have perceived
distractedly, almost unconsciously, while awake. Or they may be
fragments of broken memories which have been picked up here and there
and mingled by chance, composing an incoherent and unrecognizable whole.
Before these bizarre assemblages of images which present no plausible
significance, our intelligence (which is far from surrendering the
reasoning faculty during sleep, as has been asserted) seeks an
explanation, tries to fill the lacunae. It fills them by calling up other
memories which, presenting themselves often with the same deformations
and the same incoherences as the preceding, demand in their turn a new
explanation, and so on indefinitely. But I do not insist upon this point
for the moment. It is sufficient for me to say, in order to answer the
question which I have propounded, that the formative power of the
materials furnished to the dream by the different senses, the power
which converts into precise, determined objects the vague and indistinct
sensations that the dreamer receives from his eyes, his ears, and the
whole surface and interior of his body, is the memory.

Memory! In a waking state we have indeed memories which appear and
disappear, occupying our mind in turn. But they are always memories
which are closely connected with our present situation, our present
occupation, our present action. I recall at this moment the book of M.
d'Hervey on dreams; that is because I am discussing the subject of
dreams and this act orients in a certain particular direction the
activity of my memory. The memories that we evoke while waking, however
distant they may at first appear to be from the present action, are
always connected with it in some way. What is the role of memory in an
animal? It is to recall to him, in any circumstance, the advantageous or
injurious consequences which have formerly arisen in analogous
circumstances, in order to instruct him as to what he ought to do. In
man memory is doubtless less the slave of action, but still it sticks to
it. Our memories, at any given moment, form a solid whole, a pyramid, so
to speak, whose point is inserted precisely into our present action. But
behind the memories which are concerned in our occupations and are
revealed by means of it, there are others, thousands of oth