IJ-.

A Theory of Remembering
Frederic C. Bartlett

Yet, as a r.ule, the adaptive mechanissrs of the body do not demand agy definite awareness, so
far as change of
is

postureoritiffif ilot.ir.nt

l.

The Flethod of Apprsach

its ryccific cheracter. If we are to trcat remember-

rhe mostpersistntprobrern$oriecarrarconcern ;f"":r-#1"S"#.TfflnTrl"ii'lF#ti"fitHt the ways in whkh past experiences and pasr reac- FOUI."* tftousz:tfffEFmmrefanvelESs tions ar utili.red when anything is remembeied. cSmptb:rtares of deterrnination-ory*en"t reacFrorn a general point of view it looks as if the titrns-by--thE--tri3r"A:reriy *S;'th'ii is the line of simplect cxplanation available is. to suppose that ape;d;fi t'Jiffiicb the argJilent of the preceding chapter has commined us, for it was there indiwhen any specific event occurs, Sffi*tritET or
!-limulus ro-gxcites the trace, or group6Fftee6;*' inili |;ii;ula.a a fruther assumption is made ,i , thc cffect that the tracc sornehow carries with '*'' If this be admitted, there is an :*Jig4{tCIy i a tomporal sign, the;e-cxcitement appears to interesting uav of approach to the problems of cquivalent to recallffhere is, of course, no recall aloug a lim of studies which rvould often,. evidencc 6'r such traces, but the assumption 6rst sight seems tb be e verv.simple one, an{ so - :. Do doub-t, be called neurological rather than ps'y.. chologicatr, and this I propose to explore. During it_Leg Sg-5'r.gg!y !.9en Yet th?re are obyi,ous difficulties. The traces man)t years Sir l,{enry Head gg{e'.d, orrt systemare gener'ally supposed to be of individual an{ .l atic observatisns on the nature and funptioqs of .* ,p"Jfi. r"!r'rJi#"""'"ft'.r.nt sensibitity, qai df6Sj"8Fffidt.'t.fitE-6 folqsg,
sornc groupo{riac?iijis made the ortanisrn o;It-i6mind. taler, an

concrrned. In every skilled bod4y:Sf&s*ng9" for example, a large number of movements are r.aade in succession, and every moveinent is fr.igd gqt as if thc position reached by the qg5ggj*bs in the last preceding stage were somehow rccorded and still funaioning though the panicular pleceding movement itself is past and over. This obvious facthas given rise to many.. sgrecrrlations concerning ttre way.s in which the movements which arepast nevertheless still retain ; their regulative nrnctiiii.

of individual images" or tr"..s}ii-proposed in its plage a different solution-one tuhi.h i, .uttainly speculative, offErs difficulties .of its own, and has nver yt been properly wjfked out; but
one which seemJ to me to have great advantages when rye are dealirrg luth these somewhet ele, roentary

4eggl{ngln

Head jus$yCiscarded the

notion

insaffffithe

reactions. I believe, also, that

persisrent effects of past it points the way to

Munk, the physi_o,l-ogi:t) furiting in 1890, said, that they did this because the brain must be
regarded as a storgtguse, of images of movement, and he was unreflecti4gly followed by a great +ldJl+a4d | . many other writeri, It iCTripposed that a preceding move.rnentproduces a csrtigal irnage, or tr.ace, which, being someholv re-excited at the moment of the next succeeding rrro!.ement, controls the

o1-{.;;

4 satisfactory solution of the phenomena of remembering in t-he full sensa At this point l.must quot Head's own words: "Every recognisable (postural) change enters into consciousness already charged-witFiis-'ielation io sonrething that has gone before, just as on a
-l*p.qJ!_e3 transformed iato shillings and
the distance is presented to us already p.-e-!ge- So the final

an}T6ffifr in

product of the lests for the appreciation of

Ppsrure, or of passivg lnovement, rises into co.njglgltslcu;s a measured postural change

."t"d th.t very*prffiably

irnmediate

to it be direct at

the outstanding characteristics of remembering aU foiit'v*&oiili change of attitude rcrvards those masses of organised past experieiiEs*in? reactions which function all high-ler-el mental

processes.

in WlnW

For this combined srandard, against which rill sghrqgge$changes of posture are measured
word 'schema'. By
before they enter conscioxsness, we propose the mearr_s of perpetual alterations in position we are always buildiog up a postural
changes.

pade.

nurnber of individqal traces. Since these are all stored in a single organism, theyare in lact bound to be related one to another, and this gfiii recall itg inevitubly asqociative charac.ter; but

"u"n,r. must carry about with him an inCalculable tions rlhich are :S;;rB*6i; the stimulation of

"".t;;'-J

.d

_ ' to all

g.dpbS$

nerves. He was particularly interesttd

the tinre each eace retains its essential individualtion and rela-tation of muscles. He wished to 6nd iry, and remembering, in the ideal case, is out e-lcactl,v rt'hat part is play'ed by the cortex rn re-excitation, or purc reproduction, interpretine and relating these sensations, or the Nolv we have seen that a study of the

in the funcrions and character qf the sens4tipns which can be ar_r:::4 Uy the stimulation of nerve endings in $diffi}nd the underlying tissues, and in those rvhich are initiated by the con-trac-

simple

facts

perceiying?.and recognising suggests nerve impulses of rvhich the sensations may be srronglyEd-G all' relatively simple cases of regarded as a sign. One oi the most irnportant determination by past experiences and reactions, and interesting of these groups ofimpulses conthe past operates as an organised mass rather sists of those rvlich ql{gqlle-the recognition of than asagroup of eremenrs each of which retains

of

actual

J#.11}:1f"."1rff';".ilTllligGu
a large number of perfectly well-adapted

and

co-ordinated no\:ernents. l.YhCS.y# these are

Fronr F. C. Rartlett

(l9l?).

Remenbering:

srutly in

aVerinentil and

social psychologr. Cambridge: Cam-

arranged in a series, each successive movement is made as ifit ruere under the control and direction

bridge Llniversity Press.

of the preceding movements in the same serio.

Jescr" Head showed definitely and finally that this cannoq be the explanation- For images mav persist perfectly u'hen all appreciation of relatir.e . mo-vernent c3t5iS4g"ut in this unn'itting manner is totally lost. A patient'with a certain cortical lesiqn .may be able td iri-a*?_iaccurately the position of his outsfietched arnr and hand on the -iTe co un terpan e-6f i*bel-. can equal ly i m a ge h is :iiii-a;? hand in any of the possible positions' which it might occupy. Now let him close his eyes and let the hand.be picked up and the hand and arm moved. He may Eiable to localise the gRqt iouched on the skin surface perfectly well, but iittETe?Sit to the position in which the hand was, because he has entirely lost the capacity to serial moyemetrts. IrBages may be intact; ",relate appreciation of relative rnovement lost. Conversely, as everybody knorvs, appreciatiofr-6? morrnent may be as perfect as ever it can be rvithout any appearance of images. It is fuSile to sa)' that in these cases the images are .ro rJk"ll oi:io tl"eetinp that rve do not norice themJhe truth is that with all the effort in the world rve cannot notice them; and since the evidence for their absence is similar in sourcd anj character to that citgl- for their presence on other occasions, it is most unjustifiable to accept the laner and to reject the former.

mo,iel of ourseh-es which constantly

-Er.ery nEw posturr of .rnovement is recorded on this plastic schema, and the activitv of the cortex brings every fresh group ofsensations evoked by altelEd pss1u16 into relation with ir Immediate postural recognition follows as soon as the relation is complete." And again: *The sensory cortex is the storE: I9.HS of past impressions. They may rise into consciousness as images, but more oftel, as in the case ofspecial iqpressions, remain outside central consciousness, Here.they form organised models olourselves which may be called schemata. Such schemata modifu the impressions produced by incoming sensory impulses in such a way that the final sensations of position or of locality*l: into consciousness charged with a relation to something that has gone before." Although I am going to utilise these notions in developing a theory of remembering, I must claim the prerogative ofa psychologist ofobjecting to the terrninology of another rvriter. There are several points in the briefdescriptions I have quored that seem ro me t6-iiesent difficulty. First, Head gives away tlr too much to earlier itttsLtlg*|9* rvhen he speaks of the cortex as "a

398

Chapter 1I: Cognitive Psycholaglt

s{otehouse of past irrpressions"' experiments shJwis tt**l eer'eq'iirprT*Tt1ai-T-l

Ail

dNat bis

r"i"i""''16'* '"ish' I -mEII"sffiliCaGE- iiouoaY wtro is

normal part. .'eitiflittie crit oirt

iJ'.#E-qg_sf;1 *:--|:*r*s**x*u*i5

term'ssbm4- when it seecrs best ts do so' tut I nfl uttempt to defiEre itr gPdFarioo 'Bre narrowly'

diately prectding bahnce

of poetures.and the

"Sdtnna" refers .to en astive organisation of

;;;;;il'

UY

leiutlg

as

}ru#
i.

east;ctions'

suffering

or of past expe'riences' whiih'must wcllUo supposed to be operating in any whenever thcto adaoted organic resp-onse' That is' ord"-, ot r*gularitT ofbehaviour' a Paiticu' "rrv .r.pont is pJssrible only becadse it is relatcd scrito othk drnilsrresPonses which havc bettr

reeitl "Oh' frsm a raging toothache could catrrnly are a rcd' red rose"' the a

;;-;"jiIfr" ni"

,.oori,ow of lyric poetry' In any case' I in ttre h6[s. it I pt"tt where t]iings ar Put

i**

msrnantdfl nee& of &e 6arfre" Every tirb.ws rnaka it, it hasits ou,n oharacteristics. The long series of experiments which I have described were direc,ted to the obseryation of normal processes of remembering. I discarded nonsense. material beca,use, among other difficulties, itr use qlrrtost a.hvap w.eigfrts the evidence in faVout of $rere rote recapitlr&ition,.and fipr the
most part I used exacdy the type of material that we have to deal with in daily life. In the many thorisands of cases of remembering which I collectecl" a considerable irurnber of which I hav6

4. A The.ory ef Rolrennbering
.ln attmpting to dwelopa &eogy-of tht whole rnatterr so far as I c.an see ig we must bngin with an organism which has only a ftw serisc ayenueg ,or connenion wkh its covironrnent, and only a fer4 correlated series of movements. but is dcvoid of all the so-called higher mcrrtal functions. To this organism l{ead's riotions, dcriwd ftom a mass of crperimentol obsorva iorr$ hew the most
@*.d^

*lott-

,tt"y may b

hoPe fotrnd egain-whe1 they are

,ur"t a
a*ay.

bit of incomorn'Oy a"ueloping, affec-ted by-wery

*"afy as they 'vere when f1t stored fh" schumata are' we are told-' living' con-

allv organise4 y.t *hich oPGratG' not simply as #iuid"a members coming one afut anothcr' sche' but as a unitary mass. Determination by of all the wayr in is the most fundainntal
rnata

i"g-r.**io"i dt?;tl*t; '-

of a given kind' The

from this as stJrehouse notion is as far removed be' it well ceuld S..onaty, Head constantly uses the P:rFJgFnB be the "tLiggiqllo consciousness'' It may

Pht;t.
case

and ,uhich we can, be influenced by rtactions in the eroeriences rr'hich occurred some time kin4 or oort. Nl incoming impulses of a ibrtain actiru organmode" go together to birild up an iJ t.i.itgi.isual, auditory, various q'pes of c.rtao.ut, impolses and the like' 'at a relativ+ly

recsrded here, Lite.ral recall'was ve.ry rare. With few exceptions, the sigrrificance of which I will discuss shordn re-excitement of individual races did not look to be in the least what was happen-

perfect rp'pltcability. Any rcactlon of luch rn organisrn whkh'hac morc than a mrte rnomGntary significarrce is dcternnincd by the activity of a "schcmd'ih telatiqn to sotte ncw incoming impulse set up byan irlrmediatelyprcsented stim.
Ulus. Sincc ite sensory eq.uipmnt and the correlated moven'rents are very lirnited in range, and iince the .mode of organisation of the "schemafollows a direct chronological sequence, circularity of reaction, tlre repctition over and ov.et agrin of a series of reactions, is very prominent. Habits, moreover, are relatively easily formed as is witnessed by a

$#*tt.a" m; ; iery duy,many times over''rve-makeis q-csu: right'

gl;;soror'"dintf*,e;1p9.i-l
wh ich'

that ln o"tp$iil'?iicumstances an unwit' oiposition is actually known as'a ;;;;"" po"'tt"l change' But this is. not the if Flead

ldw level; all the experienees conrrected by a .commod iiiireresi: in spon, in literanre' histcryr rri t"i.n.., philosophy and so on" on a higher
l*v.l. Th.r. is not the slig;htest reason' honrei'er' irnpulses' ,o ,tppo* that each set of incorning g.uop ofexpenences persists as-an lson.no
.uatt

inglCdnsiiGf particularly the case in which a subject was remembering a stor,' which he heard, say, five years previously, in corrparissn witltthe case in lvhich he was giveir certain oudine materials and constructs what he calls a new story. I have
tried the latter elqeriment repeatedly, and not only the astual form and content of the results, butwhat is of more riglirificance for the mornent, the attitudes ofthe subject in these two cases wer sgikingly similar, In both sises, it was corRmon to find the preliminiqr check, rhe stnugle to get
sornewhere, the varying Blav ofdoubt, hesitatioa,

grat

ifiIiliiitT?t

."rch oi"n .xper-

6e
3!1,

any Ly1l9lsi"+s schemata are active; without mastrre of the changing postures so far as the

--

is concerned'

strongly

I ffritaf,", and perhaps most -imPortant' "schema''

UJ n .riU.t of some passive patchworliThey i"u. * be regarded as coristituedts of liring otganism'

seiings belonging to tfre con' or to whaiel'er Barts of the organism.are in maliing response of a given kind'.ano cerned .ttU"r-of individual events somehow "oi-"t " ,"u"g ,og",h"t and stored within the otgaisr*

*o*u"ot"

iitfike thu te.rni

ioo aln"it*

I!-S-e!-SqS'e* toa too eketchy' The word is already

psvchologicat w-11ttnc

;i$ti;s"A'in?o3 ti$rrljal
'theory.

.r gu"t'nllv t"gf-t:iki:1g.:lfo9g-t!ulsd
It
suggests some persistent'

but hagmen-

t...1

satisfrction and the like, and the eventual building up of the comphte story accompanied by the more and more confident advance in a certain direction. In fact, if we consider evidence rather than presupposition, remernbering appears to be

;;?f;;itrrangcme;t''

and it does not

indi-

whole notion' c"te *hot is very essential to the changes of rtt. organised trqa$ results ofpast ,ttu, are actively doing-somepositiorr and p3sture

3. The Constructive Ctaracter of

Remembering

fui"g af the tinre; are' ;o to

speak' carried along

*itir- ,rr,

;;..peak t;t; \,;; . ' '. " * i-"rnd t suggests a greater articrlni ]' : " ""i ,.rk. 's.h.-"'J,is norrnally found' I think than 'it:'ll rl c tl I t t." "ii.pil terr'n "brganised'settingl:iipproxi' prot"ttr" the notion Lorr* *,t*' eit'lcli'' rnd clearly to tlre
require'd.

comPleter though developing' tronr certainly vgry dilfimoment to moment' Iet iiis single desqriptive-word cult to think ofany beter probably be io .o"", the facts inrolvtri' It would patterns"; but of "active" developing "pattern"' too' being norv very widely variousll emploled' has its own difficulties;

we must, then, considei rvhat does ":*4

remember.

we saythrtwc happen more often than not when first notion to get rid of is tbat'E'{i'; The

';1$' ;":-r';g
:;-$1

;;;;t

;";'J.;i:.. i'

is

or priirrrrily or literatly-reduplic.ati*e'
"
,uorld of constantlv

t\Ti},l

environment, literal reeall is ettraorsur rs. ur,i;porr"n,. It is with rememberin8'alii

$'

more decisively an affair of construction rather than one of mere reproduction. The difference between the two cases, if it rvete put in ' Head's terminology, sems to be that in rmetrnbcring a man constructs on the basis of one "schema", whereas in rvhat is eommonly called imaging he more or less fteely builds together events, incidents and experiences that have gone to the makiog of, several difrerent "schemata" which for the purposes of rutomatic reaction, are not normally in connexion with one another. Even this difference is largely only a general one,
lor as has been shown again and again, condensation, elaboration and invention are common fbah:tes o[ordinary remembering, and those all very often involve the mingling of materials belonging originally to diffefent "schemata".

hr

imental nature upon the lower aniinals. From the irutside, all this may look like the gontinual reexcltenrent ofwell-established traces; but it is not. It is simpll" the maintenance of few "schemata", each of which has iti natural and essential time order. Howevgr, in the course of developrnent the special sense avenus increase.in number and ran$e, and concurrently dtere is an increase in nuntber rnd varleqv of reactions. With this, and a matter of vital importance, as my expdments repeatedl,v show, Soes a great growth of sociatr life, and the developtnent of merns of comrnunication. Then the *schema" detarinined reactions of one organism are repeatedly checked, as well as constandy facilitated, by those of others. All this

grorwh of coinplexity makes ciriularity of reaction, rrtere rote recapitulation and habit behaviour often both waste.firl and inefficient. A new
incoming impulse must become not merely a cue setting up a series ot'reactions all carried out in enables us

a lixed temporal order, but a stirnulus rvhich to go direct to that portion of the

il ;;k;;;
i""" ii*'.

fancY dtl a skilled game' lrre maY

we are repeadng a series of

mol'e-"."" lt"I: &oo b.fo".. f,om a txt-bdok or

I shai!' lrnivel'er' continue to

use the

""i:n..'i", ;;il;o;.

*.,i"t1i"ay
';'"ke

shos's that in fect '

organised setting of past responses which is most relevant to the needs of the mornent. There is one way in which an organism could learn horv to do this- h may be the only way. At ahy rate, it is the rv'sr thathus been discov-ered and

the afresh on a basis of

.( ls continually used. An orgahism has somehow

to acquire the capacity !o rurn round upon its own'ischernata' and to construct them afresh' This is a crucial step in organic development' It is where and why consciousness coines in; it is what gives consciousness its most prominent function. I wish I knew exacdy horv it llras dsne' On the basis of my experimeats I can make one swge$ion, although I do so with some hesita-

Perception Series the subjects got their-general impression, felt the material prcsented to be ,.g;ul"t, ot exciting, or farniliar and so on, and bJilt up their results by the aid of that and a little definitelv observed detail. In thc Imaging Segies, I have recorded a number ofcases where' particularly in the case of the subjects Prone to personal reminiscence, an attitude developed into a concrete and detailed imaginal construction' With The fulethod of Dacription the affective attitude openly influenced the recall. Reputed REraduc' rion yielded many cases in which the stories or othei rnaterial were 6rst charactised as "exciting"' "adventurous", "like what I read when I rvas a boy',labelled in some wayor other, and then built up or'iemerobered". The instance in ruhich The

words, it becomes conscious. It may be that what then emerges is an attitude towards the massed
effects of a series of past rmctions. Remembering
is a constructive

justification of this attirude; an4

because all that goes to the building ofa "schemahas a chronological, as welt as a qualitative, sig-

operate_ in determining a specific reaction, except after relatively short periods of delay. ThE aaiie settings rvhich are chiefiy important at the level of human remembering are mainly qinterest',

seftings; and, since an interest has both a definite

nilicance, what is rernembered has its tempo*l mark; while the tact that it is operating with a
dir.erse organised mass, and not with single undi_ versified events or units, gil.es to remornbering its inevitable associative character. lVhether oi not the attitude is a geneticolty primitive characteristic possessing this function in recall is, of cour.se, a speculative matter. I think it is, but nothing is sen'ed by dogmatism at this point. The experiments do, however, appear to demonstrate that, at the level of human remembering,

tion
a

Suppose an individual to be confronted by

case

complir situation. This is the

with which

I began the whole series of experimerits, the case in which an observer is perceiving' imd is saying immediately what it is that he has perceived' We saw that in this case an individual does not normally take such a situation detail by detail and mctiqulously build up the whole' ln all ordinary instances he has an over-mastering tendenqv simpll'to get a general impression of the whole;
and, on thl basis olthis, he constructs the probable detail. Very little of his construction is literally obscrved and often, as was easily demonstrated experimqntally, a lot of it is distorted or wrong so faias thc actual facts are concerned. But it is the sort of construction rvhich serves to justify his
general impression' Ask the observer to charac-

'

War of rhe Ghosts rvas constructed gradually from a little general starting-point, after a very long interr,"l, is a brilliant' but by rio means isolated'

directioa and a wide range, the developrrrent of these settings involves much reorganisation of the "schemata" that follow the more prirnitive lines of special sense differences, of apfttite and of instinct. So, since many "schemata'; are built of common materials, d.re images and lvords that mark some of their salient features are in constant, but explicable, change They, too, are a dgvica made possible by the appearance, or discoverv, of consciousnesq and without them no genuine long-distance remembering would
be possible.

the attitude functions

suggested.

in

the way

have

ierise this-general impression psychologically' *attiand the w'ord that is always cropping up is this "attitude" factor tude". I have sholvn how came into near\ evcry series of experiments that
was carried out- The construction that is effected

illustration of this constnrctive character of recall' Serial Reproduction showed the sarne features in the readiness with which material assurned established conventional forms, and The Picurre Sign repeatMethorl alsbbrought out the same point edly. I have atternPted to observe as closely as poisible the behaviour of young children when th"y ru*"rnb.r. So far as it is valid to.guess from
are the processes actually going on, here also, in very many instances, there comes first an

t...1

7. A Summary
Remembering is not the re.excitation of innumerable fixed, lifeless and fragmenrary trages. . It is an irnaginative reconstruction or constnrc-

thii what

tion, built out of the retation of our attitude

towards a rr'hole active mass of organiqed past reactions or erperience, and to a little outstand11S-agait which commonly appeals in language form. It is thus hardly ever really

is the sort of coni-tructioi-that would iustifi' the names a complex observer's' it is very psychological state or irard ro desc rib J iir*mWlem en ta ry p s,r'cho I o g i -

atiitiid.ilFid& pti6ii'hi.h

attitude .and then the recall of the material in tfiltrrde' such a way as to satisry, or fortifo, rationalisation lshich remembering The constant this effects is a special case of the functionipg of upon rvhich memory is constructit character

*t

inTilpbr

largely based. Together with the immediately preceding incoming-impulse it renders a speci6c adaptive reacdon po-ssibie. It is, theretbre, producing an orientation th. orgunir* to*"u.ds rvhatever it is directed

cal terms. It is, hbTf\f;as I have often indicated, very largely a ,f,iEiEf f..ling, or aftect. lve say that it i: characterised by doubt, hesitation' surprise, astonishment' confi dence, dislike, repulsion and so on. Here is the significance of the fact'

i\'Lat,

precisely, does the "schema"

do?

exact, even in the most rudimentary cases of rote recapitulation, and it is not at all important that it should be so. The attitude is literally an eftlct of the organism's capaciqv to rurn round upon its olvn "schemata", and is directly a func_

tion of consciousness. The outstanding detail is the result of that rraluation of.items in an organ,

if

often reported in the preceding Pages' that k'hen a subiect is being asked to remember, very often the 6rst thing that enrerges is something of the nlturg of cltitude. The recall is then a construction, made [argel.v on the basis of this anitude,

and

general eftlct is that of a justification of the artitude. A rapid sun'c'1' t'rf the experimental results rvill shorv this factor at rt'ork in different subjects and osith ii''.:rre nrateriuls and methods, in the case *f ertr.v ui:e of rn-v exPerinental series' In the

is

be to at thelnoment. But that orientation must dominated by the immediately preceding reattion or experiences. To break away from this the "schema" must become' not nrerely something that rvorks the organism, but something rvtth rvhich the organism can rvork As I will show to bc later, its constituents nray perhaps begin

phystreshuftled on a basis of purely physical and radrc& ological determinants. This method is not turo eno-rgh. So the organisrn discovers holv to o"*'n "schemata", or' in othet

with the grolvth of interesrs and ideals. Even apart troni their appearance in the fornr of _cll:9li1l ima.ges, or as language forms, srrnie of the items of a m4ss ma1' stand out by virtuc of their possession of certain physicai charac' teristics. But there is no evidence that these can

ised mass rnhich begins with the functioning appetite and instinct, and goes rnuch further

It rnal'be said that this theory after all does vdry little. It- merely jumbles together innumerable traces ani'liils them "schemata", and then it picls out a few and calls them images. But I tfrink this would be hardly fair criticism. AII conventional theories of mqmory as reduplicative try to treat traces as sornehory stored up like so many definite impressions, 6xed and having only the capacity of being reexcited. The active sttings, ' rrhich are involved in the way oflooking at the matter der.eloped in the pres.ent chapter, are living and developing, are a complex expression of the life of the momenr, and help ro determine our daily modes of conduct. The theory brings rernembering into line with imagining, an expresi sion of the same activities; it has very different implications in regard to forgetting from those of the oidinary trace vierv; it gives to consciousness a definite function other than the rnere tact r:f being aruare. This last point is not entirely unimportant. There is an active school in current ps,r,. chological controversy rvhich rvould banish all*
reference

rocorr@

retute this school by asserting vigorously that of c.ourse lr'e knolr' that wd are conscious. But this is futile, for rvhat they are really baiing is that con.
sciousness carrrrot eftect an\.thingihat could not equally tr'ell be done without it. Thar is a position
less easy to demolish. If I am right, horvever, they are lvrong.

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