It seems
as much a matter of chance as when single specimens of a whole race of
animals now extinct are discovered in the layers of a rock; or when,
on opening a book, we light upon an insect accidentally crushed within
the leaves. Memories of this kind are always sweet and pleasant.
* * * * *
It occasionally happens that, for no particular reason, long-forgotten
scenes suddenly start up in the memory. This may in many cases be due
to the action of some hardly perceptible odor, which accompanied those
scenes and now recurs exactly same as before. For it is well known
that the sense of smell is specially effective in awakening memories,
and that in general it does not require much to rouse a train of
ideas. And I may say, in passing, that the sense of sight is connected
with the understanding,[1] the sense of hearing with the reason,[2]
and, as we see in the present case, the sense of smell with the
memory. Touch and Taste are more material and dependent upon contact.
They have no ideal side.
[Footnote 1:_Wierfache Wurzel_ sec. 21.]
[Footnote 2: _Parerga_ vol. ii, sec. 311.]
* * * * *
It must also be reckoned among the peculiar attributes of memory
that a slight state of intoxication often so greatly enhances the
recollection of past times and scenes, that all the circumstances
connected with them come back much more clearly than would be possible
in a state of sobriety; but that, on the other hand, the recollection
of what one said or did while the intoxication lasted, is more than
usually imperfect; nay, that if one has been absolutely tipsy, it is
gone altogether.
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