Abstract
LITTLE as it may appear from the title, this work is really an inquiry into some of the remoter effects of stimulation. Thus, every stimulus applied to organic substance—whether that substance be nervous, or not nervously differentiated—produces not only its appropriate reaction, but also an altered condition of the substance itself, so that even when the immediate effect of the stimulation has subsided, the second “condition of indifference” is different from the first. The substance may now, for example, readily react to stimuli which before were insufficient to produce any appreciable effect, or it may respond to a stimulus connected only by association with the stimulus usually necessary. It pleases this author to read and group these facts anew, and to apply to them a terminology that will correspond with the novelty of the grouping. Hence he calls the enduring effect of the stimulus an engramm; the stimulus is said to operate engrahically on the substance, or to produce an engraphic alteration. Again, when stimulus B, differing in quality or quantity from stimulus A, still succeeds with the aid of the engramm in producing a reaction appropriate to A, it is said to operate echorically, or the new state of excitation is said to be produced by the echory of the engramm. Obviously ordinary memory may be brought under this wide class of phenomena, and the author might have used the term memory to describe these facts; but, to avoid misunderstanding, he has chosen the term mneme instead. Hence we read of such things as mnemic excitation, e.g. in the case mentioned above when stimulus B is applied.
Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens.
By Richard Semon. Pp. xiv + 353. (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1905.) Price 6s. net.
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Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens . Nature 73, 338 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/073338a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/073338a0