Our memories are not
stored in the brain like letters in a filing cabinet, and all our past
survives indestructibly as Memory, even though in the form of
unconscious memory. We must recognize Memory to be a spiritual fact and
so regard it as a pivot on which turn many discussions of vital
importance when we come to investigate the problem of the relation of
soul and body. For "Memory must be, in principle, a power absolutely
independent of matter. If then, spirit is a reality, it is here, in the
phenomenon of Memory that we may come into touch with it
experimentally."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 81 (Fr. p. 68).]
"Memory," he would remind us finally, "is just the intersection of mind
and matter."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, Introduction, p. xii.] "A
remembrance cannot be the result of a state of the brain. The state of
the brain continues the remembrance; it gives it a hold on the present
by the materiality which it confers upon it, but pure memory is a
spiritual manifestation. With Memory, we are, in very truth, in the
domain of spirit."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 320 (Fr. p. 268).]
CHAPTER V
THE RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY
The hypothesis of Psycho-physical Parallelism--Not to be accepted
uncritically--Bergson opposes it, and shows the hypothesis to rest on a
confusion of terms. Bergson against Epiphenomenalism--Soul-life unique
and wider than the brain--Telepathy, subconscious action and psychical
research--Souls and survival.
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