One of the most obvious criticisms of Hering's exposition is based
upon the extended use he makes of the word "Memory": this he had
foreseen and deprecated.


"We have a perfect right," he says, "to extend our conception of
memory so as to make it embrace involuntary [and also unconscious]
reproductions of sensations, ideas, perceptions, and efforts; but we
find, on having done so, that we have so far enlarged her boundaries
that she proves to be an ultimate and original power, the source and,
at the same time, the unifying bond, of our whole conscious life."
("Unconscious Memory," p. 68.)


This sentence, coupled with Hering's omission to give to the concept
of memory so enlarged a new name, clear alike of the limitations and
of the stains of habitual use, may well have been the inspiration of
the next work on our list. Richard Semon is a professional zoologist
and anthropologist of such high status for his original observations
and researches in the mere technical sense, that in these countries
he would assuredly have been acclaimed as one of the Fellows of the
Royal Society who were Samuel Butler's special aversion. The full
title of his book is "DIE MNEME als erhaltende Prinzip im Wechsel des
organischen Geschehens" (Munich, Ed. 1, 1904; Ed. 2, 1908). We may
translate it "MNEME, a Principle of Conservation in the
Transformations of Organic Existence."

From this I quote in free translation the opening passage of Chapter
II:-