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FOURTH CLASS OF OBJECTS FOE THE SUBJECT. 173
take place BO easily, that wish and fulfilment are simul
taneous.
45. Memory.
That peculiar faculty of the knowing Subject which
enables it to obey the will the more readily in repeating
representations, the oftener they have already been present
to it in other words, its capacity for being exercised is
what we call Memory. I cannot agree with the customary
view, by which it is looked upon as a sort of store-house
in which we keep a stock of ready-made representations
always at our disposal, only without being always con
scious of their possession. The voluntary repetition of re
presentations which have once been present becomes so
easy through practice, that one link in a series of represen
tations no sooner becomes present to us, than we at once
evoke all the rest, often even, as it were, involuntarily. If
we were to look for a metaphor for this characteristic
quality of our representative faculty (such as that of Plato,
who compared it with a soft mass that receives and retains
impressions), I think the best would be that of a piece of
drapery, which, after having been repeatedly folded in the
same folds, at last falls into them, as it were, of its own
accord. The body learns by practice to obey the will, and
the faculty of representing does precisely the same. A re
membrance is not by any means, as the usual view sup
poses, always the same representation which is, as it were,
fetched over and over again from its store-house ; a new
one, on the contrary, arises each time, only practice makes
this especially easy. Thus it comes to pass that pictures
of our imagination, which we fancy we have stowed away
in our memory, become imperceptibly modified: a thing
which we realize when we see some familiar object again
after a long time, and find that it no longer completely
corresponds to the image we bring with us. This could