and are still able to
respond to objects, but only in accordance with our inborn tendencies.
After all our memories are gone, we still have our original nature to
fall back upon.

There is a remarkable case reported by Sidis and Goodhart which
illustrates the role that memory plays in giving us control over our
inherited tendencies. It is that of Rev. Thomas C. Hanna, who, while
attempting to alight from a carriage, lost his footing, fell to the
ground and was picked up unconscious. When he awoke it was found that he
had not only lost the faculty of speech but he had lost all voluntary
control of his limbs. He had forgotten how to walk. He had not lost his
senses. He could feel and see, but he was not able to distinguish
objects. He had no sense of distance. He was in a state of complete
"mental blindness." At first he did not distinguish between his own
movements and those of other objects. "He was as much interested in the
movements of his own limbs as in that of external things." He had no
conception of time. "Seconds, minutes, and hours were alike to him." He
felt hunger but he did not know how to interpret the feeling and had no
notion of how to satisfy it. When food was offered him he did not know
what to do with it. In order to get him to swallow food it had to be
placed far back in his throat, in order to provoke reflex swallowing
movements. In their report of the case the authors say:

Like an infant, he did not know the meaning of the simplest
words, nor did he understand the use of language. Imitation was
the factor in his first education. He learned the meaning of
words by imitating definite articulate sounds made in
connection with certain objects and activities. The
pronunciation of words and their combination into whole phrases
he acquired in the same imitative way. At first he simply
repeated any word and sentence heard, thinking that this meant
something to others. This manner of blind repetition and
unintelligent imitation was, however, soon given up, and he
began systematically to learn the meaning of words in
connection with the objective content they signified. As in the
case of children who, in their early developmental stage, use
one word to indicate many objects different in their nature,
but having some common point of superficial resemblance, so was
it in the case of Mr. Hanna: the first word he acquired was