e a point of irritation in
the wound itself causing the epilepsy, the scar was taken out. The
result was that the seizures were the same day reduced very much in
frequency, and in a short time became amenable to treatment, so that
finally complete recovery occurred. He had, however, probably fifty
convulsions in all after the removal of the scar before this result was
achieved. Undoubtedly, in this case the point of irritation was removed
by the operation. The cause of the convulsions having been taken away,
they should have stopped at once. But here the law of habitual action
asserted itself, and it was necessary to overcome the remembrance of the
disease by the nerve-centres. It is plain that the higher nerve-centre
remembers the idea or fact because it is impressed by ideas and facts,
precisely as the lower spinal nerve-centres in the frog remember
irritations and movements which have impressed them. The faculty of
memory resides in all nerve-centres: the nature of that which is
remembered depends upon the function of the individual centre. A
nerve-cell which thinks remembers thought--a nerve-cell which causes
motion remembers motion.

The so-called cases of double consciousness are perfectly simple in
their explanation when the true nature of memory is borne in mind. In
these cases the subject seems to lead a double life. The attacks usually
come on suddenly. In the first attack all memory of the past is lost.
The person is as an untaught child, and is forced to begin re-education.
In some of these cases this second education has gone on for weeks, and
advanced perhaps beyond the stage of reading, when suddenly the patient
passes back to his original condition, losing now all memory of events
which had occurred and all the knowledge acquired in what may be called
his second state, but regaining all that he had originally possessed.
Weeks or months afterward the second state reoccurs, the individual now
forgetting all memory of the first or natural condition. It is usually
found that events happening and knowledge acquired during the first
attack of what we have called the second state are remembered in
subsequent returns, so that the second education can be taken up at the
point at which it was lost, and progress be made. This alternation of
conditions has in some instances gone on for years, the patient living,
as it were, two lives at broken intervals. This condition, usually
called double consciousness, is not do