f which we can distinguish some parts as earlier and others as
later. It is to be supposed that the earliest parts are those that have
faded most from their original force, while the latest parts are those
that retain their full sensational character. At the beginning of a
stimulus we have a sensation; then a gradual transition; and at the
end an image. Sensations while they are fading are called "akoluthic"
sensations.* When the process of fading is completed (which happens very
quickly), we arrive at the image, which is capable of being revived on
subsequent occasions with very little change. True memory, as opposed to
"immediate memory," applies only to events sufficiently distant to
have come to an end of the period of fading. Such events, if they are
represented by anything present, can only be represented by images, not
by those intermediate stages, between sensations and images, which occur
during the period of fading.

* See Semon, "Die mnemischen Empfindungen," chap. vi.

Immediate memory is important both because it provides experience of
succession, and because it bridges the gulf between sensations and
the images which are their copies. But it is now time to resume the
consideration of true memory.

Suppose you ask me what I ate for breakfast this morning. Suppose,
further, that I have not thought about my breakfast in the meantime, and
that I did not, while I was eating it, put into words what it consisted
of. In this case my recollection will be true memory, not habit-memory.
The process of remembering will consist of calling up images of my
breakfast, which will come to me with a feeling of belief such as
distinguishes memory-images from mere imagination-images. Or sometimes
words may come without the intermediary of images; but in this case
equally the feeling of belief is essential.

Let us omit from our consideration, for the present, the memories
in which words replace images. These are always, I think, really
habit-memories, the memories that use images being the typical true
memories.

Memory-images and imagination-images do not differ in their intrinsic
qualities, so far as we can discover. They differ by the fact that
the images that constitute memories, unlike those that constitute
imagination, are accompanied by a feeling of belief which may be
expressed in the words "this happened." The mere occurrence of images,
without this feeling of belief, constitutes imagination; it is the
elem