The most obvious sense in which an earlier stage may be said to live on in a later one is found in the case of memory. Almost every one would admit that what is remembered has not utterly ceased to be, and that thus in a certain sense it may be said that the earlier stages, in so far as they are recalled, live on in the later. But the appeal to the fact of memory is far from giving us a solution of our problem. For in the first place, if no more of my past is preserved for me than my memory can illuminate, it is probable that the larger part of it is gone forever. And in the second place, quite apart from this consideration, it is obvious that the mere fact of memory can furnish no justification of the belief in the supreme importance of the later stages. The fact that a man happens to remember his former intellectual or moral deficiencies in no way provides a rational basis for our belief that these deficiencies are atoned for by his later attainment. Nor are we any better off in the case of past affective states. On the contrary, in this case it even seems at first glance as if the assertion that memory gives existence to the past might furnish an argument against the belief in question rather than for it. The memory of former pain, one might urge, may mar a present joy, and the recollection of bygone happiness may soothe a present sorrow; but if this is so, the affective value of the earlier seems to cancel that of the later in much the same way in which we have said that the value of the later cancels that of the earlier. So it might seem at first thought; but second thought shows that this is not a true statement of the case. For the affective tone and the affective value of any memory belong to the moment of the remembering, not to the moment of the experience remembered.[1] It is obvious then that the fact of memory does not indicate that the value of the earlier can in any degree cancel that of the later. But it is equally obvious that it cannot justify our belief that the value of the later cancels that of the earlier.
- ↑ This is borne out by the reflection that "a sorrow's crown of sorrow" may consist in "remembering happier things," and that similarly the recollection of a past painful experience may serve to enhance a present joy. It is borne out also by the fact that a pseudo-memory—a supposed recollection of a pleasant or painful experience that never actually occurred—would have the same influence upon the affective tone of the present consciousness that a true memory would have.
