Forms and fallacies of memory in 19th-century psychology: Henry Holland, William Carpenter and Frances Power Cobbe.

Abstract

Mid-19th-century mental scientists were intrigued by the phenomenon of memory, and self-reflexively applied associationist ideas to emerging concepts of unconscious mental reflex to explore it. They emphasized that the 'consciousness of agreement' between present and past states of consciousness was the basis of a coherent, well-managed identity. But they were also fascinated by forms of latent or unconscious memory, and they recognised that the analysis of memory lay at the heart of the study of consciousness itself, and the interconnections between the brain as a set of physiological processes and the mind responding to them. Here I contrast how two key figures in the emerging field of mental science --Henry Holland and William Carpenter--explore the interconnections between the act of recollection and the working of memory, and how their analysis of the limits of memory is taken up by Frances Power Cobbe.