THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 79, No.

4, March 2006

Printed in U.S.A.

Collective Memory before

and after Halbwachs
by Nicolas Russell

N 1925, MAURICE HALBWACHS coined the term mmoire collective in his

book Les Cadres sociaux de la mmoire. Some two decades later in his
posthumously published book La Mmoire collective, he suggests that the
concept itself was also something new: On nest pas encore habitu
parler de la mmoire dun groupe, mme par mtaphore. Il semble
quune telle facult ne puisse exister et durer que dans la mesure o elle
est lie un corps ou un cerveau individuel (97). Halbwachs certainly
did propose a new way of thinking about memory, but his claim that his
contemporaries were not yet used to attributing memories to groups is
surprising. Actually, we can trace the notion of group memory to the earliest texts in Western civilization, in Archaic Greek culture.1 The term collective memory appeared only recently, but the concept has existed for
many centuries.
This article will compare Halbwachss innovative concept of collective
memory and its legacy to the concept of collective memory in French
texts from the late sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century,
which for the purposes of this article I will call prehalbwachsian or early
modern collective memory.2 To be sure, there have been many different
articulations of this concept both before and after Halbwachss work on
collective memory, but a broad comparison of the most typical articulations and the most salient characteristics of the concept before and after
Halbwachs reveals a general shift in the way that collective memory has
been conceptualized in French literary and intellectual discourse over
this period.
Since collective memory is a term that is understood and defined in many
different ways, I would like to start with a broad working definition,
which will serve as a framework within which we can compare different
conceptions of what collective memory is. This definition, adapted from
Paul Ricurs book La Mmoire, lhistoire, loubli (15263), makes a simple
distinction between collective and personal memory. Ricur observes
that in everyday discourse memories can be attributed to one person or
to more than one person: we can say my memory of a given event
(attributing a memory to one person) or we can say our memory of a

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given event (attributing a memory to more than one person). Memories

attributed to a single person, according to this definition, are personal
memories; whereas, memories attributed to more than one person are
collective memories. This definition is frustratingly simple: it gives us no
information about the relationship between individual and collective
memory or about how collective memory functions; but it has the advantage of accounting for a wide range of theories and articulations of collective memory, including the two that we will analyze here.
Despite the absence of the term mmoire collective before Halbwachss
work, we find many references in pre-twentieth-century French texts to
memories attributed to groups, both explicitly and implicitly.3 Expressions such as la mmoire des hommes and la mmoire de la postrit explicitly
attribute memories to groups, whereas expressions such as une mmoire
ternelle and une mmoire perptuelle implicitly attribute memories to
groups, since they suggest that a memory can pass from one generation
to another and that a memory can outlive any one individual human
being. Prehalbwachsian texts often refer to group memories simply by
using the word mmoire, as we see in this example from the first edition
of the Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise: La memoire de ses beaux faits
ne mourra jamais (38). These expressions and uses of the word mmoire
demonstrate that well before Halbwachss lifetime memory was often
conceived of as existing independently of an individual brain; granted,
the early modern articulation of collective memory is quite different from
the concept Halbwachs describes.
A passage from Jean-Baptiste dArgenss Lettres juives, published in
1736, illustrates the nature of the early modern collective memory referred
to in the preceding examples. In dArgenss satirical epistolary novel, the
character Isaac Onis states, Ce sont les grandes actions, ou les ouvrages
desprit, qui nous assurent de vivre ternellement dans la mmoire des
hommes (308). This statement illustrates the nature of early modern collective memory in several ways. First of all, it describes the dynamics of
collective memory as dependent on the thing that is remembered and
does not suggest that they are dependent on the group that remembers. It
is the content of collective memory that determines its shape, and this
content consists primarily of people and their endeavors. DArgens also
suggests that only certain kinds of people and only certain kinds of material inscribe themselves eternally in the collective memory of humanity.
One gains entry into collective memory through great actions or creative
endeavors. This notion of collective memory relates closely to heroic or poetic glory. Throughout the Western tradition, the heroes and artists of the
past have had a special claim to collective memory. Part of the rationale
for this selection of material for collective memory was the idea that exemplary figures from the past should serve as models for ethical behavior.4 The works of great artists, especially poets, also had a claim to
collective memory for both ethical and aesthetic reasons.5 According to

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this view, individuals inscribe themselves into collective memory through

exceptional ethical and aesthetic accomplishments.
We should also note that this collective memory grants a kind of eternal life to the people and actions it preserves, another long-standing
topos in the Western tradition. Memory and immortality were closely
linked in the Archaic Greek worldview.6 Of course, well before the early
modern period, the immortality gained through collective memory became a metaphor: heroes and artists did not themselves become immortal, but rather it was the knowledge of their name, their reputation, and
their works that lived on in perpetuity.7 The idea that collective memory
can grant immortality to a person or at least to a persons name and reputation is significant, because to say that a memory is immortal is to give it
a certain independence from the contingencies of human existence.
Personal memory is ephemeral: it is subject to forgetting and ultimately
to death. This early modern collective memory, on the other hand, transcends individual human temporality. It derives its immortality from its
inherent ethical or aesthetic value, which naturally draws posterity to it
and thus sustains it.
A final observation that we can make about this passage is that it does
not attribute memories to any specific group. It is not at all clear who will
be remembering these exemplary figures or actions, and since these memories are eternal or in a sense timeless, they exist beyond the scope of an
individuals or a single groups lived experience. These memories seem
to be independent of any specific group, even if they depend on multiple
individual memories for their existence, because no specific group is ever
tied to them. The expression vivre dans la mmoire des hommes, for
example, attributes memories in a vague way to humanity. It most likely
does not imply that every single living person will preserve a given
memory in his or her mind but rather that a given memory will continue
to exist in some unspecified part of humanity.
From a practical point of view, this memory does have a certain independence from the vicissitudes of human existence, since much of it is
preserved in books. Montaigne, for example, suggests that students can
learn a great deal by associating with great men, especially the great men
of the past who live on in the memory of books: En cette practique
des hommes, jentends y comprendre, et principalement, ceux qui ne vivent quen la mmoire des livres. Il practiquera, par le moyen des histoires, ces grandes ames des meilleurs sicles (156). Ronsard often
associates collective memory with books, as well: Les livres ont Mars
les armes fait porter, / Le trident Neptune, et la foudre Jupiter, / Les
ailes Mercure, et leur belle memoire / Sans les vers periroit au fond de
londe noire (88). The memory referred to in these examples has a special status: it rises above the uncertainties of the human condition, existing in an unchanging eternal realm, at least in theory.
We encounter this notion often in early modern literary and intellectual

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discourse. The treatment of honor and memory in the following passage

from Corneilles Cid, for example, resembles dozens of others in classical
tragedy. The question of how Rodrigue will be remembered by posterity
is central to the dilemma that he faces:
Allons, mon me, et puisquil faut mourir,
Mourons du moins sans offenser Chimne.
Mourir sans tirer ma raison!
Rechercher un trpas si mortel ma gloire!
Endurer que lEspagne impute ma mmoire
Davoir mal soutenu lhonneur de ma maison,
[...]
Allons mon bras, du moins sauvons lhonneur,
Puisque aussi bien il faut perdre Chimne. (721)

In this passage, it is Rodrigues reputation that is at stake. Glory, as we

have seen, is one dimension of early modern collective memory. In Rousseaus Discours sur les sciences et les arts we encounter another dimension
of this concept: the exemplary figure as a model for ethical behavior.
Rousseau describes Socrates as the ideal model for ethical education.
Socrates left no written doctrine for his disciples to follow but only the
memory of his example. Rousseau claims that Socrates would not have
acted any differently had he lived in the age of the Enlightenment, suggesting that example, rather than the doctrines of the sciences, was still in
his time the ideal path to virtue:
Croit-on que sil ressuscitoit parmi nous, nos Savans et nos Artistes lui
feroient changer davis? Non, Messieurs, cet homme juste continueroit
de mpriser nos vaines Sciences; il naideroit point grossir cette foule
de livres dont on nous inonde de toutes parts, et ne laisseroit, comme il a
fait, pour tout precepte ses disciples et nos Neveux, que lexemple et
la mmoire de sa vertu. Cest ainsi quil est beau dinstruire les hommes!
(1314)

The notion of collective memory continues to play an important role in

poetry throughout this period as well. Chnier makes collective memory
and poetic glory a central part of his ars poetica in LInvention. This
passage suggests that poetry must follow the example of Virgil and Homer. It depends on the memory of these two great poets, but it must also
aspire to inscribe itself into collective memory. Thus, for Chnier, collective memory is both the origin and the end of poetry:
O quainsi parmi nous des esprits inventeurs
De Virgile et dHomre atteignent les hauteurs,
Sachent dans la mmoire avoir comme eux un temple,
Et sans suivre leurs pas imiter leur exemple. (130)

These various examples illustrate the most typical articulations of group

memory in the early modern period. Of course, not all examples follow

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the pattern described above,8 but the various characteristics described

here are those that we find most frequently during this period, and they
are closely interrelated: they all contribute to a sense that this collective
memory is self-sustaining and that it is not subject to the transitory
nature of human existence and human memory. Its inherent value gives
it a certain independence from the particular nature of the various
groups that preserve it. The fact that it is eternal and that it is preserved
by posterity or humanity distances it from the contingency of human
temporality.
Halbwachss theoretical treatment of collective memory differs significantly from the concept just presented. For Halbwachs, the question of
who remembers and how that happens is central. In the second chapter
of La Mmoire collective, entitled Mmoire collective et mmoire individuelle,9 Halbwachs argues that all remembering relies on the dynamics
of groups such as families, social classes, and religious communities. An
individuals social interactions with the members of his or her group
determine how one remembers experiences from the past and what it is
that he or she remembers: Nos souvenirs demeurent collectifs, et ils
nous sont rappels par les autres, alors mme quil sagit dvnements
auxquels nous seul avons t ml, et dobjets que nous seul avons vus
(52). According to Halbwachs, groups reconstruct their past experiences
collectively, and so even though an individual does have a particular
perspective on this group reconstruction of the past, he or she does not
have an independent memory of the past:
Il est difficile de trouver des souvenirs qui nous reportent un moment
o nos sensations ntaient que le reflet des objets extrieurs, o nous ny
mlions aucune des images, aucune des penses par lesquelles nous
nous rattachions aux hommes et aux groupes qui nous entouraient. Si
nous ne nous rappelons pas notre premire enfance, cest quen effet nos
impressions ne peuvent sattacher aucun support, tant que nous ne
sommes pas encore un tre social. (67)

For Halbwachs, it is the particular nature of the group and its collective
experience that shapes its collective memory. The particular nature of a
groups experience creates a shared memory and identity. As a result,
every group has its own collective memory and that collective memory
differs from the collective memory of other groups.
Halbwachs also focuses on a certain kind of memory in his analysis of
this phenomenon. He focuses on memories of lived experiences or
moments from the past, such as a childs first day at school, a trip to
London, or the experience of reading a particular book. Halbwachs explicitly describes collective memory as memory of lived experience when he
explains the difference between collective memory and history. The criterion that Halbwachs uses to distinguish collective memory from history is
the detail and richness with which one can reconstruct an event or a scene
from the past. History books present the past in a schematic way that does

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797

not resemble the memory of past lived experience: Cest en ce sens que
lhistoire vcue se distingue de lhistoire crite: elle a tout ce quil faut
pour constituer un cadre vivant et naturel sur quoi une pense peut sappuyer pour conserver et retrouver limage de son pass (118).
Halbwachs makes a distinction between knowing a list of dates, which
he would call history or abstract knowledge of the past, and reconstruction of past lived experience, which he would call memory. According to
this description, collective memory is intimately tied to a particular
group, since it is the product of the groups own past experiences.
Halbwachss focus on past lived experience and his description of collective memory as part of a groups identity are interrelated, because personal identity is closely tied to this particular kind of memory. According
to Halbwachs, a group becomes conscious of its identity through an
awareness of its own past: Le groupe, au moment o il envisage son
pass, sent bien quil est rest le mme et prend conscience de son identit travers le temps (139). A groups identity and existence depends
on this particular collective memory of its own past: when the nature of a
groups collective memory changes, the group itself ceases to exist. The
members of that group form a new group with a new identity:
Par dfinition, [la mmoire collective] ne dpasse pas les limites de ce
groupe. Lorsquune priode cesse dintresser la priode qui suit, ce
nest pas un mme groupe qui oublie une partie de son pass: il y a, en
ralit, deux groupes qui se succdent. (13132)

According to this theory, an individual can be a member of more than one

group and so can have access to a number of different collective memories; but it is not possible to separate a groups collective memory from the
group, its past experiences, and its identity. These three concepts are
interdependent.
As was the case with the prehalbwachsian memory described above,
the various aspects of Halbwachss theory of collective memory form a
coherent system; however, the nature of these two systems is quite different. These differences stem in part from the fact that each of these views
takes a different kind of personal memory as a model in conceptualizing
collective remembering. In the past thirty years, cognitive scientists have
developed a distinction between three types of personal memory: procedural, semantic, and episodic. The terms themselves and the intellectual
work that went into formulating them are quite recent; but very similar
distinctions appear in texts throughout the Western tradition. We find
this distinction in Augustine, Aquinas, and Bergson, for example.10 Procedural memory involves the ability to repeat a certain performance. It is
the kind of memory used to develop skills, such as swimming. Unlike the
other two types of memory mentioned above, it is non-conceptual: it
does not involve producing mental representations of ideas or events but
rather the ability to repeat a procedure or develop a skill.

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We will return to procedural memory briefly at the end of this article. At

the moment, what concerns us is rather the two other types of memory:
semantic and episodic. Semantic memory involves the storage of abstract
information and facts. It preserves information about abstract concepts
independent of past time or past experience. Remembering the Pythagorean theorem would be a good example of semantic memory: ones memory of the Pythagorean theorem is usually not tied to remembering personal past experience. It is not a memory of some moment in time that the
individual experienced, and it need not have any relation to the memories
of an individuals past experiences in order to be remembered. Another
example of semantic memory would be remembering the glorious actions
of Alexander the Great. I can remember these actions, but they are not
part of my past experience: I did not see him perform them. Episodic
memory, on the contrary, allows individuals to remember past personal
experience and to mentally reconstruct past time.11 Remembering the
weekend one spent in London, the various details of the trip, and their
temporal relations to one another within that experience would be an example of episodic memory. Episodic memory is highly personal and subjective: I cannot remember your trip to London; I can only remember
mine. Episodic memory cannot be passed from one person to another. By
contrast, semantic memory is objective: anyone who studies the Pythagorean theorem or reads about the glorious acts of Alexander the Great can
remember that abstract information.
The early modern collective memory I have described greatly resembles semantic memory. Anyone can remember it: it stands on its own and
is not connected by nature to any particular individuals or groups
memory or identity. It functions, not as experience, but rather as abstract
information. In fact, as we have seen, this memory has a certain independence from the individuals or groups that participate in its preservation.
Halbwachss collective memory, on the contrary, resembles episodic
memory. It belongs to particular groups, takes lived experience as its object, is part of that groups identity, and cannot be transferred from one
group to another. These are two very different ways of thinking about
collective memory.
Each of these views privileges a different kind of memory. In a sense,
this is not surprising, because even though the distinction between the
two has existed for many centuries, their relative importance in describing human psychology has changed. Aquinas in his Aristotelian analysis
of the soul places semantic memory in the intellective soul, that is to say
in the mind, and he places episodic memory in the sensitive soul, the part
of the soul that controls bodily functions (Summa Theologiae 16571). Thus
Aquinas sees semantic memory as the most particularly human form
of memory or most dignified form of memory. Bergson on the other
hand, who was Halbwachss professor for several years, places episodic
memory in the mind and semantic memory in the body, thus privileging

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memory of lived experience rather than memory of abstract information

(8396). In general, along with Bergson and Halbwachs, the twentieth
century gave more attention to episodic memory in its attempts to understand what is special about humanity.12 Thus we can see both halbwachsian and prehalbwachsian collective memory as products of contemporary thinking about memory more generally. Ancient, medieval, and
early modern interest in semantic memory shaped pre-twentieth-century
notions of collective memory; just as the early twentieth-century interest
in episodic memory shaped Halbwachss thinking.
Interest in collective memory in the past twenty-five years has been
greatly influenced by Halbwachss work and the attention that it gives to
episodic memory. Pierre Noras entry on collective memory in La Nouvelle
Histoire (1978) helped popularize the concept in historiography, and it presents a halbwachsian view: En premire approximation, la mmoire collective est le souvenir, ou lensemble de souvenirs, conscients ou non, dune
exprience vcue et/ou mythifie par une collectivit vivante de lidentit
de laquelle le sentiment du pass fait partie intgrante (398). Noras emphasis on group identity and lived experience are halbwachsian, and like
Halbwachs, he makes a distinction between historical memory and collective memory. Philippe Joutard, writing in the Dictionnaire des sciences
historiques (1986), also emphasizes group identity and lived experience,
though he does broaden the concept of collective memory as well. These
descriptions of collective memory draw on the subjective nature of episodic
memory as a model, as did Halbwachs.
Other recent articulations of group memory present it differently. Work
on orality and literacy over the past several decades, such as that of Andr
Leroi-Gourhan, has included abstract information and practical knowledge
(that is to say, semantic memory) as part of collective memory.13 Roger
Bastide offers a definition of collective memory that focuses on the social
processes that produce it, without narrowly defining the nature of its content (94). Jacques Le Goff analyzes the social construction and transmission
of memory from a number of different perspectives in his Histoire et
Mmoire. Still, it seems that recent work primarily uses episodic memory as
a model in its descriptions of collective memory.
Marie-Claire Lavabre is right in saying that the late twentieth-century
understanding of collective memory has moved away from Halbwachss
theory in important ways: recent articulations abandon Halbwachss attempts to question the very notion of personal memory and to redefine
memory as an entirely collective phenomenon. However, recent articulations have not for the most part abandoned Halbwachss episodic model
for group memory. Lavabre identifies two primary uses of the term collective memory in late-twentieth-century usage: Dans son usage le plus
courant, la mmoire collective renvoie la mmoire partage dun vnement pass vcu en commun par une collectivit, large ou troite, nation,
village, ou famille, par exemple (49). This definition describes collective

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memory as lived experience belonging to a specific group, two traits of

episodic memory. Lavabres second definition also takes episodic memory as a model, but in a less direct way:
Le second emploi, galement largement partag, spcifie le plus souvent
la mmoire collective comme mmoire nationale, telle que la constitueraient manuels scolaires, commmorations et monuments. La dfinition repose alors, pour lessentiel, non sur le souvenir, saisi par la
mdiation du tmoignage, mais sur la distinction dj aperue de lhistoire et de la mmoire, lune et lautre penses laune de la nation, la
premire relevant du savoir historique, la seconde relevant de lidentit,
de la permanence ou de la rcurrence des mythes fondateurs. (49)

In this definition, we find Halbwachss distinction between history and

memory. History is just a set of facts (semantic memory); whereas, memory (episodic memory) has a subjective dimension: it creates a sense of
self that exists or persists through time, an identity. Lavabres second
definition does not limit collective memory to lived experience but still
relates it to a sense of identity and continuity, which are products of episodic memory.
Whether we are studying twentieth- or pre-twentieth-century societies,
it is important to think critically about the use of collective memory as an
analytical tool. Halbwachss episodic model of collective memory grew
out of early twentieth-century French intellectual discourse. This makes
it a promising tool for studying conceptions of the past in twentieth-century France, though other models of collective memory might also prove
very powerful in exploring such questions. Pre-twentieth-century France,
on the other hand, did not in general use episodic memory as a model for
conceptualizing group memory, and so we should carefully consider
whether Halbwachss theory of collective memory can be helpful in studying these societies. We should pay close attention to the cultural and conceptual framework within which these societies were operating when
describing the collective memories they produced.
As Patrick Geary has argued, the practices used by societies in preserving the past and their particular attitudes toward that past influence the
content and nature of their collective memories (916). Halbwachss collective memory is closely related to group identity; and as Richard Handler
has shown, we cannot assume that our modern concept of identity is useful in describing pre-twentieth-century Western culture (27, 3438). This is
not to say that cross-cultural theories of collective memory are never useful. Other cross-cultural theoretical treatments of collective memory might
prove useful where Halbwachss do not. Paul Connerton, for example, has
developed and used a procedural model of social memory to analyze several cultures from different historical periods and different areas in the
world, including early modern France (1340). Connerton studies early

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modern etiquette (8288) and the rituals and dress of French society during the French Revolution (613), for example, as instances of procedural
social memory. This collective memory consists of shared social practices
rather than mental representations.
In order to understand how groups remember collectively, we need
both cross-cultural and culturally specific concepts of collective memory.
The semantic model of collective memory described earlier does not tell
the whole story of early modern collective memory, but to judge from
dictionaries and texts of the period, this was the most typical articulation
of group memory in early modern France. It must have shaped the ways
that these societies remembered and their attitudes toward their memories. Despite the fact that this early modern concept of collective memory
surely does not account for all of the different forms of group memory
that existed during that period, it shows us that the early modern understanding of memory is quite different from our own.
SMITH COLLEGE, NORTHAMPTON (MA)
Notes
See Jean-Pierre Vernant, 10918; Marcel Dtienne, 1527; Michle Simondon, 12227.
I have limited my analysis of prehalbwachsian collective memory to texts dating from
the late sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, because interest in and
descriptions of personal memory started to shift in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and these changes have a direct impact on Halbwachss theory of collective memory.
For details on the shifting interest in and descriptions of memory from the early modern to
the modern period, see below.
My analysis of the prehalbwachsian concept of collective memory started with a lexicographical survey using a selection of dictionaries dating from the seventeenth to nineteenth
centuries and the ARTFL database. For a complete list of these lexicographical sources, see
the bibliography below.
3
I use the word group here to refer simply to more than one person and not to any kind
of social unit, such as a family, community, or nation. As will become apparent, this is an
important distinction to make when comparing halbwachsian and prehalbwachsian collective memory.
4
On the relationship between memory and heroic glory, see Dtienne, 2127. The heroic
figures immortalized by epic poetry served as models (exempla or paradeigmata) for ethical
behavior; see Werner Jaeger, vol. 1, 2841. On the evolution in the concept and use of exemplum from Roman Antiquity to the Middle Ages and beyond, see Donald Early, 3043; JeanMichel David; Jacques Berlioz; and Karlheinz Stierle.
5
The concept of poetic glory and its relation to memory was codified by Pindar and
Horaces odes, see especially Pindar, Pythian 6, and Horace, Odes 3.30.
6
On the relationship between memory and immortality in Archaic Greece, see Simondon,
12227, and Vernant, 117 ff.
7
Some early modern writers took this notion of immortality more seriously than others;
on Ronsards conception of glory and poetic immortality, for example, see Franois
Joukovsky, 20410.
8
In addition to the ethical criterion for inclusion in collective memory, Montaigne, for
example, gives two others: chance (62728) and strangeness (276). Despite the fact that such
1
2

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descriptions of collective memorys dynamics are quite interesting in their own right, they
are not part of the most typical articulations of the period.
9
In previous editions of La Mmoire collective, this was the first chapter. See Grard
Namers preface for a brief account of this books publishing history, 712.
10
Endel Tulving developed the distinction between semantic and episodic memory thirty
years ago (Elements of Episodic Memory, esp. 3457), and since that time, many cognitive scientists have adopted and developed this terminology. Similar distinctions were proposed
in twentieth-century philosophy of mind and epistemology, some of which Tulving drew
on. See, for example, Bertrand Russell, 15787; Gilbert Ryle, 27279; A. J. Ayer, 14998; and
Norman Malcolm, 20321. For earlier examples of this distinction, see Augustine,
Confessions 10.8-12; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a.79.6; and Henri Bergson, Matire
et mmoire, 8396. Douglas Herrmann lists a number of other texts in which this distinction
appears.
11
For an explanation of the three memory systems discussed here, see Endel Tulving,
How Many Memory Systems Are There? For a comparison of episodic and semantic
memory, see Tulving, Episodic and Semantic Memory. These distinctions are sometimes
referred to using other terms: on implicit versus explicit memory, see Daniel Schacter; on
the terms cognitive memory and habit memory, see Paul Connerton, 2225.
12
Interest in episodic memory grew starting in the late-eighteenth century and continued
to grow through the nineteenth century. See Jean-Franois Perrin, 8391, and Christopher
Salvesen, 3945. William James was perhaps the first psychologist or philosopher to explicitly single out memories of past experiences as the most important type of memory. He
actually claims that this is the only type of memory that truly deserves to be called memory
(612). James did not consider this to be an innovative view on memory: he claims that his
description was commonly found among philosophers and quotes passages from Christian
Wolffs Psychologia empirica (1732) and James Mills Analysis of the Phenomenon of the Human
Mind (1829) to illustrate his claim; but if we look at the entire sections devoted to memory
in these two books, we find that Wolff focuses primarily on semantic forms of memory and
that Mill treats semantic and episodic memory as two different types of memory, without
privileging one or the other.
13
See Le Geste et la parole II: la mmoire et les rythmes, chapters 7 and 9.

Works Cited
Lexicographical sources
Acadmie franaise. Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise. 7e d. Vol. 2. Paris: F. Didot, 1878.
. Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise. 6e d. Vol. 2. Paris: F. Didot frres, 1835.
. Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise. 5e d. Vol. 2. Paris: J. J. Smitz, 1798.
. Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise. 4e d. Vol. 2. Paris: La Veuve de B. Brunet, 1762.
. Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise. 3e d. Vol. 2. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Coignard,
1740.
. Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise. 2e d. Vol. 2. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Coignard,
1718.
. Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise. 1re d. Vol. 2. Paris: chez Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1694.
ARTFL. Robert Morrissey ed. <http://humanities.uchicago.edu/ARTFL> consulted August,
2003.
Bescherelle, M. Dictionnaire national; ou, Dictionnaire universel de la langue franaise. Paris:
Garnier, 1856.
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