634. But on account of the many experiences of suffering the individual has been through in past terrestrial lives, he has acquired a corresponding new ability. This ability is what we would call "imagination" and it is solely founded on, or built up of, "memories" from former terrestrial lives or existences. And the "memories" which, in this way, have made the deepest mark on the individual's consciousness or imagination are naturally those from the sufferings and torments he has been through. But the "memories" of these differ from the memories of his present terrestrial life in that the latter appear mainly in his day-consciousness with fully realistic details, which are quite lacking in the "memories" from past terrestrial lives.
      What is it then, that is left in that being's consciousness of "memories" from a distant past? It is his "ability to recognize". Memory's major role in an individual's sensing is, as we know, that it enables him to "recognize". And therefore we will notice what a large role is played by that "ability to recognize" in all forms of sensing. For when confronted with an experience of which there has been no previous example, we would call the experience of that situation "something new". This "new experience" is completely incomprehensible to someone in exactly the same measure as he lacks a previous example of a like nature in his consciousness. And he speculates as to what it could possibly be. But that speculation is actually a mobilization of his memory-material.
      If, among this material, one now finds some memories the details of which are analogous with some of the details in the new experience just encountered, then one will automatically understand these details, while one will not make sense of the details which one does not find anything analogous to in one's consciousness. The solution of the riddle can only be achieved with purely practical investigation whereby one can acquire knowledge about the nature and field of activity of unfamiliar details. This new knowledge will then become a "recollection" which will enable one to recognize the same situation on meeting it again, without having to repeat the purely practical investigation. When, for instance, we see a railway train, it is, of course, not necessary, in a practical way, to investigate it in order to establish that it really is a train. Our ability to "recognize" in this area is so strong that merely the sound of the train is enough to tell us immediately what we have before us. But if one now imagines that a pygmy from the depths of an African jungle is suddenly confronted with such a product of civilization, this phenomenon would be totally incomprehensible for him. He has, namely, not experienced any precedent in what is, for him, a new situation. Only when he has become familiar with the nature and purpose of the train, has he gained the experiences or "memories" by which he can recognize it if he should happen to meet one again. Indeed, the memories give him so great an extension of his sensory field, that it is not even necessary for the train to have exactly the same details or construction for it to be understood or recognised as a train. This also applies to ourselves. If one day we see a long row of truck-like objects coupled together travelling along a rail-track or railway – indeed, there may not even be any lines on that rail-track, and the train could be without engine, without funnel or smoke – our "memories" of a steam-engine will nonetheless give us quite a reliable idea that it is some kind of train we have there before us in a new situation. But as with the example of the train, so also with all other phenomena in the experience of life. It is not so much the outer details of a phenomenon in the literal sense, but the principle or the essence within those details that we store in our memory as a means of recognizing a new meeting with the phenomenon in question. This phenomenon therefore, may even be altered to a certain degree, and we will still recognize it for what it is, just as we could in the case of the train. A civilized person distinguishes easily between a human product and a natural phenomenon, even though its specific nature or purpose is, of course, not immediately appraised.