One old man, I have, myself, had the good fortune to know, who, after a long, an active, and an honorable life, having begun to feel some of the usual effects of advanced years, has been able to find resources in his own sagacity, against most of the inconveniences with which they are commonly attended; and who, by watching his gradual decline with the cool eye of an indifferent observer, and employing his ingenuity to retard its progress, has converted even the infirmities of age into a source of philosophical amusement.

II. Of the varieties of Memory in different individuals. It is generally supposed, that, of all our faculties, Memory is that which nature has bestowed in the most unequal degrees on different individuals; and it is far from being impossible, that this opinion may be well founded. If, however, we consider, that there is scarcely any man who has not Memory sufficient to learn the use of language, and to learn to recognize, at the first glance, the appearances of an infinite number of familiar objects; besides acquiring such an acquaintance with the laws of nature, and the ordinary course of human affairs, as is necessary for directing his conduct in life; we shall be satisfied that the original disparities among men, in this respect, are by no means so immense as they seem to be at first view; and that much is to be ascribed to different habits of attention, and to a difference

fore represents certain veterans as fit subjects for the Comic Muse, he alludes only to those weak and credulous dotards, whose infirmities of mind are not so much the natural effects of their years, as the consequence of suffering their faculties to lie dormant and unexerted in a slothful and spiritless inactivity."- Melmoth's Translation of Cicero on Old Age.

Among the practices to which Cato had recourse for exercising his memory, he mentions his observance of the Pythagorean rule, in recalling every night, all that he had said, or done, or heard the preceding day:— And, perhaps, few rules could be prescribed of greater efficacy for fixing in the mind the various ideas which pass under its review, or for giving it a ready and practical command of them. Indeed, this habit of frequently reviewing the information we possess, either in our solitary meditations, or (which is still better) in our conversations with others, is the most effectual of all the helps to memory that can possibly be suggested. But these remarks properly belong to another branch of our subject.

of selection among the various objects and events presented to their curiosity.

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It is worthy of remark, also, that those individuals who possess unusual powers of Memory with respect to any one class of objects, are commonly as remarkably deficient in some of the other applications of that faculty. I knew a person who, though completely ignorant of Latin, was able to repeat over thirty or forty lines of Virgil, after having heard them once read to him, not indeed with perfect exactness, but with such a degree of resemblance as (all circumstances considered) was truly astonishing; yet this person (who was in the condition of a servant) was singularly deficient in Memory in all cases in which that faculty is of real practical utility. He was noted in every family in which he had been employed for habits of forgetfulness; and could scarcely deliver an ordinary message without committing some blunder.

A similar observation, I can almost venture to say, will be found to apply to by far the greater number of those in whom this faculty seems to exhibit a preternatural or anomalous degree of force. The varieties of memory are indeed wonderful; but they ought not to be confounded with inequalities of memory. One man is distinguished by a power of recollecting names, and dates, and genealogies; a second, by the multiplicity of speculations, and of general conclusions, treasured up in his intellect; a third, by the facility with which words and combinations of words (the ipsissima verba of a speaker or of an author) seem to lay hold of his mind; a fourth, by the quickness with which he seizes and appropriates the sense and meaning of an author, while the phraseology and style seem altogether to escape his notice; a fifth, by his Memory for poetry; a sixth, by his Memory for music; a seventh, by his Memory for architecture, statuary, and painting, and all the other objects of taste which are addressed to the eye. All these different powers seem miraculous to those who do not possess them; and, as they are apt to be supposed, by superficial observers, to be commonly united in the same individuals, they contribute much to encourage those exaggerated estimates concerning the original inequalities among men in

respect to this faculty, which I am now endeavoring to reduce to their just standard.

The characteristics of a good Memory. As the great purpose to which this faculty is subservient, is to enable us to collect, and to retain, for the future regulation of our conduct, the results of our past experience; it is evident that the degree of perfection which it attains in the case of different persons, must vary, first, with the facility of making the original acquisition; secondly, with the permanence of the acquisition; and thirdly, with the quickness or readiness with which the individual is able, on particular occasions, to apply it to use. The qualities therefore, of a good Memory are, in the first place, to be susceptible; secondly, to be retentive; and thirdly, to be ready.

It is but rarely that these three qualities are united in the same person. We often, indeed, meet with a Memory which is at once susceptible and ready; but I doubt much, if such memories be commonly very retentive. For the same set of habits which are favorable to the two first qualities, are adverse to the third. Those individuals, for example, who, with a view to conversation, make a constant business of informing themselves with respect to the popular topics of the day, or of turning, over the ephemeral publications subservient to the amusement or to the politics of the times, are naturally led to cultivate a susceptibility and readiness of memory, but have no inducement to aim at that permanent retention of selected ideas, which enables the scientific student to combine the most remote materials, and to concentrate, at will, on a particular object, all the scattered lights of his experience, and of his reflections. Such men (as far as my observation has reached) seldom possess a familiar or correct acquaintance even with those classical remains of our own earlier writers, which have ceased to furnish topics of discourse to the circles of fashion. A stream of novelties is perpetually passing through their minds; and the faint impressions which it leaves, soon vanish to make way for others, like the traces which the ebbing tide leaves upon the sand. Nor is this all. In proportion as the associating principles which lay the foundation of susceptibility and readiness predominate in the

Memory, those which form the basis of our more solid and lasting acquisitions may be expected to be weakened, as a natural consequence of the general laws of our intellectual frame. This last observation it will be necessary to illustrate more particularly.

Various modes of association in different minds. I have already remarked, in treating of a different subject, that the bulk of mankind, being but little accustomed to reflect and to generalize, associate their ideas chiefly according to their more obvious relations; those, for example, of resemblance and of analogy; and above all, according to the casual relations arising from contiguity in time and place; whereas, in the mind of a philosopher, ideas are commonly associated according to those relations which are brought to light in consequence of particular efforts of attention; such as the relations of cause and effect, or of premises and conclusion. This difference in the modes of association of these two classes of men, is the foundation of some very striking diversities between them in respect of intellectual character.

Differences of Memory between philosophers and the vulgar. – In the first place, in consequence of the nature of the relations which connect ideas together in the mind of the philosopher, it must necessarily happen, that when he has occasion to apply to use his acquired knowledge, time and reflection will be requisite to enable him to recollect it. In the case of those, on the other hand, who have not been accustomed to scientific pursuits, as their ideas are connected together according to the most obvious relations, when any one idea of a class is presented to the mind, it is immediately followed by the others, which succeed each other spontaneously, according to the laws of association. In managing, therefore, the little details of some subaltern employment, in which all that is required is knowledge of forms, and a disposition to observe them, the want of a systematical genius is an important advantage; because this want renders the mind peculiarly susceptible of habits, and allows the train of its ideas to accommodate itself perfectly to the daily and hourly occurrences of its situation. But if, in this respect, men of no

general principles have an advantage over the philosopher, they fall greatly below him in another point of view; inasmuch as all the information which they possess, must necessarily be limited by their own proper experience; whereas the philosopher, who is accustomed to refer every thing to general principles, is not only enabled, by means of these, to arrange the facts which experience has taught him, but by reasoning from his principles synthetically, has it often in his power to determine facts à priori, which he has no opportunity of ascertaining by

observation.

It follows further, from the foregoing principles, that the intellectual defects of the philosopher, are of a much more corrigible nature, than those of the mere man of detail. If the former is thrown by accident into a scene of business, more time will perhaps be necessary to qualify him for it, than would be requisite for the generality of mankind; but time and experience will infallibly, sooner or later, familiarize his mind completely with his situation. A capacity for system and for philosophical arrangement, unless it has been carefully cultivated in early life, is an acquisition which can scarcely be made afterwards; and, therefore, the defects which I already mentioned, as connected with early and constant habits of business, adopted from imitation, and undirected by theory, may, when once these habits are confirmed, be pronounced to be incurable.

How to retain knowledge permanently. I am also inclined. to believe, both from a theoretical view of the subject, and from my own observations, as far as they have reached, that if we wish to fix the particulars of our knowledge very permanently in the Memory, the most effectual way of doing it, is to refer them to general principles. Ideas which are connected together merely by casual relations, present themselves with readiness to the mind, so long as we are forced by the habits of our situation to apply them daily to use; but when a change of circumstances lead us to vary the objects of our attention, we find our old ideas gradually to escape from the recollection; and if it should happen that they escape from it altogether, the only method of recovering them, is by renewing those studies by