MEMORY
MEMORY. This is one name for the great and distinctive fact of mind, namely, the power of retaining impressions made through the senses, and of reviving them at after-times without the originals, and by mental forces alone. The conditions of this power have been already stated (seeASSOCIATION OF IDEAS, HABIT).We shall advert here to some of the arts and devices that have been propounded from time to time, for aiding our recollection in the various kinds of knowledge.
Perhaps the commonest remark on this subject is, that memory depends on Attention, or that the more we attend to a thing, the better we remember it. This is true with reference to any special acquisition : if we direct the forces of the mind upon one point, we shall necessarily give that point the benefit of the concentration, but this does not affect memory as a whole : we merely take power from one thing to give it to another. Memory at large can be improved only by increasing the vigor and freshness of the nervous system, and by avoiding all occasions of exhaustion, undue excitement, and other causes of nervous waste. We may do this by general constitutional means, or by stimulating the brain at the expense of the other functions; this last method is, however, no economy in the end. Every man’s system has a certain fund of plastic power, which may be husbanded, but cannot be materially increased on the whole; the power being greatest in early life, and diminishing with advancing years. If it is strongly drawn upon for one class of acquisitions, we must not expect it to be of equal avail for others.
But there may be ways and means of presenting and arranging the matters of our knowledge, so as to make them retained at a smaller cost of the plastic power of the brain. These include the arts of teaching, expounding, and educating in general, and also certain more special devices commonly known as the arts of Memory, or Mnemonics. A brief account of these last may be given here.
The oldest method of artificial memory is said to have been invented by the Greek poet Simonides, who lived in the 5th c. B.C. It is named the topical, or locality memory, from the employment of known places as the medium of recollection. As given by Quintilian, it is in substance as follows : You choose a very spacious and diversely arranged place—a large house, for instance, divided into several apartments. You impress on the mind with care whatever is remarkable in it; so that the mind may run through all the parts without hesitation and delay. Then, if you have to remember a series of ideas, you place the first in the hall, the second in the parlor, and so on with the rest, going over the windows, the chambers, to the statues and several objects. Then when you wish to recall the succession, you commence going over the house in the order fixed, and in connection with each apartment you will find the idea that you attached to it. The principle of the method is, that it is more easy for the mind to associate a thought with a well-known place, than to associate the same thought with the next thought without any medium whatever. Orators are said to have used the method for remembering their speeches. The method has been extensively taught by writers on mnemonics in modern times. Probably, for temporary efforts of memory, it may be of some vise; the doubtful point always is, whether the machinery of such systems is not more cumbrous than helpful.
Much labor has been spent on mnemonic devices for assisting in the recollection of numbers, one of the hardest efforts of memory. The principal method for this purpose is to reduce the numbers to words, by assigning a letter for each of the ten ciphers. This method was reduced to system by Gregor von Feinaigle, a German monk, and was taught by him in various parts of Europe, and finally published in 1812. He made a careful choice of the letters for representing the several figures, having in view some association between the connected couple, for more easy recollection. For the figure 1, he used the letter t, as being’ a single stroke; for 2, n, as being two strokes combined; 3, m, three strokes; 4, r, which is found in the word denoting ‘ four’ in the European languages; 5, I, from the Roman numeral L, signifying fifty, or five tens; 6, d, because the written d resembles 6 reversed; 7, k, because k resembles two 7’s joined at top; in place of this figure is also used on occasion g, q, c (hard) as all belonging to the guttural class of k; 8, &, from a certain amount of similarity, also w, for the same reason, and sometimes v, or the half w; 9 h p, from similarity, and also/, both of which are united in the word puff, which proceeds from a. pipe, like a 9 figure; 0 is s, x, or z, because it resembles in its roundness a grindstone, which gives out a hissing noise like these letters. The letters of the alphabet not employed in representing figures are to be used in combination with these, but with the understanding that they have no meaning of themselves. Suppose, then, that a number is given, say 547; 5 is l,4 is r, 7 is k; which makes I, r, k; among these letters we insert an unmeaning vowel, as a, to make up an intelligible word, LaRK, which remains in the memory far more easily than the numerical form. In making up the words by the insertion of the unmeaning or dumb letters, we should also have regard to some connection with the subject that the number refers to, as, for example, in chronology. Thus, America was discovered in 1492; the letters here are t, r, p, n; they may be made into To RapiNe, because that discovery led to rapine by the first Spaniards. There is, of course, great room for ingenuity in the formation of these suggestive words. Also, a series of numbers may be joined together in some intelligible sentence, which can be easily remembered. Such combinations, however, should be formed once for all, in the case of any important series of numbers, as the dates of our sovereigns and other historical epochs. It is too much to expect pupils to construct these felicitous combinations. Feinaigle combined the topical method with the above plan in fixing a succession of numbers in the memory.
Dr. Edward Pick, a recent lecturer on mnemonics, has called attention to a peculiar mode of arranging lists of words that are to be fixed in the memory, as the exceptions to grammar rules, &c. He proposes to choose out such words as have some kind of connection with one another, and to arrange them in a series, so that each shall have a meaning in common with the next, or be contrasted with it, or be related to it by any other bond of association- Thus, he takes the French irregular verbs, which are usually arranged in the alphabetical order (which is itself, however, a mnemonic help), and puts them into the following series, where a certain connection of meaning exists between every two: as sew, sit down, move, go, go away, send, follow, run, shun, &c. In a case where two words have no mutual suggestiveness, he proposes to find out some intermediate idea that would bring about a connection. Thus, if the words were garden, hair, watchman, philosophy, he would interpolate other words; thus—garden, plant, hair of a plant—hair; hair, bonnet, watchman; watchman, wake, study—philosophy; and so on. Of course, the previous method is the one that should be aimed at, as the new words are to a certain extent a burden to the mind. Dr. Pick further suggests as a practical hint, in committing to memory, that the attention should be concentrated successively upon each two consecutive members of the series; the mind should pause upon the first and the second, until they have been made coherent; then abandoning the first, it should in the same way attend to the second and the third, the third and the fourth, &c. Of course, if every successive link is in that way made sufficiently strong, the whole chain is secure.
There are various examples of effective mnemonic combinations. The whole doctrine of the syllogism (q. v-) is contained in five lines of Latin verse; as regards amount of meaning in small compass, these lines have never been surpassed, if, indeed, they have been equalled. The versification of the rules of the Latin grammar has the same end in view, but all that is gained by this is merely the help from the association of the sounds of the verse in the ear; in comparison with a topical memory, this might be called a rhythmical memory. The well-known rule for the number of days in the different months of the year (’ Thirty days hath September, ‘ &c.) is an instance of mnemonic verse.