DEFECTS OF MEMORY.

THE faculty of remembering is not one of the higher intellectual powers or functions. Animals far below man in the scale of intelligence exhibit a capacity for recollecting their associations with places, persons, and events after a long interval of time has elapsed; and even idiots, with slow and imperfect comprehension, are not unfrequently seen to perform what must, in their condition, be regarded as feats of memory. Nevertheless loss or serious impairment of the faculty will produce grave mental disability; and when either of these evils occurs in the case of an individual who has previously given no evidence of deficiency or defect, the change may reveal ground for grave apprehension, and, in every case, must create anxiety to discover the cause.

Memory, using the term in its popular signification, is made up of two powers or faculties-that of fixing or retaining a subject-thought in the mind, and that of recalling it at will. It is a common expe

rience to feel conscious of "knowing" a thing-for example, the name of a person or place, the whereabouts of a missing article, the date or order of sequence of an event-but to be unable to recall the information in detail. Either of these subsidiary powers may be at fault in a case of "loss of memory;" and it is of the highest practical moment to ascertain which of the two is defective, not only with a view to repair, if that should be possible, but because a clue may be discovered to the precise nature and cause of the malady.

The retention or fixing of ideas is very much a matter of habit. There are, doubtless, differences as to the depth and clearness of the original perception which will affect the quality of the impression. Some persons do not receive an idea as rapidly as others, and many who display the greatest celerity of apprehension seem to rest content with simply taking up the idea for a moment, and let it drop instantly afterwards. Those who exhibit this peculiarity do not, in fact, appropriate the object, and convert it into a subject; they seize on it as a porter grasps a package with which he has no concern-by the cord or corners, or in any way. most convenient. Some persons "learn" by ear; it is the jingle of word-sounds they retain, not their meaning. Children who have a special readiness

for picking up verses are seldom really quick in study, or retentive. Others acquire information by the eye; anything they can picture or dispose in a particular order or place-for example, a squareis appropriated. Such minds are generally endowed with a lively perception of form and proportion. A third class of learners are dependent on the power of connecting scraps of knowledge for their retention; they seem to be perpetually making a piece of patchwork, and anything that can be tacked into a notch, or on to the extremity, of the work in hand can be received, while what is not capable of being so placed is sacrificed, however valuable. All these and many similar methods are peculiarities in the way of receiving impressions or ideas; but, speaking generally, they do no more than lodge the subject in the outer chamber of the mind, from which it may be swept by the first rough wind, or roughly ejected on the slightest internal commotion.

When therefore the memory becomes a blank or seems to have suddenly shifted, or lost, its cargo, it is necessary, in the absence of any significant symptom of disease, to inquire whether what has happened is not simply the discharge of useless lumber. This sort of experience occurs not uncommonly just as a youth has completed what is, play

fully or stupidly, called his "education;" and many a poor fellow has been driven to distraction, hounded on by professional harpies, with the dread that he is labouring under some terrible and lifeblighting defect. What has happened is the sudden heeling over of a deck-laden craft, with the discharge of her laboriously collected but badly stowed cargo into the sea. If the vessel rights herself quickly, it is no bad thing to have got rid of the encumbrance, although it may be provoking to reflect that it is too late to put back into port and load again. The only expedient is to fish up some of the more useful articles and stow them in the hold. A "break-down" of this nature happens every now and again, and will occur while the practice of "cramming" boys at school and at college for "competitive" examinations continues to find favour. It was a socially and mentally mischievous thought that notion of "competitive tests;" and among the sufferers are not only the many youths and young men who experience the mindpanic to which we are alluding, but the multitude of overtaxed and weakened brains that are abandoned as incapable-among them some of the best for real work-by the competitive teachers and trainers of the young, who conform their educational methods to the competitive spirit and fashion of the day.

When "loss of memory" occurs in the manner indicated, whenever it happens soon after leaving school, on the completion of any great effort, or at the moment when the mind is for the first time brought face to face with the real business of life, instead of giving way to crazy alarm the victim of this misfortune should set to work to repair the loss caused by the accident, not by repeating the errors of a faulty educational process, but by developing his faculty of retention by honest and patient work in a new and healthy direction. In short, one half the so-called cases of "loss of memory" are simply the break-down of a system of training which is unnatural. The circumstance that the faculty of remembering seems to be itself impaired by the catastrophe is not in the least surprising, because, in addition to the immediate effects of the shock, there is the discovery that the power of retention is in truth wanting. The real "faculty of memory" has not been developed by the training adopted, and the untrained mind has to be cultivated anew. Only what has been thoroughly learned can be perfectly remembered, and no other process than that which brings the natural power of retention into exercise can perform the true functions of memory, or is worthy to be so called.

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