VI.

EACH of these kinds of memory, has its peculiar advantages CHA P. and inconveniences, which the dread of being tedious induces me to leave to the investigation of my readers.

SECTION III.

Of the Improvement of Memory.

Analysis of the Principles

on which the Culture of Memory depends.

THE improvement of which the mind is fufceptible by culture, is more remarkable, perhaps, in the cafe of Memory, than in that of any other of our faculties. The fact has been often taken notice of in general terms; but I am doubtful if the particular mode in which culture operates on this part of our constitution, has been yet examined by philofophers with the attention which it deserves.

Or one fort of culture, indeed, of which Memory is fufceptible in a very ftriking degree, no explanation can be given; I mean the improvement which the original faculty acquires by mere exercife; or in other words, the tendency which practice has to increase our natural facility of affociation. This effect of practice upon the memory, feems to be an ultimate law of our nature, or rather to be a particular instance of that general law, that all our powers, both of body and mind, may be strengthened, by applying them to their proper purposes.

4

BESIDES,

1

CHAP.

VI.

BESIDES, however, the improvement which Memory admits of, in confequence of the effects of exercise on the original faculty, it may be greatly aided in its operations, by those expedients which reafon and experience fuggeft for employing it to the beft advantage. Thefe expedients furnish a curious fubject of philofophical examination: perhaps, too, the inquiry may not be altogether without ufe; for, although our principal resources for affifting the memory be fuggefted by nature, yet it is reasonable to think, that in this, as in fimilar cafes, by following out fyftematically the hints which the fuggefts to us, a farther preparation may be made for our intellectual improvement.

EVERY perfon must have remarked, in entering upon any new species of study, the difficulty of treasuring up in the memory its elementary principles; and the growing facility which he acquires in this refpect, as his knowledge becomes more extenfive. By analifing the different caufes which concur in producing this facility, we may, perhaps, be led to fome conclufions which may admit of a practical application.

1. IN every science, the ideas about which it is peculiarly converfant, are connected together by fome particular affociating principle; in one fcience, for example, by affociations founded on the relation of caufe and effect; in another, by affociations founded on the necessary relations of mathematical truths; in a third, on affociations founded on contiguity in place or time. Hence one caufe of the gradual improvement of memory with respect to the familiar objects of our knowledge; for whatever be the prevailing affociating principle among the ideas about

425

which we are habitually occupied, it must neceffarily acquire CHA P. additional ftrength from our favourite ftudy.

2. IN proportion as a fcience becomes more familiar to us, we acquire a greater command of attention with respect to the objects about which it is converfant; for the information which we already poffefs, gives us an intereft in every new truth, and every new fact which have any relation to it. In most cases, our habits of inattention may be traced to a want of curiosity; and therefore fuch habits are to be corrected, not by endeavouring to force the attention in particular inftances, but by gradually learning to place the ideas which we wish to remember, in an interefting point of view.

3. WHEN we first enter on any new literary pursuit, we are unable to make a proper difcrimination in point of utility and importance, among the ideas which are prefented to us; and by attempting to grasp at every thing, we fail in making those moderate acquifitions which are fuited to the limited powers of the human mind. As our information extends, our selection becomes more judicious and more confined; and our knowledge of useful and connected truths advances rapidly, from our ceafing to distract the attention with fuch as are detached and infignificant.

4. EVERY object of our knowledge is related to a variety of others; and may be presented to the thoughts, fometimes by one principle of affociation, and fometimes by another. In proportion, therefore, to the multiplication of mutual relations among our

VI.

CHA P. ideas, (which is the natural refult of growing information, and,

VI.

in particular, of habits of philosophical study,) the greater will be the number of occafions on which they will recur to the recollection, and the firmer will be the root which each idea, in particular, will take in the memory.

It follows, too, from this observation, that the facility of retaining a new fact, or a new idea, will depend on the number of relations which it bears to the former objects of our knowledge; and, on the other hand, that every fuch acquifition, fo far from loading the memory, gives us a firmer hold of all that part of our previous information, with which it is in any degree connected.

Ir may not, perhaps, be improper to take this opportunity of obferving, although the remark be not immediately connected with our present fubject, that the acceffion made to the stock of our knowledge, by the new facts and ideas which we acquire, is not to be estimated merely by the number of thefe facts and ideas confidered individually; but by the number of relations which they bear to one another, and to all the different particulars which were previously in the mind; for, " new know

ledge," (as Mr. Maclaurin has well remarked *,) "does not "confist so much in our having access to a new object, as in comparing it with others already known, obferving its relations to them, or difcerning what it has in common with "them, and wherein their disparity confifts: and, therefore,

See the Conclufion of his View of NEWTON'S Discoveries.

427

VI.

our knowledge is vaftly greater than the fum of what all its CHA P. objects feparately could afford; and when a new object comes within our reach, the addition to our knowledge is the greater, the more we already know; fo that it increases, not as the new objects increase, but in a much higher pro'portion."

5. IN the laft place, the natural powers of Memory are, in the cafe of the philofopher, greatly aided by his peculiar habits of claffification and arrangement. As this is by far the most important improvement of which Memory is fufceptible, I shall confider it more particularly than any of the others I have mentioned.

THE advantages which the memory derives from a proper claffification of our ideas, may be best conceived by attending to its effects in enabling us to conduct, with ease, the common bufinefs of life. In what inextricable confufion would the lawyer or the merchant be immediately involved, if he were to depofit, in his cabinet, promifcuoufly, the various written documents which daily and hourly pass through his hands? Nor could this confufion be prevented by the natural powers of memory, however vigorous they might happen to be. By a proper distribution of thefe documents, and a judicious reference of them to a few general titles, a very ordinary memory is enabled to accomplish more, than the most retentive, unassisted by method. We know, with certainty, where to find any article we may have occafion for, if it be in our poffeffion; and 3 1 2

the