In some it would seem that the memory is impaired in consequence of a diminution of the power of attention; in others, that the power of recollection is disturbed in consequence of a derangement of that part of the constitution on which the association of ideas depends. The decay of memory which is the common effect of age, seems to arise from the former of these causes. It is probable, that, as we advance in years, the capacity of attention is weakened by some physical change in the constitution; but it is also reasonable to think, that it loses its vigour partly from the effect which the decay of our sensibility, and the extinction of our passions have, in diminishing the interest which we feel in the common occurrences of life. That no derangement takes place, in ordinary cases, in that part of the constitution on which the association of ideas depends, appears from the distinct and circumstantial recollec tion which old men retain of the transactions of their youth.* In some diseases, this part of the constitution is evidently affected. A stroke of the palsy has been known, (while it did not destroy the power of speech,) to render the patient incapable of recollecting the names of the most familiar objects. What is still more remarkable, the name of an object has been known to suggest the idea of it as formerly, although the sight of the object ceased to suggest the name.

In so far as this decay of memory which old age brings along with it is a necessary consequence of a physical change in the constitution, or a necessary consequence of a diminution of sensibility, it is the part of a wise man to subinit cheerfully to the lot of his nature. But it is not unreasonable to think, that something may be done by our own efforts, to obviate the inconveniences which commonly result from it. If individuals, who, in the early part of life, have weak memories, are sometimes able to remedy this defect, by a greater attention to arrangement in their transactions, and to classification among their ideas, than is necessary to the bulk of mankind, might it not be possible, in the same way, to ward off, at least to a certain degree, the encroachments which time makes on this faculty? The few old men who continue in the active scenes of life to the last moment, it has been often remarked, complain, in general much less of a want of recollection, than their cotemporaries. This is undoubtedly owing partly to the effect which the pursuits of business must necessarily have, in keeping alive the power of attention. But it is probably owing also to new habits of arrangement, which the mind gradually and insensibly forms, from the experience of its growing infirmities. The apparent revival of memory in old men, after a temporary decline, (which is a case that happens not unfrequently,) seems to favour this supposition.

One old man, I have, myself, had the good fortune to know, who, after a long, an active, and an honourable life, having began to feel

*Swift somewhere expresses his surprise, that old men should remember their anecdotes so distinctly, and should, notwithstanding, have so little memory as to tell the same story twice in the course of the same conversation; and a similar remark is made by Montaigne, in one of his Essays; "Surtout les Vieillards sont dangereux à qui la souvenance des choses passées demeure, et ont perdu la souvenance de leurs redites."-Liv. i. chap. ix. (Des Menteurs.)

The fact seems to be, that all their old ideas remain in the mind, connected as formerly by the different associating principles; but that the power of attention to new ideas and new occurrences is impaired.

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.

SECTION II.

Of the Varieties of Memory in different Individuals.

Ir 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 in possible 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 ia guage, 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 co- duct 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 of selection among the various objects and events presented to their curiosity.

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 susceptibility and readiness are both connected with a facility of associating ideas, according to their more obvious relations; whereas retentiveness, or tenaciousness of memory, depends principally on what is seldom united with this facility, a disposition to system and to philosophical arrangement. These observations it will be necessary to illustrate more particularly.

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.

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 a 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; in as much 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 a priori, which he has no opportunity of ascertaining by observation.

It follows farther 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, 300ner or later, familiarize his mind completely with his situation A capacity for system and for philosephical arrangement, unless it has been carefully cultivated in early life, is an acquisition which can scarcely ever 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.

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 gen eral 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 leads 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 which they

were at first acquired. The case is very different with a man whose ideas, presented to him at first by accident, have been afterwards philosophically arranged and referred to general principles. When he wishes to recollect them, some time and reflection will, frequently, be necessary to enable him to do so; but the information which he has once completely acquired, continues, in general, to be an acquisition for life; or if, accidentally, any article of it should be lost, it may often be recovered by a process of reasoning.

Something very similar to this happens in the study of languages. A person who acquires a foreign language merely by the ear, and without any knowledge of its principles, commonly speaks it while he remains in the country where it is spoken, with more readiness and fluency, than one who has studied it grammatically; but in the course of a few years absence, he finds himself almost as ignorant of it as before he acquired it. A language of which we once understand the principles thoroughly, it is hardly possible to lose by disuse.

A philosophical arrangement of our ideas is attended with another very important advantage. In a mind where the prevailing principles of association are founded on casual relations among the various objects of its knowledge, the thoughts must necessarily succeed each other in a very irregular and disorderly manner, and the occasions on which they present themselves, will be determined merely by accident. They will often occur, when they cannot be employed to any purpose; and will remain concealed from our view, when the recollection of them might be useful. They cannot therefore be considered as under our own proper command. But in the case of a philosopher, how slow soever he may be in the recollection of his ideas, he knows always where he is to search for them, so as to bring them all to bear on their proper object. When he wishes to avail himself of his past experience, or of his former conclusions, the occasion itself summons up every thought in his mind which the occasion requires. Or if he is called upon to exert his powers of invention and of discovery, the materials of both are always at hand, and are presented to his view with such a degree of connexion and arrangement, as may enable him to trace, with ease, their various relations. How much invention depends upon a patient and attentive examination of our ideas, in order to discover the less obvious relations which subsist among them, I had occasion to show, at some length, in a former Chapter.

The remarks which have been now made, are sufficient to illustrate the advantages which the philosopher derives in the pursuits of science, from that sort of systematical memory which his habits of arrangement give him. It may however be doubted, whether such habits be equally favourable to a talent for agreeable conversation, at least, for that lively, varied, and unstudied conversation, which forms the principal charm of a promiscuous society. The conversation which pleases generally, must umite the recommendations of quickness, of ease, and of variety: and in all these three respects, that of the philosopher is apt to be deficient. It is deficient in quickness, because his ideas are connected by relations which occur only to an attentive and collected mind. It is deficient in ease, because these relations are not the casual and obvious ones, by which ideas are associated in ordinary memories, but the slow discoveries of patient, and often painful, exertion. As the ideas, too,

which he associates together, are commonly of the same class, or at least are referred to the same general principles, he is in danger of becoming tedious, by indulging himself in long and systematical discourses; while another, possessed of the most inferior accomplishments, by laying his mind completely open to impressions from without, and by accommodating continually the course of his own ideas, not only to the ideas which are started by his companions, but to every trifling and unexpected accident that may occur to give them a new direction, is the life and soul of every society into which he enters. Even the anecdotes which the philosopher has collected, however agreeable they may be in themselves, are seldom introduced by him into conversation with that unstudied but happy propriety, which we admire in men of the world, whose facts are not referred to general principles, but are suggested to their recollection by the familiar topics and occurrences of ordinary life. Nor is it the imputation of tediousness merely, to which the systematical thinker must submit from common observers. It is but rarely possible to explain completely, in a promiscuous society, all the various parts of the most simple theory; and as nothing appears weaker or more absurd than a theory which is partially stated, it frequently happens, that men of ingenuity, by attempting it, sink, in the vulgar apprehension, below the level of ordinary understandings. "Theoriarum vires" (says Lord Bacon)" in apta et se mutuo sustinente partium harmonia, et "quadam in orbem demonstratione, consistunt, ideoque per partes tra"ditæ infirmæ sunt."

Before leaving the subject of Casual Memory, it may not be improper to add, that how much soever it may disqualify for systematical speculation, there is a species of loose and rainbling composition, to which it is peculiarly favourable. With such performances it is often pleasant to unbend the mind in solitude, when we are more in the humour for conversation, than for connected thinking Montaigne is unquestionably at the head of this class of authors. What, indeed, are his Essays," (to adopt his own account of them,) "but grotesque pieces of "patch-work, put together without any certain figure; or any order, "connexion, or proportion, but what is accidental "*

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It is, however, curious, that in coursequence of the predominance in his mind of this species of Memory above every other, he is forced to acknowledge his total want of that command over his ideas, which can only be founded on habits of systematical arrangement. As the passage is extremely characteristical of the author, and affords a striking confirmation of some of the preceding observations, I shall give it in his own words. "Je ne me tiens pas bien en ma possession et disposition: le "hazard y a plus de droit que moy: l'occasion, la compagnie, le branle "même de ma voix tire plus de mon esprit, que je n'y trouve lors que "je sonde et employe à parte moy. Ceci m'advient aussi, que je ne me "trouve pas où je me cherche; et me trouve plus par rencontre, que "par l'inquisition de mon jugment.t

The differences which I have now pointed out between philosophical and casual Memory, constitute the most remarkable of all the varieties which the minds of different individuals, considered in respect of this *Liv. i. chap. 27. Liv. i. chap. 10. (Du parler prompt ou tardif.)