 CHAPTER 3
Memory is accumulated genius.-- James Russell Lowell. Memory is the permanence of perception.--Latson. THE value of any man to himself and to the world at large depends in great degree upon his memory--upon his ability to recall and to use at any desired moment the recollection of what he has seen, heard, experienced, or thought. Memory is really the stock in trade of our mental life. Our perceptions bring to us a vast mass of experiences--things that we have seen, heard, touched, tasted, and smelled--our thoughts and experiences. But these things are valuable only when they are held in the memory. For, unless they are remembered they cannot be used. Most of us have forgotten much more than we remember. We have studied – at school, at college, at home. We have read many, many books. We have had any number of interesting and instructive conversations. We have, some of us, traveled and seen many rare and curious things. And of it all, how much is in our possession at the moment--how much is at our ready command? Not one tenth—probably not one hundredth. Imagine the enormous loss to us. Imagine the waste of time and effort. Imagine what it would mean to you or to me if, instead of possessing a memory which preserved for us only one hundredth of our experiences, we could remember and apply at will one half, three quarters, four fifths of what we have been through. "But that is impossible," you say. Allow me to contradict you. There have been many cases of recollective power which prove otherwise. The most striking of these was Antonio Magliabecchi, who lived in Italy in the seventeenth century. From being a mere servant he rose until he became the librarian of Cosmo III., the Grand Duke of Turin. Magliabecchi's memory was prodigious; nothing that he had ever seen or heard or experienced was ever lost to him. It is said that after one reading he could repeat verbatim any book in the library of his patron, who at this time owned one of the largest collections of the day. "Impossible," you say. Not at all. I know a man who can neither read nor write except to sign his name. He is an Irishman who began life in this country with a pick and a shovel. Today he is a man of wealth and power, financially and politically. He is a contractor, real estate operator, stock speculator, and is interested in several other lines of business. He keeps no books and employs no bookkeepers. All his values, dates, and figures are carried in his head; and at any moment he can tell to a cent how he stands with any of his business associates. Among the ancient Greeks it was not at all unusual to find an educated patrician who could recite verbatim the entire poems of Homer--the Iliad and the Odyssey. Cyrus the Great could call by name any man of his army, numbering one million. Napoleon had power of memory almost as remarkable. Gladstone, when presenting to Parliament his yearly budget, would speak for several hours, presenting monetary details running into many million pounds without one glance at the written report lying on the table before him. Robert G. Ingersoll, that great jurist and brilliant orator, would attend a trial lasting many days without taking any notes. Yet in his speeches to the jury, lasting sometimes many hours, he never forgot or missed a point of the opposition. And so I might go on. Scott, Milton, Shakespeare, Washington, Clay, Webster--all these were remarkable for their power of memory. In fact it is safe to say that every man who has ever attained a high place among men has been possessed of a retentive and exact memory. So we can see that, as an asset in practical life, whether one's ambition be literary, artistic, scientific, or merely the transferring of dollars from some one's pocket into his own--as a practical asset, power of memory is of the highest conceivable value. A good memory will give you an incalculable advantage over others--an advantage which no other mental qualification will balance. Memory Training Not Difficult. The mind is like potter's clay--it is easily molded. And there is no direction in which development is so easy as in the department of memory. Even a few days of practice along the lines which I shall suggest will generally make a noticeable difference, and two or three months of conscientious training will often be sufficient to metamorphose a poor, weak, and inexact memory into one that is tenacious and reliable. The Nature of Memory. In the introductory article of this series I promised you that I would not be theoretical or descriptive, but that I would make these chapters purely practical. Now, I intend to keep my word; but, in order to make what follows more intelligible and helpful, it will be well just here to stop for a moment and make a few brief statements as to the nature of memory. In the first place, I may say at once that, in reality, there is no such thing as "the memory." This sounds very much like an old-fashioned Irish "bull"; but it is merely a statement of sober fact. There is no memory: there are only memories. When I say that I am not merely juggling with terms; the difference is important and fundamental. I mean just this: Memory is not, as we used to be taught many years ago, a "faculty of the soul"--a little section of the brain to be developed all by itself. Not at all. Memory is merely a term used to describe the way that certain acts or thoughts tend to remain in the mind. And every act or thought has its own separate little memory. Some acts or thoughts we remember easily; other acts or thoughts we remember with difficulty, if at all. If some one were to describe to me the details of a case of insanity, symptoms, history, treatment, I should remember it a long time; because, as a physician, I am interested in psychiatry. But, although I listened patiently a day or two ago to a long account of the Wall Street adventures of an acquaintance of mine, I am quite sure that I could give no intelligent account thereof, because I know little and care less about such matters. In the same way some people have good memory for names, but cannot recall faces, others can remember dates, but have no power to recollect names. And so on. The point is just this: We remember best the things in which we have most interest, the things with which we are most familiar. The little memory of any act or thought may stick in the mind or it may not--whether it is or is not remembered depends mainly upon the amount of attention we have given to that act or that thought at the time it was occurring. If, therefore, we would have fine powers of memory--if we desire a large supply of clear, vivid memories all under instant command, it is essential that we should pay to the thing we wish to remember strict attention and careful study. And this is really the great secret of what is called "good memory." In other words, a memory is simply a permanency, a recurrence, of a perception; and that memory is clear and complete just in proportion as the perception was clear and complete. If, on an introduction to a stranger, I scarcely glance at his face and pay little or no attention to the name, I am not likely to remember either the man or the name. If, on the other hand, I look closely at him and attend carefully to the name, I shall be likely to remember it, perhaps for years. I, myself, frequently have presented to me twenty-five or thirty strangers in the course of an evening; and I am usually able afterward to recall all or nearly all of their names and faces. This is merely the result of a habit of attention to the matter. |
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