L E X I C O N   T E C H N I C U M   A R T I C L E

Memory

(in Vol. 1, 1704 and 1708)

MEMORY, is that Faculty of the Soul, which repeats things perceived by former Sensations; or is the calling to mind of known and past things; as when we conceive Heat or Light, Yellow or Sweet, &c. the Object being removed; and is as it were the Store-house of our Idaea’s.

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L E X I C O N   T E C H N I C U M   A R T I C L E

Memory

(in Vol. 2, 1710)

MEMORY. Dr. Hook in his Op. Posthum. p. 139, 140, &c. supposes Memory to be as much an Organ as the Eye, Ear, Nose, &c. and to have its Situation somewhere near the place where the Nerves from the other Senses concur and meet; and he thinks, that the Memory being both improveable and impairable, appears from thence to be plainly Organical; and that it is a kind of Repository of Ideas formed partly by our Senses, and chiefly by the Soul her self.

  

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S U P P L E M E N T   A R T I C L E

Memory

(in 1744 volume)

MEMORY, is a distinct Faculty of the Mind of Man, very different from Perception, Judgment and Reasoning, and its other Powers. Then we are said to remember any Thing, when the Idea of it arises in the Mind with a Consciousness at the same time that we have had this Idea before. Our Memory is our natural Power of retaining what we learn, and of recalling it on every Occasion. Therefore we can never be said to remember any thing, whether it be Ideas or Propositions, Words or Things, Notions or Arguments, of which we have not had some former Idea or Perception either by Sense or Imagination, Thought or Reflection; but whatsoever we learn from Observation, Books, or Conversation, &c. it must all be laid up and preserved in the Memory, if we would make it really useful.

So necessary and so excellent a Faculty is the Memory of Man, that all other Abilities of the Mind borrow from hence their Beauty and Perfection; for the other Capacities of the Soul are almost useless without this. To what Purpose are all our Labours in Knowledge and Wisdom, if we want Memory to preserve and use what we have acquired? What signify all other intellectual or spiritual Improvements, if they are lost as soon as they are obtained? ’Tis Memory alone that enriches the Mind, by preferring what our Labour and Industry daily collect. In a Word, there can be neither Knowledge, nor Arts, nor Sciences without Memory; nor can there be any Improvement of Mankind in Virtue or Morals, or the Practice of Religion, without the Assistance and Influence of this Power. Without Memory the Soul of Man would be but a poor, destitute, naked Being, with an everlasting Blank spread over it, except the fleeting Ideas of the present Moment.

MEMORY is very useful to those who speak, as well as to those who learn. It assists the Teacher and the Orator, as well as the Scholar or the Hearer. The best Speeches and Instructions are almost lost, if those who hear them immediately forget them. And those who are called to speak in publick are much better heard and accepted, when they can deliver their Discourse by the Help of a lively Genius and a ready Memory, than when they are forced to read all that they would communicate to their Hearers. Reading is certainly a heavier Way of the Conveyance of our Sentiments; and there are very few meer Readers who have the Felicity of penetrating the Soul and awakening the Passions of those who hear, by such a Grace and Power of Oratory, as the Man who seems to talk every Word from his very Heart, and pours out the Riches of his own Knowledge upon the People round about him, by the Help of a free and Copious Memory. This gives Life and Spirit to every thing that is spoken, and has a natural Tendency to make a deeper Impression on the Minds of Men: It awakens the dullest Spirits, causes them to receive a Discourse with more Affection and Pleasure, and adds a singular Grace and Excellency both to the Person and his Oration.

A good Judgment and a good Memory are very different Qualifications. A Person may have a very strong, capacious and retentive Memory, where the Judgment is very poor and weak; as sometimes it happens in those who are but one Degree above an Idiot, who have manifested an amazing Strength and Extent of Memory, but have hardly been able to join or disjoin two or three Ideas in a wise and happy Manner to a solid rational Proposition.

There have been Instances of others who have had but a very tolerable Power of Memory, yet their Judgment has been of a much superior Degree, just and wise, solid and excellent.

’Tis often found that a fine Genius has but a feeble Memory: For where the Genius is bright, and the Imagination vivid, the Power of Memory may be too much neglected, and lose its Improvement. An active Fancy readily wanders over a Multitude of Objects, and is continually entertaining itself with new flying Images; it runs (n. pag.) through a Number of new Scenes or new Pages with Pleasure, but without due Attention, and seldom suffers itself to dwell long enough upon any one of them to make a deep Impression thereof upon the Mind, and commit it to lasting Remembrance. This is one plain and obvious Reason why there are some Persons of very bright Parts and active Spirits who have but short and narrow Powers of Remembrance; for having Riches of their own they are not sollicitous to borrow.

And as such a quick and various Fancy and Invention may be some Hindrance to the Attention and Memory, so a Mind of a good retentive Ability, and which is ever crowding its Memory with Things which it learns and reads continually, may prevent, restrain, and cramp the Invention itself.

Though the Memory be a natural Faculty of the Mind of Man, and belongs to Spirits which are not incarnate, yet it is greatly assisted or hindered, and much diversify’d by the Brain or the animal Nature to which the Soul is united in this present State. But what Part of the Brain that is, wherein the Images of Things lie treasured up, is very hard for us to determine with Certainty. It is most probable that those very Fibres, Ports or Traces of the Brain, which assist at the first Idea or Perception of any Object, are the same which assist also at the Recollection of it: And then it will follow that the Memory has no special Part of the Brain devoted to its own Service, but uses all those Parts in general which subserve our Sensations as well as our thinking and reasoning Powers.

As the Memory grows and improves in young Persons from their Childhood, and decays in old Age, so it may be increased by Art and Liberty and proper Exercise, or it may be injured and quite spoiled by Sloth, or by a Disease, or a Stroke on the Head. There are some Reasonings on this Subject which make it evident that the Goodness of a Memory depends in a great Degree upon the Consistence and the Temperature of that Part of the Brain which is appointed to assist the Exercise of all our sensible and intellectual Faculties.

So for Instance, in Children; they perceive and forget a hundred Things in an Hour; the Brain is so soft that it receives immediately all Impressions like Water or liquid Mud, and retains scarce any of them: All the Traces, Forms or Images which are drawn there, are immediately effaced or closed up again, as though you wrote with your Finger on the Surface of a River, or on a Vessel of Oil.

On the contrary, in old Age, Men have a very feeble Remembrance of Things that were done of late, i.e. the same Day, or Week, or Year; the Brain is grown so hard that the present Images or Strokes make little or no Impression, and therefore they immediately vanish.

In the middle Stage of Life, or it may be from fifteen or fifty Years of Age the Memory is generally in its happiest State, the Brain easily receives and long retains the Images and Traces which are impress’d upon it, and the natural Spirits are more active to range these little infinite unknown Figures of Things in their proper Cells or Cavities, to preserve and recollect them.

Whatsoever therefore keeps the Brain in its best Temper and Consistence may be a Help to preserve the Memory: But Excess of Wine or Luxury of any Kind, as well as Execess in the Studies of Learning, or the Businesses of Life, may overwhelm the Memory by overstraining and weakening the Fibres of the Brain, overwasting the Spirits, injuring the true Consistence of that tender Substance, and confounding the Images that are laid up there.

We have very surprizing Instances of long Memory. Seneca says of himself, that he was able to repeat 2000 Words upon once hearing them, each in its Order, though they had no Dependence or Connection on each other. Pliny says, that Cyrus knew every Soldier in his Army by Name; and L Scipio, all the People of Rome. Carneades could repeat any Volume found in the Libraries, as readily as if he were reading. Dr. Wallis tells us, that without the Assistance of Pen and Ink he was able, in the Dark, to perform arithmetical Operations, as Multiplication, Division, Extraction of Roots, &c. to forty Places.

There are several artificial Helps to aid and strengthen the Memory; we shall only mention one, of an old standing, which consists in coupling or associating the Ideas of Things to be remembred, with the Ideas of other Things, either existing before our Eyes or in the Mind. This was practised by the antient Orators, some of whom are said to have made use of Paintings, Images, and Emblems for this Purpose; others chose the Ornaments, Furniture, or other Parts of the Place where they were to speak. Muretus tells us of one who by this means would repeat 2 or 3000 Words, in different Languages, and which had no Connection with each other, upon being once dictated to him; and would repeat them again backwards, from last to first, adding that this was but a light Essay of his Memory; and that he would undertake to repeat 36000 Words, in the same Manner. The Truth is, this Art seems better calculated for retaining meer Words or Sounds, without any Coherence or Dependence on one another, than for Things where Reason or Judgment are acquired. Raym. Lully took so much Pains with it, that it is now called Lully’s Art. But the best Help for the Memory, is invented by the ingenious Dr. Grey, intitled Memoria Technica, of which we shall give an Abstract under the Article MNEMONICS. WATT’S Improv. Mind.

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S U P P L E M E N T   A R T I C L E

Mnemonics

(in 1744 volume)

   MNEMONICS, of , Memory; Dr. Grey has given the best Scheme of Mnemonics, of the Art of assisting the Memory; an Abstract of which follows.

It is a general Complaint amongst Men of Reading, and, to many, a Discouragement from it, that they find themselves not able to retain what they read with any Certainty or Exactness. But of all the Inventions made Use of for this End, none has been found to contribute more to the Assistance of the Memory than that of Technical Verses; both as they generally contain a great deal in a little Compass, and also because being once learned, they are seldom or never forgot. For the Truth of which we may venture to appeal to the weakest Memories, whether they have not to the last found themselves in Possession of that ever memorable Line:

Barbara Celarent Darii Ferio Baralipton.

The Design of which is not to make the Memory better, but Things more easy to be remembered; so that by the Help of it, an ordinary, or even a weak Memory, shall be able to retain what the strongest and most extraordinary Memory could not retain without it. For as he who first contrived to assist the Eye with a Telescope, did not by that pretend to give Sight to the Blind, or make any Alteration in the Eye itself; but only to bring the Objects nearer, that they might be view’d more accurately and distinctly; so neither is it pretended by this Art to teach those to remember every Thing, who never could remember any Thing, or to make Men in an Instant skilful in Sciences, which before they were utterly unacquainted with, but only to enable them to retain, with Certainty and Exactness, what they have already a general and competent Knowledge of; that they may not be oblig’d upon every Occasions to have fresh Recourse to their Books or Maps, to be under the tiresome Necessity of reading the same Things again and again, still forgetting them as fast as they read them.

The whole Art being in Effect nothing more than this; to make such a Change in the Ending of the Name of a Place, Person, Planet, Coin. &c. without altering the Beginning of it, as shall readily suggest the Thing sought; at the same Time that the Beginning of the Word, being preserved, shall be a leading or prompting Syllable to the Ending of it so changed.

From the Account given of it, the Reader will observe, that the Method here proposed is perfectly different from that of Simonides the Cean, so famous among the Antients for being the first Inventor of an Art of Memory, of whom both Tully and Quintilian speak with Respect, and of whose Method of Places and Images (i.e. of having a Repository of Ideas, a large House or the like, divided into several Apartments, in each of which you are to Place in Order a symbolical Representation of the Things which you would remember) they have given us a very full and particular Account, as also of the Occasion which first gave Rise to it. (n. pag.)

The principal Part of this Method is briefly this: To remember any Thing in History, Chronology, Geography, &c. a Word is form’d, the Beginning whereof being the first Syllable or Syllables of the Thing sought, does, by frequent Repetition, of Course draw after it the latter Part, which is so contrived as to give the Answer. Thus, in History, the Deluge happened in the Year before Christ two Thousand three Hundred forty-eight; this is signified by the Word Deletok: Del standing for DELUGE, and etok for 2348. How these Words come to signify these Things, or contribute to the remembring them,is now to be shewn.

The first Thing to be done is to learn exactly the following Series of Vowels and Consonants, which are to represent the numerical Figures, so as to be able, at Pleasure, to form a Technical Word, which shall stand for any Number, or to resolve a Word already form’d into the Number which it stands for.

a	e	i	o	u	au	oi	ei	ou	y
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0
b	d	t	f	l	s	p	k	n	z

These Letters are assign’d arbitrarily to the respective Figures, and may very easily be remember’d. The first five Vowels in order naturally represent 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The Dipthong au, being composed of a 1 and u 5, stands for 6; oi for 7, being composed of o 4 and i 3; ou for 9, being composed of o 4 and u 5. The Dipthong ei will easily be remembered for eight, being the Initials of the Word. In like Manner for the Consonants, where the Initials could conveniently be retain’d, they are made use of to signify the Number, as t for three, f for four, s for six, and n for nine. The rest were assign’d without any particular Reason, unless that possibly p may be more easily remembred for 7 or Septem, k for 8 or , d for 2 or duo, b for 1, as being the first Consonant, and l for 5, being the Roman Letter for 50, than any others that could have been put in their Places.

The Reasons here given, as trifling as they are, may contribute to make the Series more readily remembered; and if there was no Reason at all assigned, I believe it will be granted that the Representation of nine or ten numerical Figures by so many Letters of the Alphaber, can be no great Burthen to the Memory.

And as in Numeration of larger Sums, ’tis usual to point the Figures at the proper Periods of Thousands, Millions, Billions, &c. for the more easy Reading of them, as 172, 102, 795 one Hundred seventy two Millions, one Hundred two Thousand seven Hundred ninety five; so, in forming a Word for a Number consisting of many Figures, the Syllables may be so conveniently divided, as exactly to answer the End of Pointing. Thus in the Instance before us, which is the Diameter of the Orbit of the Earth, in English Miles: The Technical Word is Dorbterboid-aze-poul; the Beginning of the Word Dorbter, standing for the Diameter of the Orbit of the Earth, (D-iameter ORBITAE TERRAE) and the remaining Part of it boid-aze-poul for the Number 172. 102. 795.

N.B. Always remember that the Diphthongs are to be consider’d but as one Letter, or rather, as representing only one Figure. Note also, that y is to be pronounced as w, for the more easily distinguishing it from i, as syd — 602, pronounce swid, typ — 307 pronuunce twip.

The Reader will observe that the same Date or Number may be signified by different Words according as Vowels or Consonants are made Choice of, to represent the Figures, or to begin the Words with.

This Variety gives great Room for Choice, in the Formation of Words, of such Terminations, as by their Uncommonness are most likely to be remembered, or by any accidental Relation or Allusion they may have to the Thing sought. Thus the Year of the World in which Æneas is supposed to have settled in Italy is 2824; but as this may be expressed either by ekaf or deido, this latter is best. Thus King John began his Reign in the Year A.D. 199. (one Thousand being understood to be added as I shall shew hereafter;) but as this may be express’d by anou, or boun, or ann, I make Choice the last, for then ’tis but calling him Jann instead of John, and you have the Time almost in his Name. Thus Inachus King of Argos began his Reign in the Year before Christ 1856; with a very small Variation in the Spelling, ’tis his Name Inakus.

To go on with our Art; ’tis further to be observed, that z and y being made use of to represent the Cypher, where many Cyphers meet together, in 1000, 1000000, &c. instead of a Repetition of azyzyzy, which could neither be easily pronounced nor remembred, g stands for Hundred, th for Thousand, and m for Million. Thus ag will be 100, ig 300, oug 900, ath 1000, &c.

It will be sometimes also of use to be able to set down a Fraction, which may be done in the following Manner: Let r be the Separatrix between the Numerator and the Denominator, the first coming before, the other after it; as iro 1/4 north, 91/1000 or, 904, &c. Where the Numerator is 1, or Unit, it need not be expressed, but begin the Fraction with r, as 1/2 re, 1/3 ri, 1/4 ro. &c. So in Decimals, ;01 or 1/100, ,001 or 1/1000 rath.

The following Lines shew the Regal Table of England, since the Conquest:

Wil-consan Ruf koi Henrag--------
Stephbil & Hensecbuf Ricbein Jann Hethdas & Eddoid.
Edsetyp Edtertes Risetoip Hefotoun Hefifadque.
Hensifed Edquarfauz Efi-Rokt, Hensepfeil Henoclyn.
Edsexlos Marylut Elsluk Jamsyd Caroprimsel.
Carsecsok Jamseif Wilseik Anpyh Geobo---doi.

N.B. One Thousand is to be added to each of these. It was thought unnecessary to express it, it being a Thing in which it is impossible any one should mistake. GREY’s Memoria Technica.