show, both on account of its readiness and likewise because the kind of effects with which it is chiefly conversant are usually those most in request in common conversation" "It is in common conversation chiefly that we judge of the excellency of the memory of others, and that we feel our own defect of it; and the species of relation which forms by far the most important tie of things in ordinary discourse is that of previous contiguity. We talk of things which happened at certain times and in certain places, and he who remembers these best seems to us to have the best memory. . . . The most ignorant of the vulgar, in describing a certain event, pour out a number of suggestions of contiguity which may astonish us indeed, though they are a proof not that they remember more, but only that their prevailing suggestions take place according to one almost exclusive relation. It is impossible to listen to a narrative of the most simple. events by one of the common people, who are unaccustomed to pay much attention to events but as they occur together, without being struck with a readiness. of suggestion of innumerable petty circumstances which might seem like superiority of memory, if we did not take into account the comparatively small number of their suggestions of a different class."-Dr. T. Brown. A remarkable instance of this kind of memory is given by Shakespeare in the character of Dame Quickly, as she narrates with astonishing minuteness the various incidents that occurred at the time when Sir John Falstaff made her a promise of marriage.

1"The species of memory which excites the greatest degree of admiration, in the ordinary intercourse of society, is a memory for detached and isolated facts; and it is certain that those men who are possessed of it are very seldom distinguished by the higher gifts of the mind."-D. Stewart.

It is usually in persons whose minds are not highly cultivated, and whose mental faculties have not been much exercised, that we find this kind of memory displayed in the most marked degree. Not having been much called forth in its higher stages, it has consequently developed itself more in this, its lower. Persons of this class will sometimes be found able to perform great feats of memory, repeating, it may be, long lists of names, or many lines of poetry after once hearing them, or a speech, or a sermon almost verbatim, or narrating the minutest particulars of an event that occurred perhaps long ago.1 In general, however, they can only repeat the words or record the incidents as they actually occurred. They cannot, as a rule, leave out some and enlarge upon others, nor can they readily recur to an incident that happened at a different time. If they wish to recall a particular passage in a speech or a book, they may be unable to do so without commencing at the beginning and repeating down to it; and frequently it would seem that

1 "People of very inferior mental gifts often have a marvellous memory for little insignificant details, and can repeat to you with great accuracy the very words of a conversation or the precise incidents of a story which they have once heard."-J. G. Fitch. "We may find a mere local memory combined with very little judgment." -Dr. Abercrombie. 66 Extraordinary powers of remembrance are sometimes coupled with a childish understanding."—Dr. Beattie. "We in the West have little idea of the precision with which an eastern pupil even now can take up and remember the minutest details of a lesson, reproducing them years afterwards in the exact words of his master."-Dr. W. Robertson Smith. Dr. Moffat, the distinguished missionary, after preaching a long sermon to a number of African savages, saw at a distance a simple-looking young man holding forth to a number of people, who were all attention. On approaching, he found to his surprise that he was preaching his sermon over again, with uncommon precision and with great solemnity, imitating as nearly as he could the manner and gestures of the original.

the words which they learn so readily convey no ideas to their minds, being doubtless on that account more easily learnt.1

A higher form of memory is where not merely an individual past state of the mind-a sensation, thought, or feeling-with its attending circumstances, is recalled, but where a number of past states, having a greater or less resemblance to each other, are reproduced at the same time. When the mind comes to possess a number of ideas of the same or a similar kind, and the reasoning power is in some degree developed, a principle of association and comparison comes into play, so that the mind brings together and compares those that most nearly resemble each other, and thus arranges and classifies them. Hence, on the presentation of a new object, it immediately seeks for something similar among its past ideas or sensations, brings the two together so as to compare them, and notes their

1 Speaking of Dr. Leyden, who was remarkable for his great memory, Dr. Abercrombie says: "I am informed through a gentleman, who was intimately acquainted with him, that he could repeat correctly a long act of parliament, or any similar document, after having once read it. When he was on one occasion congratulated by a friend on his remarkable power in this respect, he replied that, instead of an advantage, it was often a source of great inconvenience. This he explained by saying that when he wished to recollect a particular point in anything which he had read, he could do it only by repeating to himself the whole from the commencement till he reached the point which he wished to recall." It is recorded of the Welsh boy, Richard Roberts Jones, who was remarkable for his linguistic powers, that his other faculties were of an extremely low order, and that even the books which he read in the foreign tongues seemed to convey no ideas to his mind. "In extreme cases of this endowment, the memory of an exposition or discourse is consistent with a total ignorance of the meaning."-Prof. Bain. "I have known more than one instance of an individual who, after having forgotten completely the classical studies of his childhood, was yet able to repeat with fluency long passages from Homer and Virgil without annexing an idea to the words that he uttered.”—D. Stewart.

agreements and differences. Thus a circumstance of yesterday, in place of recalling other circumstances of yesterday that immediately preceded or followed it, would recall various circumstances of a similar nature that happened probably at very different times. It is of the utmost importance to us, in forming our judgment of things or in determining upon a particular line of conduct, to be able to bring together before the mind a number of instances of the same or a like kind, recent or long past, which may aid us in coming to a right determination. In the former kind of memory the associative principle at work is contiguity; in this it is similarity.

When this higher form of memory, which we may call the "rational," comes to more and more characterise the mind, the lower form becomes less strong or marked, and hence men of talent and culture are frequently said to have bad memories, the fact being that they have simply passed from a lower form of it to a higher. The commonplace incidents of the day take little hold on them, because their minds are actuated by a higher principle,-association by similarity taking the place of that by mere contiguity. "The trivial occurrences of the day," says Dugald Stewart, "in general escape the recollection of a man of ability, not because he is unable to retain them, but because he does not attend to them." The strength of this kind of memory, when we think of how much it contains, to say nothing of the greater value and utility of its contents, vastly surpasses the other.1

1 "The great difference is that the wealth of the one is composed merely of those smaller pieces which are in continual request, and, therefore, brought more frequently to view, while the abundance of the other consists chiefly in those more precious coins which are rather deposited than carried about for current use, but which, when

The highest form of memory is that in which past ideas or sensations are, as it were, imaged forth as if they were objects of actual perception.1 This is what Sir W. Hamilton calls "the representative faculty," or "the power which the mind has of holding up vividly before itself the thoughts which, by the act of reproduction, it has called into consciousness".2 The term imagination is commonly employed to designate this power, and it is usually regarded as a distinct faculty of the mind, but we rather agree with those philosophers who consider it merely as a form or part of memory, there being no essential difference between them.*

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brought forward, exhibit a magnificence of wealth to which the petty counters of the multitude are comparatively insignificant."-Dr. T. Brown. "The man of genius commonly has his information much less at command than those who are possessed of an inferior degree of originality; and what is somewhat remarkable, he has it least of all at command on those subjects on which he has found his invention most fertile."-D. Stewart.

1 "It is not always the person who recollects most easily and correctly who can exhibit what he remembers in the most vivid colours."-Sir W. Hamilton.

2 "The act of representation is merely the energy of the mind in holding up to its own contemplation what it is determined to represent."-Sir W. Hamilton.

3 "Imagination would be the term which, with the least violence to its meaning, could be accommodated to express the representative faculty."-Sir W. Hamilton.

4.66 "Memory Aristotle does not view as a faculty distinct from imagination, but simply as the recalling those impressions, those movements into consciousness, of which phantasy is the complement."-Sir W. Hamilton. "Memory pertains to that part of the soul to which also imagination pertains, and those things are essentially objects of memory which are objects of imagination."—Aristotle. Imagination is just a form of memory. . . In all our imaginings we are simply remembering-remembering not methodically but loosely-not according to old collocations and contiguities alone, but also according to the laws of resemblance and contrast. But still it is memory: memory furnishes the whole weft and woof for every web, however brilliant the colouring which imagination weaves.” —Dr. J. Cunningham.