The Trained Memory Part 1

The Trained Memory.

by Warren Hilton.

CHAPTER I

THE ELEMENTS OF MEMORY

[Sidenote: _Four Special Memory Processes_]

You have learned of the sense-perceptive and judicial processes by which your mind acquires its knowledge of the outside world. You come now to a study of the phenomenon of memory, the instrument by which your mind retains and makes use of its knowledge, the agency that has power to resurrect the buried past or power to enfold us in a Paradise of dreams more perfect than reality.

In the broadest sense, memory is the faculty of the mind by which we (1) _retain_, (2) _recall_, (3) _picture to the mind's eye_, and (4) _recognize_ past experiences.

Memory involves, therefore, four elements, _Retention_, _Recall_, _Imagination_ and _Recognition_.

THE MENTAL TREASURE VAULT AND ITS LOST COMBINATION

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative Header]

CHAPTER II

THE MENTAL TREASURE VAULT AND ITS LOST COMBINATION

[Sidenote: _What Everyone Thinks_]

Almost everyone seems to think that we retain in the mind _only_ those things that we can voluntarily recall; that memory, in other words, is limited to the power of voluntary reproduction.

This is a profound error. It is an inexcusable error. The daily papers are constantly reporting cases of the lapse and restoration of memory that contain all the elements of underlying truth on this subject.

[Sidenote: _Causes of Forgetfulness_]

It is plain enough that the memory _seems_ decidedly limited in its scope. This is because our power of voluntary recall is decidedly limited.

But it does not follow simply because we are without the power to deliberately recall certain experiences that all mental trace of those experiences is lost to us.

_Those experiences that we are unable to recall are those that we disregarded when they occurred because they possessed no special interest for us. They are there, but no mental a.s.sociations or connections with power to awaken them have arisen in consciousness._

[Sidenote: _Seeing with "Half an Eye"_]

Things are continually happening all around us that we see with but "half an eye." They are in the "fringe" of consciousness, and we deliberately ignore them. Many more things come to us in the form of sense-impressions that clamorously a.s.sail our sense-organs, but no effort of the will is needed to ignore them. We are absolutely impervious to them and unconscious of them because by the selection of our life interests we have closed the doors against them.

In either case, whether in the "fringe" of consciousness or entirely outside of consciousness, these unperceived sensations will be found to be sensory images that have no connection with the present subject of thought. They therefore attract, and we spare them, no part of our attention.

Just as each of our individual sense-organs selects from the mult.i.tude of ether vibrations constantly beating upon the surface of the body only those waves to the velocity of which it is attuned, so each one of us as an integral personality selects from the stream of sensory experiences only those particular objects of attention that are in some way related to the present or habitual trend of thought.

[Sidenote: _The Man on Broadway_]

Just consider for a moment the countless number and variety of impressions that a.s.sail the eye and ear of the New Yorker who walks down Broadway in a busy hour of the day. Yet to how few of these does he pay the slightest attention. He is in the midst of a cataclysm of sound almost equal to the roar of Niagara and he does not know it.

Observe how many objects are right now in the corner of your mind's eye as being within the scope of your vision while your entire attention is apparently absorbed in these lines. You see these other things, and you can look back and realize that you have seen them, but you were not aware of them at the time.

Let two individuals of contrary tastes take a day's outing together.

Both may have during the day practically identical sensory images; but each one will come back with an entirely different tale to tell of the day's adventures.

[Sidenote: _Waxen Tablets_]

_All sensory impressions, somehow or other, leave their faint impress on the waxen tablets of the mind. Few are or can be voluntarily recalled._

Just where and how memories are retained is a mystery. There are theories that represent sensory experiences as actual physiological "impressions" on the cells of the brain. They are, however, nothing but theories, and the manner in which the brain, as the organ of the mind, keeps its record of sensory experiences has never been discovered.

Microscopic anatomy has never reached the point where it could identify a particular "idea" with any one "cell" or other part of the brain.

[Sidenote: _Not How, but How Much_]

For us, the important question is not _how_, but _how much_; _not the manner in which, but the extent to which_, sensory impressions are preserved. Now, all the evidences indicate that _absolutely every impression received upon the sensorium is indelibly recorded in the mind's substance_. A few instances will serve to ill.u.s.trate the remarkable power of retention of the human mind.

Sir William Hamilton quotes the following from Coleridge's "Literaria Biographia": "A young woman of four- or five-and-twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever, during which, according to the a.s.severations of all the priests and monks of the neighborhood, she became 'possessed,' and, as it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking Latin, Greek and Hebrew in very pompous tones, and with most distinct enunciation. Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences coherent and intelligible each for itself but with little or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew, a small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the remainder seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect."

[Sidenote: _Remembering the Unperceived_]

The case was investigated by a physician, who learned that the girl had been a waif and had been taken in charge by a Protestant clergyman when she was nine years old and brought up as his servant. This clergyman had for years been in the habit of walking up and down a pa.s.sage of his house into which the kitchen door opened and at the same time reading to himself in a loud voice from his favorite book. A considerable number of these books were still in the possession of his niece, who told the physician that her uncle had been a very learned man and an accomplished student of Hebrew. Among the books were found a collection of Rabbinical writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin fathers; and the physician succeeded in identifying so many pa.s.sages in these books with those taken down at the bed-side of the young woman that there could be no doubt as to the true origin of her learned ravings.

Now, the striking feature of all this, it will be observed, is the fact that the subject was an illiterate servant-girl to whom the Greek, Latin and Hebrew quotations were _utterly unintelligible,_ that _normally she had no recollection of them, that she had no idea of their meaning_, and finally that they had been impressed upon her mind _without her knowledge_ while she was engaged in her duties in her master's kitchen.

Several cases are reported by Dr. Abercrombie, and quoted by Professor Hyslop, in which mental impressions long since forgotten beyond the power of voluntary recall have been revived by the shock of accident or disease. "A man," he says, "mentioned by Mr. Abernethy, had been born in France, but had spent the greater part of his life in England, and, for many years, had entirely lost the habit of speaking French. But when under the care of Mr. Abernethy, on account of the effects of an injury to the head, he always spoke French."

[Sidenote: _Speaking a Forgotten Tongue_]

"A similar case occurred in St. Thomas Hospital, of a man who was in a state of stupor in consequence of an injury to the head. On his partial recovery he spoke a language which n.o.body in the hospital understood but which was soon ascertained to be Welsh. It was then discovered that he had been thirty years absent from Wales, and, before the accident, had entirely forgotten his native language.

"A lady mentioned by Dr. Pritchard, when in a state of delirium, spoke a language which n.o.body about her understood, but which was afterward discovered to be Welsh. None of her friends could form any conception of the manner in which she had become acquainted with that language; but, after much inquiry, it was discovered that in her childhood she had a nurse, a native of a district on the coast of Brittany, the dialect of which is closely a.n.a.logous to Welsh. The lady at that time learned a good deal of this dialect but had entirely forgotten it for many years before this attack of fever."

[Sidenote: _Living Past Experiences Over Again_]

Dr. Carpenter relates the following incident in his "Mental Physiology": "Several years ago, the Rev. S. Mansard, now rector of Bethnal Green, was doing clerical duty for a time at Hurstmonceaux, in Suss.e.x; and while there he one day went over with a party of friends to Pevensey Castle, which he did not remember to have ever previously visited. As he approached the gateway he became conscious of a very vivid impression of having seen it before; and he 'seemed to himself to see' not only the gateway itself, but donkeys beneath the arch and people on top of it.

His conviction that he must have visited the castle on some former occasion--although he had neither the slightest remembrance of such a visit nor any knowledge of having ever been in the neighborhood previously to his residence at Hurstmonceaux--made him inquire from his mother if she could throw any light on the matter. She at once informed him that being in that part of the country, when he was but _eighteen months old_, she had gone over with a large party and had taken him in the pannier of a donkey; that the elders of the party, having brought lunch with them, had eaten it on the roof of the gateway, where they would have been seen from below, whilst he had been left on the ground with the attendants and donkeys."

"An Italian gentleman," says Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, "who died of yellow fever in New York, in the beginning of his illness spoke English, in the middle of it French, but on the day of his death only Italian."

Striking as these instances are, they are not unusual. Everyone on reflection can supply similar instances. Who among us has not at one time or another been impressed with a mysterious feeling of having at some time in the past gone through the identical experience which he is living now?

[Sidenote: _The "Flash of Inspiration"_]