The Trained Memory Part 5

Rule V. _Have some sign or token._ This memory signal may be anything you choose, but it must somehow be directly connected with the hour at which the main event is to be recalled.

[Sidenote: _Memory Signs and Tokens_]

Make a business of observing the memory signs or tokens you have been habitually using. Practice tagging those matters you wish to recall with the labels that form a part of your mental machinery.

Make it a habit to do things when they ought to be done and in the order in which you ought to do them. Habits like this are "paths" along which the mind "moves," paths of least resistance to those qualities of promptness, energy, persistence, accuracy, self-control, and so on, that create success.

Success in business, success in life, can come only through the formation of right habits. A right habit can be deliberately acquired only by _doing a thing consciously until it comes to be done unconsciously and automatically_.

[Sidenote: _The Mental Combination Revealed_]

Every man, consciously or unconsciously, forms his own memory habits, good or bad. Form your memory habits consciously according to the laws of the mind, and in good time they will act unconsciously and with masterful precision.

"'Amid the shadows of the pyramids,' Bonaparte said to his soldiers, 'twenty centuries look down upon you,' and animated them to action and victory. But all the centuries," says W.H. Grove, "and the eternities, and G.o.d, and the universe, look down upon us--and demand the highest culture of body, mind and spirit."

A good memory is yours for the making. But _you_ must make it. We can point the way. _You_ must act.

The laws of a.s.sociation and Recall are the combination that will unlock the treasure-vaults of memory. Apply these laws, and the riches of experience will be available to you in every need.

The purpose of this book has been to make clear certain mental principles and processes, namely, those of Retention, a.s.sociation and Recall. Incidentally, as with every book in this _Course_, it contains some facts and instructions of immediate practical utility. But primarily it is intended only to help prepare your mind to understand a scientific system for success-achievement that will be unfolded in subsequent volumes.