LITERARY NOTICES. 



561 



age generous instincts; but lie would 

 oppose the idea that, because an act is 

 altruistic, it must be good and virtuous. 

 All altruism is interference, and inter- 

 ference needs to be justified. As we 

 stated at the outset, people are too much 

 accustomed to think of charity being 

 given out of a surplus that would other- 

 wise not be usefully employed; but that 

 idea tends to disguise the real nature of 

 the question. There is vast need for 

 social reform in the matter of the ex- 

 penditure of money ; and indeed we 

 know of no direction in whicb a moral 

 crusade is more wanted. If something 

 could be done to check the barbaric ex- 

 travagance of our wealthy classes and 

 the blamable extravagance of classes 

 that are not wealthy, much good would 

 be done to the whole body of society. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



MEiroRy : What it is and how to improve it. 

 By David Kay, F. R. G. S. " Interna- 

 tional Education Series," Vol. VIII. 

 New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 334. 

 Price, $1.50. 



Whatever may be the educational pro- 

 cess by which knowledge is gained — obser- 

 vation, reasoning, or passive reception of 

 text-books and lectures — it is retained by the 

 one faculty of memory. This consideration 

 is enough to show the great importance to 

 the educator of a thorough acquaintance 

 with the nature of this faculty and the best 

 means of cultivating it. On the other hand, 

 as Dr. W. T. Harris, the editor of this 

 " Series," points out, the memory, when over- 

 developed, may crowd and cramp the other 

 faculties. It is a familiar statement that 

 much memorizing deadens the power of 

 thought, and it is equally true that the pow- 

 ers of sense-perception, imagination, and will 

 may be paralyzed by the same means. 

 "With an overactive memory we suppose 

 ourselves to sec in an object what we remem- 

 ber to have seen in it before, and any new 

 features escape our superficial perception. 

 This is true, too, in the case of imagination, 

 the power which ought to be productive as 

 well as reproductive." Hence the problem 

 is not the simple one of how to strengthen 

 VOL. xxxiv. — 36 



the memory as much as possible, but how to 

 train it so that it shall have its greatest 

 efficiency and yet not interfere with the 

 action of the other faculties. As to guard- 

 ing against an overactive memory, Dr. Harris 

 says : " The antidote for this baneful effect 

 of memory is to be sought in a method of 

 training that associates effects with causes, 

 and individuals with species ; that associates 

 one idea with another through its essential 

 relations, and not by its accidental proper- 

 ties. One must put thought into the act of 

 memory." Beginning with an examination 

 of the nature of memory, Mr. Kay proceeds 

 to point out the connection between mind 

 and matter in general, and especially the in- 

 fluence which bodily conditions have upon 

 mental action; he next discusses the phe- 

 nomena of sensation, and then describes 

 the formation of mental images and the un- 

 conscious action of the mind. The author 

 is convinced that much light is thi'own upon 

 the subject of mnemonics by the facts of 

 physiology. " When one performs a set of 

 movements," he says, " for the first time, he 

 may find considerable difficulty in doing so, 

 owing to the unadaptedness of the parts con- 

 cerned. These parts, however, retain certain 

 traces of what has taken place in them, so 

 that when the movements come to be per- 

 formed a second time the difficulty attending 

 them is somewhat less." Frequent repetition 

 increases the ease of performance. Similar- 

 ly sensations leave their traces on our sense- 

 organs ; men observe best what they have 

 frequently observed. RecalHng to mind an act 

 or sensation is so much hke the original ex- 

 perience that, in the author's opinion, the 

 same parts are concerned in the one as in 

 the other, and the traces made by these ex- 

 periences have something to do in the act of 

 recollection. This view is supported by the 

 recent theory that, in the words of Prof. 

 Bain, "the organ of the mind is not the 

 brain by itself; it is the brain, nerves, 

 muscles, organs of sense, viscera." Our 

 ideas are remembered in the same way, for 

 "every idea in the mind must have entered 

 it by some sense, and, in order to its full and 

 complete recall, it is believed that it must be 

 again projected or imaged in an organ of 

 sense. Even the most abstract of our ideas 

 are abstracts of sensations belonging to some 

 sense which is also concerned in the recollec- 



