44 Connexion of Memory with Organization. [Book X, 

 much effec~b in determining the peculiar excellence of 

 any man's memory. Some are found to have a me- 

 mory adapted to the remembrance of hillorical facts, 

 fome to poetry, &c. Ideas formerly received are fo 

 many hooks (if I may be allowed the exprefilon) that 

 faften on thofe ideas which aflimilate with them. 



The diitinctnefs, livelinefs, and conne cled circum- 

 'flances of ideas, leave almoft no room for mifcakes in 

 judgment, as far as depends on die memory. Ideas of 

 memory, by frequent repetition, may be retained 

 equally perfect and vivid as when firft imprinted ; ic 

 follows, therefore, that when, from the clearnefs and vi- 

 vidncfs of the ideas, we feel that they have remained 

 uncoiifufed in the mind, our reafoning, as far as refpeds 

 them, will fall nothing fhort of abfolute certainty. 



How far the memory is dependant on the corporeal 

 organs, has been often difputed. Some ftriking in- 

 fiances, to prove a very clofe dependance, have been 

 furnifhed by different authors. An Italian poet is re- 

 lated to have fallen dangeroufly ill, and when he reco- 

 vered, to have forgotten the very letters of the alphabet. 

 Pliny fpeaks of a perfon, who, by a dangerous fall, 

 forgot his mother and friends. Meffala Corvinus, by 

 a difeafe, forgot his own name. Valerius Maximus 

 relates, that a citizen of Athens, by a blow of a ftone 

 on the head, forgot all he knew of polite literature, 

 though in other refpects he retained his memory *. In 

 the Memoirs of the Royal Academy, 171 1, there is 

 an account of a young man, who, in a fever, forgot 

 every thing he knew; but afterwards learned very 

 quickly ; fo, retaining his faculties, he loft his former 

 ideas f- 



* Plin. Nat. Hift. I. vii. c. 24. 



, f See inftances of extraordinary memory, Plin. Nat Hift. I. vii. 

 c.*4, 



We 



