768 



M EMORIAL MEMORY. 



to 1681; Memoirs of Gilbert Wakefield ; Clar- 

 endon's Life ; Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of 

 Uandaff; Memoirs of U'illiam Ilayley, all written 

 by the men whose names they bear. Among the 

 American works of this class are Winthrop's Jour- 

 nal ; Mather's Magnalia ; Memoirs of R. H. Lee; 

 of Josiah Quincy, Jun., c.; Jefferson's posthumous 

 works contain much information respecting the 

 writer's times. Short literary treatises, especially 

 those papers read before literary societies, are also 

 failed memoirs. Tile Mimoires de V Academic des 

 Inscriptions et Belles-lettres (Memoirs of "the Acad- 

 emy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres), and other 

 collections of this description, are well known. 



MEMORIAL; in general, whatever serves to 

 preserve the memory of any thing ; also a written 

 representation ; e. g. state papers, in which the 

 usual forms, or most of them, especially sealing, are 

 wanting. They are much used in the negotiations 

 of ministers, sometimes in the replies and resolutions 

 of sovereigns, for the purpose of avoiding all dis- 

 putes in regard to rank and ceremonials. There 

 are three sorts : 1st. those containing an address, 

 date, and signature, in which the writer speaks in 

 the first person, and the second person is used of the 

 individual addressed (memorials in the form of let- 

 ters); 2d. those which also contain an address, date, 

 and signature, but in which the writer speaks of him- 

 self in the third person (memorials proper); 3. those 

 which have no address, and often no signature, and 

 in which the writer and the person addressed are 

 both spoken of in the third person (notes). These 

 papers are either written and delivered by the court 

 or by the minister. To the former belong (a.) cir- 

 culars to the diplomatic corps, that is, to the foreign 

 agents residing at a court, communicating or re- 

 questing information, commonly with the signature 

 of the secretary or minister of foreign affairs ; also 

 (b.) the answer of a court to the memorial of an am- 

 bassador ; (c.) notes to a foreign cabinet, or to a 

 foreign ambassador, to be transmitted with a memo- 

 rial to his cabinet. The communications of ambas- 

 sadors to the courts at which they reside, are gene- 

 rally memorials, but sometimes mere notes ; letters 

 are no longer in use. 



MEMORY ; that faculty of the mind which re- 

 ceives ideas presented to the understanding, retains 

 them, and exhibits them again. Its power of recall- 

 ing ideas is sometimes exercised with, sometimes 

 without, an act of volition. Its strength may be 

 greatly increased by judicious culture. Memory is 

 so prominent a faculty of the human mind, so neces- 

 sary, both in the most common transactions and the 

 highest pursuits of life, so curious in its phenomena, 

 and, at times, so capricious, that it formed, even at 

 a very early period, a subject of philosophical re- 

 search ; and, to a certain degree, more is known 

 about it than about any other faculty ; but, beyond 

 this point, it is as incomprehensible as the other 

 powers. It is easy to talk of the memory in meta- 

 phors, to speak of impressions on the mind, store- 

 house of ideas, recalling ideas, &c. ; but what is this 

 impression ? where is it made? and what does the 

 word signify, as applied to the mind ? It is only a 

 metaphor, taken from the physical world, to illustrate 

 an act of the mind, which we can only represent 

 figuratively, and reasoning on this assumption is but 

 a pelitio principii. Without memory, the whole 

 animal world would be reduced to a kind of vegeta- 

 tive life, such as we observe in the lowest classes of 

 animals, because any variety of action presupposes 

 memory.* Memory embraces all ideas received 



from the senses, as well as those of an abstract 

 character; all feelings and emotions. The power of 

 memory, in regard to ideas received from the senses, 

 appears to be strongest in regard to the sense of 

 sight. We are able to remember a temple, a pic- 

 ture, a landscape, a face, with great clearness and 

 truth. The ideas of sounds are, also, very strongly 

 retained, the memory of them being more perfect ir> 

 proportion as the sense of hearing is more nice. 

 Music may be remembered very distinctly. It is not 

 so with the three other senses, smell, feeling, and 

 taste. The ideas received through these senses, it, 

 would appear, cannot be remembered with the same 

 liveliness. It is difficult to recall, with much dis- 

 tinctness, the pain of a wound ; we usually retain 

 little more than the general idea of sufferiiig.t So 

 particular tastes are not easily recalled. Exercise, 

 indeed, may give the memory considerable power 

 even over these ideas. The taste of his favourite 

 dishes dwells in the mind of the gourmand, and, 

 without making pretensions to gourmanderie, a man 

 may remember, with some distinctness, the flavour 

 of a canvass-back duck. The impressions of smell 

 are still more difficult to be recalled. Still, how- 

 ever, though the unaided memory does not easily 

 recall ideas received from the senses, yet when ex. 

 tenial means of comparison are presented, they are 

 immediately revived. If we smell a flower in this 

 spring, we recollect, at once distinctly, the smell o,' 

 the same in the last spring, and are in no danger of 

 confounding flowers of different kinds. So with 

 taste. These phenomena are easily explainable, 

 from the fact that the ideas presented by sight and 

 hearing, the two nobler senses, admit most readily of 

 abstraction, and are, therefore, most easily repro- 

 duced in the mind, without the physical aid of com- 

 parison. Ideas received from objects of sense are 

 sometimes curiously associated with others, so that 

 the recurrence of the first immediately suggests the 

 second. The cases are more striking, of course, in 

 proportion as the organs are more acute. If, for 

 instance, any thing very agreeable, or disagreea- 

 ble, happens to a man at the very moment of 

 hearing a peculiar sound, or eating something of 

 a peculiar taste, the recurrence of this sound or 

 taste, involuntarily awakens, in some organizations, 

 an agreeable or disagreeable feeling. The writer 

 can testify from experience, that the effect is some- 

 times so instantaneous as to prevent the cause from 

 being recognised till after considerable reflection. 

 Considering how many ideas, or notions, we receive 

 through the senses, and how necessary it is that we 

 should readily remember them, to avoid the necessity 

 of moving constantly in the same circle, it is of the 

 greatest importance that our senses should be active, 



mals which would seem most naturally to etiianate from in- 

 stinct, as the Hoeing of feeble blasts at the approach of stronger 

 ones, appear not to be instinctive. Captain Clarperton found 

 the cranes in the interior of Africa so tamo that they showed 

 not the slightest fear. Mr. dp Bougainville found the hares and 

 foxes devoid of all fear when he discovered the Falkland 



in the Dolphin, New York, 1831), and many other travellers. 

 It would appear, then, that the fear apparently natural to 

 many animals is not so, hut that, finding themselves attacked, 

 they have remembered tlie fact at the next approach of th"ir 

 enemy, and, by degree?, contracted their timorous habits, 

 which their young, being accustomed to observe, also con- 

 tracted. Indeed, observation would seem to warrant us in 

 attributing to them, not merely this power of association, but 

 even the power of combining ideas lo produce results. If, tor 

 instance, my dog sees, from my motions, that I am about to 

 take a walk, and, having been often prohibited to accompany 

 me, steals quietly out of the mom, ana awaits me at a certain 

 corner which I generally pass on my walks, who can deny 

 this animal, not only memory, but also the power of drawing 

 conclusions from what he recollects ? 



t Pain, indeed, when associated with the nobler senses, may 

 be retained with considerable distinctness, as the diseorda 

 which offend a mubical ear, or the sharp grating of a hurtT- 

 pointcd slate pencil on a slate, which offends every ear. 



