!6o BACON 



some art of memory extant ; but I know that much better pre- 

 cepts for confirming and enlarging the memory may be had 

 than this art contains, and that a better practice of the art itself 

 may be formed than what is at present received. And I doubt 

 not, if any one were disposed to make an ostentatious show of 

 this art, that many surprising things might be performed by it ; 

 and yet, as now managed, it is but barren and useless. We do 

 not, however, pretend that it spoils or surcharges the natural 

 memory, which is the common objection, but that it is not dex- 

 terously applied for assisting the memory in real business, and 

 serious affairs. But this turn, perhaps, I may receive from the 

 political course of life I have led, never to value what has the 

 appearance of art without any use. For immediately to repeat 

 a multitude of names, or words, once repeated before, or off- 

 hand to compose a great number of verses upon a subject, or to 

 touch any matter that occasionally turns up with a satirical com- 

 parison, or to turn serious things into jest, or to elude anything 

 by contradiction, or cavil, etc., of all which faculties there is a 

 great fund in the mind, and which may, by a proper capacity 

 and exercise, be carried to almost a miraculous height ; yet I 

 esteem all the things of this kind no more than rope-dancing, 

 antic postures, and feats of activity. And, indeed, they are 

 nearly the same things, the one being an abuse of the bodily, as 

 the other is of the mental powers ; and, though they may cause 

 admiration, they cannot be highly esteemed. 



This art of memory has two intentions ; viz., prenotion and 

 emblem. By prenotion we understand the breaking off of an 

 endless search ; for when one endeavors to call anything to 

 mind without some previous notion, or perception of what is 

 sought for, the mind strives and exerts itself, endeavors and 

 casts about in an endless manner ; but if it hath any certain 

 notion beforehand, the infinity of the search is presently cut 

 short, and the mind hunts nearer home as in an inclosure. 

 Order, therefore, is a manifest help to memory ; for here there is 

 a previous notion, that the things sought for must be agreeable 

 to order. And thus verse is easier remembered than prose, 

 because if we stick at any word in verse, we have a previous 

 notion that it is such a word as must stand in the verse, and this 

 prenotion is the first part of artificial memory. For in artificial 

 memory we have certain places digested, and proposed before- 

 hand ; but we make images extemporary as they are required, 



