GO BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



the true \vay of strengthening the memory, and, 

 indeed, at the same time, of improving the under- 

 standing. Every one who steadily pursues it 

 will find, that the facility of this kind of arrange- 

 ment increase? every day, till at length it be- 

 comes so habitual as to be performed almost 

 mechanically; that is, without the intervention 

 of the will. The advantage is obvious ; every 

 new fact, every new idea becomes a catch-word 

 to some other ; and when referred to the common 

 principle by which they are all combined, the 

 mind rapidly and almost unconsciously runs 

 through every link in the chain, and literally re- 

 collects those which may be wanted for the sub- 

 ject under consideration." 



" Do you not think, too," said I, " that as we 

 increase our knowledge, those links become more 

 numerous ; and therefore, that the more new 

 facts we learn the more easily we can recollect 

 the old ones ?" 



" In some measure," he replied ; " but it is 

 not merely by the new facts or ideas that we ac- 

 quire that our real increase of knowledge must be 

 estimated ; it is by the number of relations which 

 they bear to those already in the mind. New 

 knowledge does not merely consist in our having 

 access to a new object, but in forming new com- 

 binations of the ideas which it excites with our 

 former ideas of similar objects ; it is not by loading 



