Heredity of the Memory. 53 



establish the heredity of the memory in its individual form, we 

 meet with little success. While such facts are numerous in refer- 

 ence to the imagination, the intellect, the passions, we find very 

 few in favour of heredity of memory. 



There is a mental disorder, however idiocy which presents 

 some instances. This infirmity an hereditary one, as we shall 

 see, at least in the shape of atavism presents, among other 

 characteristics, an excessive weakness of memory. Idiots generally 

 recollect only what concerns their tastes, their propensities, their 

 passions. But, as this is doubtless the result of the feebleness of 

 their sensorial impressions, this heredity is the effect of a more 

 general hereditary transmission. 



Aphasia, which is nearly always connected with paralysis of the 

 right side, is produced by lesion of the anterior lobes of the brain 

 (the third frontal convolution of the left side, according to Broca). 

 Its psychological cause appears to be amnesia, or a loss of 

 memory, an inability to find words in general, or some particular 

 words. Although this disease has been studied with much care, 

 no cases of heredity are cited. 



History shows the same scarcity of instances. The almost 

 fabulous powers of memory that are recorded (Mithradates, 

 Hadrian, Clement VL, Pico de la Mirandola, Scaliger, Mezzofanti, 

 etc) seem isolated cases ; at least, we cannot trace them up or 

 down in the genealogical line. Yet some facts may be noted. The 

 two Senecas were famed for their memory : the father, Marcus 

 Annaeus, could repeat 2000 words in the o.rder in which he heard 

 them ; the son, Lucius Annaeus, was also, though less highly, gifted 

 in this respect. According to Gallon, in the family of Richard 

 Person, one of the Englishmen most distinguished as a Greek 

 scholar, this faculty was so extraordinary as to become proverbial 

 the Porson memory. The case may also be noticed of Lady 

 Hester Stanhope, the daughter of one of the most illustrious English 

 families, who, under the name of ' the Sibyl of the Libanus,' led 

 so strange and adventurous a life. Among many points of re- 

 semblance between herself and her grandfather she herself cites 

 memory. ' I possess my grandfather's eyes, and his memory of 

 places. If he saw a stone on the road he remembered it it is 

 the same with me ; his eye, which usually was dull and lustreless, 



