Apkit. 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



195 



without book. If he went wi-ong through some momentai-y 

 slip, he was wi-ong altogether. There were no side-holds for 

 the memory to grasp at. 



* * * 



My own experience has been similar. In my lectures 

 I frequently find it convenient to recite passjiges from 

 memory. Soma of these I have recited so often that I hold 

 them entirely by what may be called syllabic memory. Xow 

 I know that I must either entirely relearn these passages or 

 else in reciting them I must trust .solely to the .syllabic sue- 

 ces.sion of sounds. If I were to begin to think about the 

 succession of ideas I should be very apt to get off the syllabic 

 track, and then I should be hopelessly lost. But one may 

 get off the syllabic track even wiien avoiding the distraction 

 of thinking about the succession of ideas. The accidental 

 misplacement of a word, or even of a gesture, will throw the 

 memory out. (I shoidd not wonder if Pachniann's trouble 

 arose from a slight change of fingering in a piece which he 

 knew rather too well.) 



A siNGUL.-VR accident of this sort occurred to me once when 

 I was closing a lecture at Columbia, South Carolina. I 

 used for fitvile certain lines in Anstey's translation of 

 " Faust," which I suppose I must have repeated a thousand 

 times. They begin — 



See all things with each other blending:, 



Each to all its being lending, 



Each on all in turn depending. 



Now, unconsciou.sly I have fallen into the habit, when 

 reciting this passage, of using gestures in some degree 

 corresponding with the ideas suggested by each line. I 

 bring my hands towards each other, with open fingers, 

 towards the close of the first line, as if blending together 

 objects (indefinite in nature) in front of me ; I throw out 

 my hands, fingers closed, in the second line, as if lending; 

 I move my hands downwards, as if setting objects in 

 dependence on other objects, as I repeat the third line; and 

 so on to the end. But I had never noticed how these 

 gestures had become associated with the action of the 

 memory when I was reciting this effective finale, till, on 

 the occasion I refer to, the fact was brought to my notice 

 in a rather unpleasant way. Not using the customary 

 gestures in the first two lines, I went wrong syllabically in 

 the second, .saying "each on." instead of " each to." It will 

 hardly be believed that so slight a fault brought me utterly 

 to grief. After vainly trying to pick up the third and 

 fourth lines, I tried back from the beginning, but again I 

 failed, this time at about the fifth line. A third time I tried, 

 and so far as those of the audience were concerned who did 

 not know the lines, I seemed to get through all right. But 

 in reality I failed as egregiously in the matter of memory 

 that third time as the other two ; onlj-, having determined 

 to get through somehow, I eked out memorv with invention, 

 and, composing five or six lines of my own, brought the 

 quotation (save the mark I) to a close. 1 was rather tickled 

 when some one told me afterwards that he was glad I had 

 been able, after all, to recall those fine lines. (I cannot 

 recall my own lines, but I have a notion they were rather 

 fine nonsense.) I had not had so unpleasant an experience 

 since I first learnt what a wide difference there is between 

 knowing a passage by heart for recital to yourself and 

 knowing it for recital before a crowded audience. 



* * * 



^Ir. Laeouchere, who wants to reform the hereditary 

 House, is also evil-minded enough to object to the fine old 

 manner of walking backwards before hereditary rulers. He 

 would thus destroy an effective LUustratiou of hereditary 



humbug. But stay ; reading on, I find he is not so wildly, 

 so madly revolutionary after all. He proposes only a change. 

 He suggests that it would do if, instead of walking back- 

 wards at the risk of tumbling, the abject ones tumbled in 

 the first instance, and allowed royalty to honour them by 

 trampling a little upon their prostrate bodies, or giving 

 them an appropriate kick or two. I fear he is not in real 

 earnest. Nothing Ls sacred to some men. It is saddening;. 



* * * 



The discussion raised in the Guardian by Prof. Pritchard's 

 remarkable change of face in regard to the cosmogonies 

 combined in the opening chapters of Genesis is interesting, 

 and in some degree amusing : all the writers are so sin- 

 gularly clear that they are discussing what was literally 

 God's Word, and so singularly blind to the foct that their 

 differences of opinion as to its meaning amounts to very 

 unfavourable criticism of the whole record I What would be 

 thought if a dozen critics, knowing some passage to be by 

 Milton or Shakespeare, were to agi-ee in saying, It is mag- 

 nificent, it is the grandest and most beautiful thing either 

 poet ever wrote ; but — we have not a clear idea as to what 

 it actually m&ans 1 We other folks, who recognise in the 

 opening chapters of Genesis a very interesting relic of 

 ancient science, edited after the Babylonian exile, and in- 

 geniously combining with an old account ideas belonging to 

 much later times, are surely m\ich more respectful — not to 

 say less blasphemous — than those who picture Deity as either 

 not knowing much about His own work, or else as writing 

 (whether designedly or otherwise) so as to confuse counsel. 

 The theologians, at any rate, a)-e confused. For though 

 when they work together their unanimity is wonderful, the 

 case is very different when they work apart. Under such 

 conditions they somewhat resemble Susanna's elders. 



* * * 



They agree tolerably in rejecting Professor Pritchard's 

 "sleeping seer," who is, indeed, only a mild version of Dean 

 Stanley's "gifted seer." Professor Pritchard will allow no 

 truth in the old story, only wonderful beauty. All other 

 cosmogonies, he tells us, are dull and prosaic beside the first 

 chapter in Genesis. This reminds me of a speech made 

 after a lecture I had given about the Star-depths. The 

 reverend chairman said, somewhat at length, that what 

 the audience had heard about the glories of the star-strewn 

 universe, the millions of millions of suns, each pouring forth 

 such amazing supplies of light and heat, and witli them life to 

 circling worlds — all this, and infinitely more, had been "already 

 expressed in words which were the most beautiful, the most 

 awe-inspiring, the most impressive of all that had ever been 

 uttered by man about the heavenly bodies, — those glorious 

 and noble words^(the audience waited in mute expectancy) 

 — " He made the stars also." For, setting aside all thought 

 of scientific accuracy, all question of inspiration, it must 

 assuredly be admitted that four-fifths of the chapter which 

 seems so poetical and beautiful to Professor Pritchard is 

 mere cataloguing. He might as reasonably tell us to be 

 moved to emotion by that noble verse, that most impressive 

 passage — " Eber, Peleg, Reu." We need not deny the 

 genealogical value of the list of the descendants from Shem ; 

 some may even consider that an ancient Hebrew was moved 

 by divine inspiration to record them ; but to find poetical 

 beauty or noble imagery in " Eber, Peleg, Pieu " is to " offer 

 to the Almighty the unclean sacrifice of a lie." It is bad 

 enough to offer bad science and unsatisfactory literature to 

 God as His own ; but one may do worse even than that. 



* * * 



The Secretary of the Victoria Institute has singularly 

 misapprehended my remarks about the reading of Mr. 

 Boscawen's paper. I really fail to understand how anyone 



