437 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Mechanics 

 Memory 



its work of extinction, seizing again the 

 realities which its on-rushing stream had 

 borne far from us. Memory is a kind of 

 resurrection of the buried past: as we fix 

 our retrospective glance on it, it appears to 

 start anew into life ; forms arise within our 

 minds which, we feel sure, must faithfully 

 represent the things that were. SULLY Illu- 

 sions, ch. 10, p. 231. (A., 1897.) 



2138. MEMORY AND THOUGHT 



Dependence of, on Bodily Condition Evi- 

 dence of Old Age, Delirium, and Sleep. The 

 memory rises and falls with the bodily con- 

 dition, being vigorous in our fresh moments, 

 and feeble when we are fatigued or ex- 

 hausted. It is related by Sir Henry Holland 

 that on one occasion he descended, on the 

 same day, two deep mines in the Hartz 

 Mountains, remaining some hours in each. 

 In the second mine he was so exhausted with 

 inanition and fatigue that his memory ut- 

 terly failed him; he could not recollect a 

 single word of German. The power came 

 back after taking food and wine. Old age 

 notoriously impairs the memory in ninety- 

 nine men out of a hundred. In the delirium 

 of fever the sense of hearing sometimes be- 

 comes extraordinarily acute. Among the 

 premonitory symptoms of brain disease has 

 been noticed an unusual delicacy of the 

 sense of sight; the physician suspects that 

 there is already congestion of blood, to be 

 followed perhaps by effusion. Any person 

 fancying that trains of thinking have little 

 dependence on the bodily organs should also 

 reflect on such facts as these. When walk- 

 ing, or engaged in any bodily occupation, if 

 an interesting idea occurs to the mind, or is 

 imparted to us by another person, we sud- 

 denly stop, and remain at rest, until the ex- 

 citement has subsided. . . . Why should 

 sleep suspend all thought, except the inco- 

 herency of dreaming (absent in perfect 

 sleep), if a certain condition of the bodily 

 powers were not indispensable to the intel- 

 lectual functions ? BAIN Mind and Body, 

 ch. 2, p. 3. (Hum., 1880.) 



2139. MEMORY, ANOMALIES OF 



Sudden Recollection of Something^ Sought in 

 Vain. There are many irregularities in the 

 process of forgetting which are as yet un- 

 accounted for. A thing forgotten on one 

 day will be remembered on the next. Some- 

 thing we have made the most strenuous ef- 

 forts to recall, but all in vain, will, soon 

 after we have given up the attempt, saunter 

 into the mind, as Emerson somewhere says, 

 as innocently as if it had never been sent 

 for. Experiences of bygone date will revive 

 after years of absolute oblivion, often as 

 the result of some cerebral disease or acci- 

 dent which seems to develop latent paths of 

 association, as the photographer's fluid de- 

 velops the picture sleeping in the collodion 

 film. The oftenest quoted of these cases is 

 Coleridge's : 



" In a Roman Catholic town in Germany, 

 a young woman, who could neither read nor 



write, was seized with a fever, and was said 

 by the priests to be possessed of a devil, be- 

 cause she was heard talking Latin, Greek, 

 and Hebrew. Whole sheets of her ravings 

 were written out, and found to consist of 

 sentences intelligible in themselves, but hav- 

 ing slight connection with each other. Of 

 her Hebrew sayings, only a few could be 

 traced to the Bible, and most seemed to be 

 in the rabbinical dialect. All trick was out 

 of the question; the woman was a simple 

 creature; there was no doubt as to the 

 fever. It was long before any explanation, 

 save that of demoniacal possession, could be 

 obtained. At last the mystery was unveiled 

 by a physician, who determined to trace 

 back the girl's history, and who, after much 

 trouble, discovered that at the age of nine 

 she had been charitably taken by an old 

 Protestant pastor, a great Hebrew scholar, 

 in whose house she lived till his death. On 

 further inquiry it appeared to have been the 

 old man's custom for years to walk up and 

 down a passage of his house into which the 

 kitchen opened, and to read to himself with 

 a loud voice out of his books. The books 

 were ransacked, and among them were found 

 several of the Greek and Latin fathers, to- 

 gether with a collection of rabbinical wri- 

 tings. In these works so many of the pas- 

 sages taken down at the young woman's 

 bedside were identified that there could be 

 no reasonable doubt as to their source." 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 16, p. 681. 

 (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



2140. MEMORY COEXTENSIVE 

 WITH INTEREST The attention which we 

 lend to an experience is proportional to its 

 vivid or interesting character; and it is a 

 notorious fact that what interests us most 

 vividly at the time is, other things equal, 

 what we remember best. An impression 

 may be so exciting emotionally as almost to 

 leave a scar upon the cerebral tissues. 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 16, p. 670. (H. 

 H. & Co., 1899.) 



2141. MEMORY DEPENDS ON MUL- 

 TIPLE ASSOCIATIONS Inherent Absurdity 

 of Cramming System. You now see why 

 " cramming '* must be so poor a mode of 

 study. Cramming seeks to stamp things in 

 by intense application immediately before 

 the ordeal. But a thing thus learned can 

 form but few Associations. On the other 

 hand, the same thing recurring on different 

 days, in different contexts, read, recited on, 

 referred to again and again, related to other 

 things and reviewed, gets well wrought into 

 the mental structure. This is the reason 

 why you should enforce on your pupils 

 habits of continuous application. There is 

 no moral turpitude in cramming. It would 

 be the best, because the most economical, 

 mode of study if it led to the results desired. 

 But it does not, and your older pupils can 

 readily be made to see the reason why. 

 JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 12, p. 129. (H. 

 H. &Co., 1900.) 



