MEMORY. 685 



Mr. Galton, in his work on English Men of Science,* has 

 given a veiy interesting collation of cases showing individ- 

 ual variations in the type of memoiy, where it is strong. 

 Some have it verbal. Others have it good for facts and 

 figures, others for form. Most say that what is to be re- 

 membered must first be rationally conceived and assimi- 

 lated, f 



There is an interesting fact connected with remember- 

 ing, which, so far as I know, Mr. R. Verdon was the first 

 writer expressly to call attention to. We can set our mem- 

 ory as it were to retain things for a certain time, and then 

 let them depart. 



" Individuals often remember clearly and well up to the time when 

 they have to use their knowledge, and then, when it is no longer re- 

 quired, there follows a rapid and extensive decay of the traces. Many 

 schoolboys forget their lessons after they have said them, many barris- 

 ters forget details got up for a particular case. Thus a boy learns thir- 

 ty lines of Homer, says them perfectly, and then forgets them so that 

 he could not say five consecutive lines the next morning, and a barris- 

 ter may be one week learned in the mysteries of making cog-wheels, 

 but in the next be may be well acquainted with the anatomy of the ribs 

 instead." % 



The rationale of this fact is obscure ; and the existence 

 of it ought to make us feel how truly subtle are the nervous 

 processes which memory involves. Mr. Verdon adds that 



" When the use of a record is withdrawn, and attention withdrawn 

 from it, and we think no more al>out it, we know that we experience a 

 feeling of relief, and we may thus conclude that energy is in some way 

 liberated. If the . . . attention is not withdrawn, so that Ave keep 

 the record in mind, we know that this feeling of relief does not take 

 place. . . . Also we are well aware, not only that after this feeling of 

 relief takes place, the record does not seem so well conserved as before, 

 but that we have real difficulty in attempting to remember it." 



This shows that we are not as entirely unconscious of a 

 topic as we think, during the time in which we seem to be 

 niereh' retaining it subject to recall. 



with their relations to each other and to things." (_A. Maury, Le t-'om 

 meil ct les Reves, p. 443.) 



* Pp. 107-121. 



f For other examples see Hamilton's Lectures, ii. 219, and A. Huber 

 Das Gediichtniss, p. 36 ff. 



X Mind, II. 449. 



