NOVUAf ORGANUM. 335 



prose. And from this Handful of three Instances, viz. order, common 

 places for artificial memory, and verse, is constituted one species of 

 aid to the memory. Now this species may rightly he called the Lulling 

 away of the Indefinite. For when we strive to remember or to call 

 anything to mind, if \ve have no previous notion or perception of what 

 we are seeking, we are sure to seek and labour, and run to and fro 

 indefinitely. Hut if we have any certain previous notion, the I ndefmite 

 is immediately cut off, and memory wanders nearer home. Now, in 

 the three Instances aforesaid, the previous notion is clear and certain. 

 In the first it must be something agreeing with the order ; in the 

 second, an image bearing some relation or conformity to those fixed 

 common-places : in the third, words which fall into the verse. And 

 so the Indefinite is cut off. (2) Other Instances will give this second 

 species ; that whatever brings the Understanding close to something 

 which strikes the senses (which is the method most approved of in 

 artificial memory) helps the memory. (3) Other Instances will give 

 this third species ; that those which make an impression by a strong 

 emotion, as by causing fear, wonder, shame, delight, help the memory. 

 (4) Other Instances will give this fourth species; that those things 

 which are chiefly impressed on the mind when it is clear, and not 

 occupied by anything before or behind it, as what is learned in child 

 hood, or what we fancy before sleep, and also things happening for the 

 first time, are best retained in the memory. (5) Other Instances will 

 give this fifth species ; that a multitude of circumstances to be grasped 

 as handles help the memory, as wiiting in disjointed paragraphs, 

 reading or reciting aloud. (6) Lastly, other Instances will give this 

 sixth species ; that things which are expected, and excite attention, 

 are retained better than those which fly past us. Thus if you read a 

 writing through twenty times, you will not learn it by heart as easily 

 as it you were to rend it ten times, trying between whiles to recite it, 

 and when memory fails, looking in the book. So that there are, as it 

 were, six lesser Forms of things which help the memory, viz. the cutting 

 off the Indefinite; the bringing down of the intellectual to the sensible ; 

 impression on a strong emotion ; impression on a disengaged mind ; 

 a multitude of handles ; and anticipation. 



To take another example : let the Nature investigated be Taste, or 

 the act of Tasting. The Instances which follow are Constitutive^ viz. 

 that those who cannot smell, but are destitute of that sense naturally, 

 do not perceive, or distinguish by the taste, food that is rancid or 

 putrid ; nor, in like manner, what is flavoured with garlic, oil of roses, 

 or the like. Again, those who by accident have their nostrils 

 obstructed by a descent of rheum, do not discern or perceive anything 

 putrid or rancid, or sprinkled with rose-water. Again, those who are 

 affected with rheum of this sort, if they blow their noses strongly when 

 they have anything foetid or strongly scented in their mouth, or on 

 their palate, instantly have a clear perception of the rancidity or per 

 fume. Now these Instances will give and constitute this species, or 

 rather part of Taste : that the sense of tasting is nothing but an 

 internal smelling, passing and descending from the upper passages of 



