On Memory. 499 
tentive memories. The excellence of memory consists 
partly in its strength of retention, and partly in the quick- 
ness of recollection. All the faculties of the mind are 
dependent on the memory, and though some persons may 
have strong memories with weak judgment, no person can 
have a strong judgment whose memory is remarkably 
defective. 
Memory is a source of refined and Bermanene plea- 
sure; painful recollections gradually subside, and, if suffi- 
cient time be allowed, by the power of association, all pain 
will be ultimately absorbed and the pleasure of memory 
will be pure and unmixed. 
Memory, observes Dr. Bird, is given us by the Author of 
our being, and we can give no satisfactory account of it, 
but that we areso made. “I believe most firmly,’ says 
that writer, “what I distinctly remember, but I can 
give no reason for this belief; it is the inspiration of 
the Almighty that gives me this understanding. Memory 
is always accompanied with the belief in that which we re- 
member, and this belief we account real knowledge, no less 
certain than if if was. grounded on demonstration. The 
testimony of witnesses in cases of life and death depends 
upon it, and all the knowledge of mankind with regard to 
past events is built on this foundation.” 
Professor Dugald Stewart thinks that the word memory 
is not uniformly employed in the same sense; it is some- 
times used to express the capacity of retaining knowledge, 
and sometimes the power of recalling it to our thoughts 
when we have occasion to apply it to use. When we speak 
of a retentive memory, we use it in the former sense, when 
of a ready memory, in the latter. 
The connection between memory and the association of 
ideas is so striking as to have led some to suppose that the 
whole of its phenomena might be resolved into this prin- 
ciple. This Dr. Stewart does not allow ; the association of 
ideas connects our thoughts with each other, so as to present 
them to the mind in a certain order, but this hypothesis 
pre-supposes a faculty of retaining the knowledge which 
we acquire. Itinvolves also a power of recognising former 
objects of attention, the thoughts that from time to time 
occur to us,a power which is not implied in that law of our 
nature which is called the association of ideas. On the 
other hand, it is evident that without the associating prin- 
ciple, the power of retaining our thoughts, and of recog- 
nising them when they once occur would have been. of 
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