of the deficiency, and of an effort to make it good. Thus, it is very possible to remember distinctly the personal appearance of an acquaintance, or the particulars of something that he has done, and to forget his name. In such a case, there is the consciousness that the idea exists, and the wish to regain possession of it; but the former depends upon a knowledge of the fact that every person has a name, and that, therefore, the individual in question can hardly be without one; while the latter is not attainable with absolute certainty. The will cannot recall the desired idea, in the sense that it commands a bodily movement; but it can keep before the mind ideas connected with the man, until either all the other associations with him are exhausted in a fruitless endeavour, or until the name comes in its turn with the rest.

To such a process as this, the word Recollection is properly applied, to distinguish it from Remembrance, which expresses the unsolicited return of our knowledge. The two, taken together, constitute Memory: a faculty whose importance may, perhaps, justify a short digression.

From occasional sentences in the foregoing pages, it will have been gathered that the ideas of every incident of past life, without exception, fall under the domain of memory; but that each one can only be brought before the mind by its association with another idea that has preceded it, and that either has been recalled by a similar process, or else newly excited by sensation. And it is evident that some past ideas may have been so trivial, and so unconnected, in themselves that there will be very few which can possibly recall

them; none that are certain to do so; and such will, perhaps, be unremembered, from the time when first forgotten, even to the end of life. Others, again, may have been present in connection with almost every act of existence; and, when they are temporarily absent, every act of existence may serve for their recall. Thus, the idea of a friend may be brought back to us by the ideas of any of the things that have been done or considered; of any of the places that have been talked of or visited, either with him, or in connection with his name; or by any others which recall, however faintly, one of the former class to remembrance. The author has heard the difference cleverly illustrated by a comparison between the recall of an absent idea, and the discharge of a spring gun. If the machine be set, with wires proceeding from it on every side, a depredator cannot take many steps before it will inevitably be fired; but if there be only one wire, he may walk within its range in comparative safety. Just so it is with ideas, there being some connected, so to speak, with but one wire in the garden of the mind; and others whose wires are placed in every possible direction.1 The illustration may be extended, however, by remarking that, as it would be very possible to place the single wire of a spring gun in such a manner as to guard effectually the only way of access to the enclosure; while, nevertheless, the instrument would remain undischarged so long as a thief did not attempt to enter: so there are some ideas that are united by a very strong link to the single, or the few associations,

'Lecture on the 'Philosophy of Memory,' by C. R. Edmonds, Esq.

which they possess, and that will be infallibly and forcibly recalled whenever one of them is touched. This is the case with the associations formed by close volitional attention to unattractive subjects, such, for example, as chronology. If the date of a past event be forgotten, the associations with that particular combination of figures are mostly so few and faint, that efforts at recollection are unavailing; and the chronological student is obliged to provide against this difficulty by fixing his attention steadily and continuously upon each date, in connection with its event; and by thus binding them together so closely, that the one idea shall seldom fail to recall its fellow. But if two or more important events happened in the same year, as, for instance, the great plague, and the fire of London, the process of recollection is much facilitated by the double link; and a person who had forgotten the date of the plague might aid his memory by saying that it raged in the year of the great fire, and, therefore, in 1666. Anything remarkable in the repetition or arrangement of the units composing the number, such as the occurrence of three sixes in the illustration above, would furnish an additional clue; and would render it possible to retain that particular date after less original effort in its acquisition.

The two great aids to Memory are, therefore :Familiarity and Attention, the first being the chief cause of Remembrance, and the latter being mostly concerned in giving the power of Recollection. The exercise of close and undivided attention involves a process of severe mental labour; and, on this account, whenever a thing is to be retained, especially by chil

dren, it is highly desirable to call in the aid of familiarity; and to surround it with numerous associations, in order to increase the facility of recollection, by adding to the number of roads along which the mind. may travel successfully in its search. The great means for the accomplishment of this end is to be sure that the thing to be learned is thoroughly understood by the learner, so that he may see the connections and the necessary truth of what he is taught; and that his mind may supply him with the knowledge of what must be, in answer to the question of what is.' The advantages of such a system are clearly shown by the ease with which languages may be acquired on any plan that commences with instruction in the vocabulary, as compared with those which commence with instruction in the grammar. By the former method,

The principle of the above sentence was strikingly illustrated by a trivial incident which occurred to me, some time ago, during a visit at the house of a friend. I had been, for two or three days, a compassionate witness of the tears and disgrace of a little boy, who, having made some progress in the rudiments of summing, declared himself utterly unable to learn the preposterous and abominable pence table, with which books on arithmetic are commonly defaced. Guessing at the cause of his difficulty, I explained to him that forty pence were three-and-fourpence, because there were twelve pence in a shilling; and three times twelve, with four over, in the mysterious forty; so that, by dividing with twelve, he could calculate the answer to each question. The word because rolled the clouds of sorrow from his face; two or three illustrations and examples sent him with a light heart to his governess; and I had the pleasure of extricating my little friend from a slough of despond, in which he might otherwise have remained until the days of the expected decimal coinage.

a knowledge of the meaning of words, and of the distinctions conveyed by their inflections, being first acquired through the associations supplied by numerous instances: the knowledge of the inflection which denotes the accusative case, or the imperative mood, follows as a matter of course. By the latter, a knowledge of the inflections must be gained by the laborious formation of artificial and forced relations between sound and sense; and although this labour has been regarded by many educators as a healthful intellectual exercise, utilizing, by its beneficial effect upon the mind, the greater time required for the accomplishment of its avowed purpose, the author is strongly of opinion that this view of the question is radically erroneous. If it be admitted that the depth and variety of human knowledge cannot be fathomed by any individual, so as to leave him no opportunity for farther mental culture; if there be no fear that a student can exhaust even a single science, during the time when study is chiefly valuable to him as a stimulus to the development of his intellect; then it almost follows, that the things which are learnt should be learnt with the smallest possible amount of toil. To reject the aid of familiarity in the acquirement of knowledge, and to rest wholly upon the exercise of attention, is like bandaging the eyes of children learning to walk. For this, also, would be to deprive them of a natural guidance, and to throw them upon another, which, although highly useful as an auxiliary, would never supply perfectly the place of the first. Furthermore, there is a very grave objection to the employment of languages as a principal means of education; inasmuch