Chapter 3: Of the Memory, and Some Few Causes of Its Weakness

Now for these inward senses, which are commonly accounted three, (though extending themselves to sundry operations of differing qualities) [illegible] take the two later, to wit, Memory, and Fancy, or Imagination, to have a more excellent degree of perfection in man; as being indeed the principal storehouses and treasuries of the [reconstructed: operations] of the soul. Where by Memory, I understand not the faculty, as it is common to [reconstructed: beasts] with men, and imports nothing but the simple retention, and conservation of some species, formerly treasured up by the conveyance of the outward sense: but as it is Consors & co-operatrix Rationis, as Hugo speaks, a joint-worker in the operations of reason; which the Latins call Reminiscentia, or Recordatio; including some acts of the understanding. Which is a reviewing, or (as we speak) a calling to mind of former objects, by discourse, or rational searching for them; which is made by Aristotle to be the remote ground of all arts: For (says he) Memory is the ground of experience, and experience the mother of art. The dignity hereof in man, is seen, both by perfecting the understanding in matter of learning and discourse, (wherein some men have attained to almost a miraculous felicity; as Seneca the elder confesses of himself, who could immediately recite two thousand words, in the same order as they had been spoken before to him; and Cyrus, of whom Xenophon testifies, that he could salute all the soldiers in his army by their names; and Mithridates, who being king over twenty-two countries, did speak so many languages without an interpreter; and Politian in his Epistles tells of Fabius Ursinus, a child but of eleven years of age, in whom there was so rare a mixture of invention and memory, that he could to five or six several persons, at the same time, dictate the matter and words of so many several epistles, some serious, some jocular, all of different arguments, returning after every short period, from the last to the first, and so in order; and in the conclusion, every epistle should be so close, proper, and coherent within itself, as if it alone had been intended:) As also by affording special assistance for the direction and discreet managing of our actions, conforming them either to precepts and rules in morality, or to principles of wisdom and public prudence, gathered from historical observations; while the mind, by the help of memory, being as it were conversant with ages past, and furnished with examples for any service and employment, does by mature application, weighing particulars, comparing times, circumstances, and passages of affairs together, enable itself with the more hope and resolution, to pass successfully through any enterprise or difficulty: for qui credit sperat, he that believes, and is acquainted with the happy issue of other men's resolutions, will with the less anxiety or discouragement go on in his own.

The principal corruptions which I conceive of the memory, are first, too much slightness and shallowness of observation; when out of an impatience of staying long, or making any profound enquiry into one object, and out of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many, the greediness of the appetite weakens the digestion, (for so some have called the memory, the belly of the soul) and an eagerness to take in, makes one careless to retain. And this is the reason, why many men wander over all arts and sciences, without gaining real improvement, or solidity in any: They make not any solemn journey to a particular coast, and head of learning, but view all as it were in Transitu; having no sooner begun to settle on one, but they are in haste to visit another. But such men as these (except endowed with an incredible and unusual felicity of dispatch) are no more able to find the use, or search the bottom of any learning, than he who rides post, is to make a description and map of his journeys: who, though by much employment, he may toil and sweat more in traveling from place to place; yet is he far less able to discover the nature of the countries, temperature of the air, character of the people, commodities of the earth, than he, who though not so violent in the motion, is yet more constant in his abode: and though his haste be less eager, yet his observations are more serious. Omnis festinatio coeca est, says Seneca; Precipitancy and unstableness, as well in the motions of the wit as of the body, dazzles and disables the eyes: And it is true in the mind, as in the stomach; too quick digestion does always more distemper than nourish, and breeds nothing but crudities in learning. Nor can I call that so much study, as agitation and restlessness of the mind; which is as impatient of true settled labor, as it is of quiet. Now, the reason why such a temper of mind as this, is corruptive to the memory, is first, because memory is always joined with some measure of love; and we most of all remember that, which we most respect: Omnia quae [reconstructed: curant] meminerunt; There where the treasure is, the mind will be also: There therefore, where our love is most constant, our memories will be most faithful. So, that sudden vanishing, and broken desires, which like the appetite of sick men, are for the time violent, but give presently over; as they argue an eager love for the present, of what we pursue, and by consequence, fastidium and disesteem of that which we soon forsake, so do they necessarily infer weakness on the memory, by how much they make our hopes the stronger. For, as Seneca speaks, Caduca memoria futura imminentium; Men strongly bent upon things future, have but weak memories of things past.

Secondly, the body of any one homogeneous learning, has this excellent property in it, that all the parts of it do by a mutual service relate to, and communicate strength and luster each to other: so that he who goes through with any science, does from every new branch and conclusion which he meets with, receive a greater clearness and more strong impression of his former degrees of knowledge. Now then, that man who out of impatience of that restraint, cannot endure to go through an art, to search into the root, to observe the knittings and dependencies of the parts among themselves, to see by what passages truth is derived from the principles, to this or to other branches; must needs be so much the more forgetful of what he knows, by how much he is ignorant of those other parts to which it refers.

Other causes there are of weakness in the memory; as namely, a distrust, and from there an unexercise of it. Whereupon Plato tells us, that the use of letters, in gathering Adversaria and collections, is a hindrance to the memory; because those things which we have deposited to our desks, we are the more secure and careless to retain in our minds. And on the other extreme, a too great confidence in it, and thereupon an over-burdening it with multitude of notions; by which as it sheds much over, so it is also indisposed for the ready use of what it retains; it falling out in a huddle and tumultuary heap of thoughts, as in any other throng, that we can never so easily find out, or order and dispose what we desire to use, but are [reconstructed: confounded] in our own store. But I forbear to insist on these, because I hasten to the higher and more noble part of man.