Systematic Memory/Chapter 1

​

CHAPTER I.

---

The power employed in Systematic Memory is chiefly the association of ideas. We make use of the well known to call up the less known. Every one has observed the power of association to bring up before the mind circumstances that had been long forgotten. A sight, a sound, a voice, will often call up a whole scene. A flower picked years ago on some hill side, when on a holiday excursion, calls up to you most vividly, when you find it between the leaves of a book, the scenes and events of that day. A song will bring before you the scene when you first heard it, as well as the singer. The scent of a flower will often recall past incidents. The sight of a cloud, a tree, a hill, a book, a picture, will bring before the mind thoughts of something else connected with them by association of ideas.

Now, these associations have generally formed themselves, if we may so speak. The associations have, nevertheless, been enduring; some of the more picturesque ones which our imagination paints will be still more lasting. There is a story told of a gentleman who was in the habit ​of amusing himself by experimenting upon this power of the association of ideas. On one оссаsion he drove out into the country, with his servant seated behind him. Upon coming to a bridge, where the scenery was particularly grand and striking, he turned suddenly round, and exclaimed, "Do you like eggs?" "Yes, sir," replied the man. The gentleman drove on, and nothing more was said. That day twelvemonth the gentleman drove out again in the same direction, and with the same footman seated behind him. Upon arriving at the bridge, he turned abruptly round as before, and observed, "How do you like them?" "Poached, sir," was the immediate reply! Here was a striking instance of the power which association exercises in recalling circumstances which would otherwise have been irretrievably forgotten. The man, as he approached the bridge, had his mind so full of the subject of his master's strange inquiry, although a year had since elapsed, that, when the second equally strange question was put, he at once connected them together, and answered accordingly.

In Systematic Memory we make association our servant instead of permitting it to be our master. We have the power of forming arbitrary associations. We can bring together things that have no natural connection, and thus associate them together. Having done so, by calling up the one, we can at any time recall the other. Feats of memory, then, are accomplished by means of mental pictures. As this book is intended to be ​as simple and practical as possible, we shall furnish the student with ample illustrations.

To begin: be good enough to see if you can remember the following words. Read them over only once, and do not write them:—

horse	mouth
Luton	Cicero
bridge	wall
man	cherry
coat	door
fork	mother
book	cellar.

You will probably find your task rather difficult.. There is, apparently, no connection whatever between the words. But you can form an arbitrary connection. In order to do so, you must make a series of pictures, and link them together as you go, taking great care that you make a clear, distinct, vivid picture, and that you thoroughly realize it in your mind before you leave it. Concentrate your thoughts as much as you can. A wonderful facility in picturing will be acquired by practice. Your panorama will probably run something like this:—Riding a horse (you can easily picture yourself riding) over Luton bridge (make your picture), I saw a man (picture) with a white coat (picture). He carried a fork in his hand (picture) and a book in his mouth (picture), which told of Cicero climbing over a wall (picture), and stealing a cherry (picture) that grew near the door of his mother's cellar (picture). Connecting these words in some such absurd way as ​the above, you will find no difficulty in repeating them consecutively. The reader who will here fairly test this experiment, will be agreeably surprised to find himself already, in a degree, master of our art.

Take another list of words, equally unconnected:—

crew	archer
tree	pin
ape	crystal
exodus	rug
fire	back
leaf	pen
star	nose
water

These words may be linked together something after this style:—The crew of a vessel once came upon a tree, among the branches of which was an ape, the only one left since the inhabitants were compelled to make an exodus, owing to fire. This tree had only one leaf, and a solitary star was reflected in a pool of water underneath, beside which stood an archer trying to thrust a pin through a ball of crystal. He had a rug dangling down his back, and a pen through his nose. Here it is necessary, again, strongly to impress upon the student the great importance of making his pictures, in all cases, as vivid as possible before leaving them.

Another simple and more effectual plan of remembering a series of words, is by connecting them with some piece of poetry which you already ​know well. Take Longfellow's "Excelsior," for example. Any other piece of poetry or prose which contains plenty of nouns, and that you are sufficiently acquainted with, will answer the same purpose. Say that our list of words commenced with

inkbottle

clock

tea

mud

sword, etc.

Your poem, thoroughly familiar to you, begins thus:—

Take the first word in the poem that will form a picture, viz., shades. Connect inkbottle with shades—an inkbottle as black as the shades. Make your picture. Clock connect with night; think of an illuminated clock at night. Tea connect with Alpine; you can fancy a party drinking tea on the summit of the Matterhorn. Mud connect with village; a little country village almost buried in mud. Sword connect with youth; you can imagine the daring youth, sword in hand. And so on. After having made all the pictures as clear and distinct to yourself as you possibly can, you have only to think of the words of the poem, and they will immediately suggest the words in your list. Shades will suggest inkbottle; night will suggest ​clock; Alpine, tea, etc. This may at first appear to you a paltry way of going to work. Be not offended, however, at its simplicity, but persevere, and you will eventually acknowledge the value of the method.

The above plans render great aid to the natural memory, but they lack completeness, and that systematic arrangement of the Art of Memory, par excellence, which is introduced in the following chapter.