when we express our confidence that, stored with such valuable learning and information, and enriched with such advantages of method and composition, it will not only be resorted to as a direction to students, but will find its way, as a book of reference, into the hand of the enlightened physician. It is uo less a guide to youth, than a staff to age; and both descriptions of practitioners are under great obligations to the author for this productive effort of talent, labour, and erudition. ART. VIII. The New Art of Memory, founded upon the Principles taught by M. Gregor Von Feinaigle, illustrated by Engravings. 8vo. London, Sherwood. 1812. Dr. R. Grey's Memoria Technica,' or Method of artificial Memory. To which is subjoined Lowe's' Mnemonics, 9th Edit. 8vo. London. 1812. TWO years have elapsed since we first heard of Mr. Feinaigle's lectures upon Mnemonics and Methodics' in this country; but the treatise which professes to explain the principles of his art, has but just appeared. There is a general disposition in the public to suspect some latent quackery even in the best parts of such systems; and it would be difficult to avert the scepticism of those, who are impatient of means, as well as of effect. It has been frequently remarked that the characteristics of memory, are, susceptibility, readiness, and retention. The palpable inequality with which these properties are meted out to different individuals, would encourage the hope that the deficient qualities may be materially supplied by the intervention of mechanical aid, founded upon philosophical principles. Those who have susceptible and ready memories, but whose minds are indisposed to habits of method and classification (so favourable to the retention of acquired knowledge) should impose upon themselves the adoption of philosophical arrangement. Those, on the other hand, whose minds are only inclined towards abstraction and arrangement, should not hesitate to supply the want of a susceptible and ready memory, by those helps which ingenious men have invented for the No method of assisting the memory can be popular, unless its object be to direct and apply those faculties, whose exercise appears to be involved in every effort of memory; nor should we doubt that as the body may be trained to extraordinary feats of strength and agility by the pursuance of a system adapted to give free scope to the powers of muscular action, so the judicious direction of those mental faculties, by whose agency the mind is competent purpose. to to perform certain offices, cannot fail to give superior efficiency to its powers. The most approved philosophy asserts the dependence of memory upon two leading principles, attention, and the association of ideas; it follows, therefore, that whatever tends to concentrate attention, and to command and direct associations, may very essentially contribute to its improvement. Objects perceived by the eye are remembered more easily than by any other of our senses, in proportion as the impressions of sight are more rapid and numerous. We comprehend the infinite variety of a prospect in a momentary glance, and the imagination can revive the picture; but a verbal description of it would be tedious, and the impression faint: on this principle geography is taught by maps, geometry by diagrams, and architecture by drawings. The most casual observation was sufficient to prove the constant association of ideas with sensible objects, and the effect of these objects in recalling to the mind former ideas. This naturally suggested the hint of a topical memory, which should encourage an association of ideas with visible objects, arranged in order; and as these objects were at will summoned before the imagination, they would naturally bring with them the ideas with which they had been previously associated, and without confusion, as we shall presently demonstrate. We find in Quintilian the following minute account of the topical memory* in use among the ancients : They (the students of topical memory) become intimately acquainted with the arrangement of particular situations of considerable extent, for instance, of a spacious mansion divided into many apartments; every marked object contained in this building is attentively impressed upon their mind, that the memory may recur to the individual parts of it, without the smallest delay or hesitation. In the next place, whatever they have written, or reflected on, they connect with a casual association, by which they may be reminded of it. This association may either relate to universals, as for example, to navigation or war, or to particular words; for if they lose the train of their ideas, they are enabled to recover them, by the prompted suggestion of one individual word, whether this be the type of navigation, as an anchor, or of war, as a particular weapon; they therefore arrange these objects of association in order, and assign the first place, or the first idea, which they wish to remember, to the portico, the second to the hall; then they go round the inner courts: nor do they only commit these associations progressively to the bed-rooms and antirooms, but even to their furniture. When they have performed the Many interesting remarks on this subject occur in Cicero, who describes the application and advantages of this artificial mode of assisting the memory, with great neatness and perspicuity.--Rhetor. lib. iii. 16. circuit, circuit, and are anxious to recollect the associations, they recur mentally to those places in order from the beginning, they regain every ble type which they had entrusted to each particular spot, and this type at once suggests the idea connected with it.' In considering this scheme of topical memory, we must advert an extraordinary property of the mind, viz. that without a certain degree of volition, these associations will not operate. If We were unconsciously to revisit a scene, which had once been faar to us, but of which we only retained a general impression, should probably pass by a number of objects, to which our estion might be partially or even earnestly directed, without exKencing the revival of any ideas; but if at last we discovered where we had been, and retraced our steps with anxious curiothose objects which in the first instance had not awakened any ideas would inevitably arouse our dormant associations, when the was exerting a particular act of volition. We were induced to remark this property, with the view of anticipating an objecton, that the association of an infinite variety of trains of thought with the same series of objects, would be liable to generate confusion; whereas the volition of the mind to pursue a particular of thought, of itself awakens the ideas belonging to that train, and this without confusion or mistake. It is from this principle in the constitution of our minds, that we are enabled to recollect an infinite number of lines in poetry, of the same measure and subject, or to remember distinctly a variety of tunes, hich are in the same time and key, and which correspond in gene.al effect of harmony. If an orator had associated a series of guments upon a particular question of law, with a series of apartments, and at the same time had also associated a series of ments upon a political question, there would be no danger of Couston. The volition which the mind would exert in the first tance would suggest the first train of associations, distinct and separate, and equally so in the second case; in fact, if the two arrangements were both upon legal points not essentially different, the train would not even then be confused. We have long been disposed to think that it would be imposble to convey in writing an adequate and practical explanation of the system of mnemonics arranged by Feinaigle. The present, publication, which is illustrated by plates and diagrams, and is not deficient in merit, tends to confirm our opinion. If we attempted to define this system, we should call it, a method of re We could not say invented,' for a reference to a work published in 1617, enRavellini Ars Memoria,' will convince the reader that he has few claims to in ་ calling calling to the mind certain past trains of ideas, by varied associations of sight succeeding each other in preconcerted order, and of employing consonants as the type of numerals. The first method is to divide an apartment into fifty ideal squares: any four sided room is fitted for the purpose, and the more applicable as it approaches to the form of a square. In arranging these squares, it will be necessary to place yourself in one uniform position; for instance, with your back towards the window: you then conceive the floor to be divided into nine squares. No. 1, being the square on the floor in the left hand corner opposite to you, No. 10 is placed upon the cieling above the wall on your left hand, and No. 11, 12, 13, up to 19, are placed in threes upon the left or first wall, in the same manner as the numbers from 1 to 9 were arranged upon the floor. No. 20, or the twentieth square, is placed above the second wall, or the wall immediately before you, and from 21 to 29 on that wall. The same process is pursued on the two remaining walls, viz. the third wall on your right, and the fourth wall behind you. No. 50 is placed in the centre of the cieling. When the precise positions of these ideal squares are imprinted on the mind, which will not require many minutes, it will be easy to ascertain the facility of associating the ideas of objects with given proportions of space, of which the order and position are intimately familiar to the mind; and here the imagination is called into action, and whatever object you wish to associate with each of the squares in succession, you have only to create a picture in your mind of that object in the particular square to which your attention is directed. We shall now endeavour to explain the nature and application of certain hieroglyphics, a part of this system the most analogous in principle to the topical memory of the ancients. It is this part which appears most ridiculous to those who are ignorant of the method, and which is in fact the most ingenious portion of it, the most susceptible of extended application, and the basis of all the details connected with it. Two rooms are divided each into fifty compartments, in the manner which we have detailed. The first room contains hieroglyphics from one to fifty, the second from fifty to one hundred. These hieroglyphics, which might be more correctly called pictures of numbers, consist of the representation of certain animate or inanimate objects, the outlines of which are intended to bear a resemblance to the number of the square in which they are placed. The principle of this resemblance arises from the facility given to recollection, by the number exciting the idea of the picture, and the picture that of the number. Nothing can appear more absurd than one of these prints of hieroglyphics engraved engraved in the order in which they are to be associated on the walls. They may, however, in a very short time be committed to memory, and the mind turns as it were to the scite of each, with intuitive readiness. There is no necessity that a person should be in the room where these hieroglyphics are supposed to be arranged, or indeed, after some time, that he should mentally recur to any particular room, as the absolute order, number and subject of them would be spontaneously suggested to him. We shall now give sme idea of their application. If a person succeeded in repeating one hundred unconnected wards in regular succession, upon their being once read to him, it would be considered as an extraordinary effort of memory; and if indeed it was an effort of natural memory, deservedly. Any person her who was conversant with the hieroglyphics, would be able to eat them with very little effort of memory, and with almost a imagining however certainty of success; nay, more, after having repeated them, if he was asked which was the eighty-fifth word that had been given. im, be would immediately repeat it, or any of the other numbers, a the most complicated order. From the description given of the hieroglyphics, it will appear evident that every person acquainted with them will have one hundred places, or TOTO,' in Τοποι,” recognised and familiar order: supposing the two first words of the series to be chair, and imagination, he would at once associate the word 'chair' with the tower of Babel, which picture belongs No. 1, from the supposed resemblance of a lofty insulated building to the figure 1. He might make this association by that he saw a chair upon it; or in any other manner, incongruous; he would then discard from his mind that sociation, and proceed to No. 2, the hieroglyphic to which is a , from the resemblance of that bird to the figure 2; he would the associate the word imagination' with this picture, which might be done in various manuers, by supposing that he saw a an in imagination; or by associating some sensible object with the swan, which he might conventionally consider as the type of imagination: having finished that association, he would discard at from his mind, and proceed with the rest, till the hundred words were quartered in succession upon each hieroglyphic. Having concluded, his mind would not be the least on the stretch, there would be no necessity of keeping the links of the chain together, as an effort of natural memory; he has the talisman for uniting them together at will. If required to repeat the words, he summons to ass mud the first hieroglyphic, and the instant that it is presented to him the idea of a chair is suggested: he then recurs to No. 2, and the word imagination is also suggested to him. If called pon to mention the forty-second word, he recurs to the forty VOL. IX. NO. XVII. second |