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Returning back to our simile of the two boxes, I will, now suppose that I take with each hand but a few cards. Here the probability of having a common card in both hands is very small indeed; in fact it would be a miracle if, having taken but a few cards in each hand out of one million, I should happen to pick up with my right hand a card similar to that picked up with my left.
In order to make myself understood, and better to impress upon my pupils the method of managing this most difficult problem, which, by the bye, embraces the greatest portion of human studies, I find it effective and useful to relate circumstantially the following anecdote:—
In my early infancy, my father, a physician and an extraordinary linguist, initiated me in the mysteries of several mnemonic contrivances; in the study of languages I invariably employed the association of ideas. I succeeded so far, that when at the age of not full thirteen, my father sent me to study medicine at the university of Vilna, in Poland. Relying upon my extraordinary memory, as it was called, I attended several courses of lectures besides those usually prescribed for students
