nestly endeavor to increase, to cultivate and to improve; to neglect this invaluable faculty and abandon it to its own resources, when weak or deficient, may, to a certain degree, be considered intellectual suicide, for I must repeat that there is no faculty of the mind so capable of being improved as that of memory.
This is so true, that hundreds of specimens of really phenomenal powers of memory, acquired by artificial cultivation, have been noted at different periods, particularly in modern times: while, on the other hand, but a few specimens of remarkable natural memories have been recorded in the pages of history; and it is a very doubtful question whether even these few, did not use Mnemotechnic applications in the examples they gave of their astonishing powers of recollection. However, natural or artificial as these memories may have been, some of the names recorded in the chronicles of Mnemosyne were endowed with such a wonderful degree of the treasuring faculty, that, had not their powers been preserved and authenticated by the testimonials of undoubted authorities, it would be impossible to extend credence to them; but since they have been handed down to us as specimens of "natural memories," we will speak of them as such.
CELEBRATED SPECIMENS OF
NATURAL MEMORIES.
III. Before entering upon the subject, let us remark once more that among all these specimens of natural memories, there has not been any one possessed of what we have called[1] the power of universal memory, i. e. memory capable of retaining all kinds of facts. Some, as will be seen, have had a memory whose power could be applied but to the retention of names; others to the retention of isolated words only; others could learn nothing but prose; others poetry; and finally, some could apply their memory but to the acquisition of languages, while others could use it only in the operations of mathematics or extemporaneous calculation.
MEMORY OF NAMES.
IV. Without intending to notice all the celebrated memories which have enriched with their memorable exploits the anecdotic pages of history since the Creation, we shall have to take our start from a period as early as the first days of the world, for we find that the first authenticated and prodigious specimen of memory of names, and one which has been handed down to us by the most authentic of all records, is coeval with the creation of the world, in the case of our first father, Adam. This we have recorded in Genesis, Chapter ii., verses 19 and 20, as follows:
"And the Lord God, having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them," &c.
- ↑ See note, page 21.
