with any of the events or feelings of past life, will greatly assist the recollection of them. A man of strong associations finds memoirs of himself already written on the places where he had conversed with happiness or misery. If an old man wished to animate, for a moment, the languid and faded ideas which he retains of his youth, he might walk with his crutch across the green where he once played with companions who are now probably laid to repose in another spot not far off. An aged saint may meet again some of the effects of his early piety in the place where he first thought it happy to pray. A walk in a meadow, the sight of a bank of flowers, perhaps even of some one flower, a landscape with the tints of autumn, the descent into a valley, the brow of a mountain, the house where a friend has been met, or has resided, or has died, have often produced a much more lively recollection of our past feelings, and of the objects and events which caused them, than the most perfect description could have done."
Indeed, it will be found upon investigation, that locality is the most efficacious medium of reminiscence: and that system of memory will be the most serviceable, which brings this principle into the most extensive operation. For this reason, locality (or, the connection of our ideas with places) is made the foundation of the
