19. The faculty of memory comprises three stages—impression, retention and recollection, and if any one of these three factors is impaired, the memory is in a corresponding degree defective. You are earnestly requested to pay very close attention to this portion of your First Lesson, since it forms a groundwork upon which much of your future success will be built.
Impressions are of two kinds; those coming to the mind from outside; and those arising within the mind itself, as in the case of thought and of imagination. Ease of recollection depends more upon the strength and vividness of the first impression than upon any other factor. Whenever an idea originates within the mind, endeavour to trace consciously the train of thought that led up to it. Ask yourself: “Why did that idea occur to me? How did it come?” Do not hurry away from it. Turn it over in consideration. Ask yourself what bearing it has upon the department of life, or study, or business with which it may be concerned. If it is an idea likely to prove of value, revive it in the mind after a brief interval. Later on in the Course, we shall describe various methods of association by which you will inevitably be able to recall any idea after any lapse of time. But there are other things which you must learn first, and for the present you must treat impressions with the means already at your disposal. We aim at developing your natural memory and not giving you an artificial one. If we provide special aids too early in the Course, you will be tempted to trust too much to them, and too little to your own inherent faculties.
External Impressions.
20. Although there is a certain class of impression which originates within the mind itself, there is another and very large class which comes from outside. These impressions reach the brain through the five senses. Sometimes impressions are conveyed to the brain by two or even more senses simultaneously. Thus, when you meet a stranger who begins at once to talk to you your brain will receive impressions of his appearance and of his speech, and these impressions arrive together. Some persons, when they are reading silently, seem to have in their minds the actual sounds of the words before them though no sound is audible. In this case there is an external visible impression and an internal audible impression. Individuals vary much in their susceptibility to impressions through the different senses, some receiving their most intense impression by sight and others by hearing. If you want a perfect memory, you must train not only your brain but also your senses. Do not trust wholly to your sight and neglect your hearing because your sight makes the most direct appeal to you, or vice versa. Even persons whose activity of sight is excellent frequently fail to observe much that they ought to notice. Take a sheet of paper and try to draw upon it the Roman figures exactly as they appear on the face of a clock, and then compare carefully the figure you have placed at “four o’clock” with the figure as represented on the dial of a watch or clock. A large percentage of persons will not succeed, and to fail in this manner is indicative of faulty observation. On which side are the buttons on a man’s coat and on a woman’s jacket? Many such details as these have come constantly before your eyes, but have you seen them?
Face Memory.
21. Have you “a bad memory for faces”? If you have, make a point to-morrow of looking at each person to whom you speak. In men, notice whether they are clean-shaven, or moustached or bearded. Notice the shape of the chin, the form of the nose, whether the lips are thin or thick, whether the mouth is wide or narrow. Notice the colour of the hair, the height of the forehead, the colour of the eyes. If your “memory for faces” is very faulty, take one of these details alone for a few days, noticing only noses, or eyes, or hair. Then after a few days, notice two facial details. As you progress, endeavour to obtain not only a record of details but also the general key to the individual expression of each face. Where two faces bear a resemblance try to discover the points of difference. In subsequent Lessons, we shall set you further exercises for training your sense of sight.
22. To train your sense of hearing, try to recognise your friends by their voices or their footsteps when they are within hearing, but out of sight. In the case of footsteps, notice rapidity, regularity and weight.
23. Impressions are conveyed to the brain not only by sight and hearing, but also by smell, taste and touch. Shut your eyes and try to distinguish between different flowers by their scent alone, and between different coins and between different textile fabrics by the sense of touch. Can you distinguish between beef and mutton if you eat with closed eyes? The three senses mentioned in this paragraph are of less importance to the majority of persons than are the senses of sight and hearing, but they should not be wholly neglected.
Retention.
24. The second stage in the process of memory is retention. This is automatic, and, if taken by itself, beyond the control of the student. Whenever a vivid impression is made, an absolutely permanent retention is assured. Of course, if no impression has been made upon the brain, no impression can be retained. When people say they have “forgotten,” they frequently suppose that their retentive power has broken down. The failure, however, is not in the retentive power, but in the third stage, which is the power of recollection.
That the mind has immensely strong retentive powers, acting unconsciously for the most part, is proved by the experiences of many men and women who have been saved in the nick of time from a watery grave. After resuscitation, they have recorded the fact that during the moments preceding the loss of consciousness, a train of mingled insignificant details and important crises of their lives, has passed before the mind’s eye in panorama. A majority of these details or occurrences would ordinarily be described as “forgotten,” but what has been lacking in normal conditions has been, not retention, but a sufficient stimulus for recall. If the stimulus be of the right character, it need not be of great intensity, and often a mere passing odour of violets will instantly bring back to us the picture of the peaceful country of our early days, even though we may never have had a thought of our native heath for months, perhaps years.
Recollection.
25. “Recollection” is the name given to the conscious revival of an impression made upon the brain and retained by it. Frequently recollection is spoken of as if it were synonymous with “memory,” but in reality recollection is only the third and final stage of the complete process. Facility in recollection depends primarily upon the intensity of the first impression. Secondly, it depends upon certain principles of association which will be explained in a later lesson.
Recollection may be brought about in various ways. Sometimes it is stimulated by a recurrence of the conditions which originated the first impression. Thus, if you “forget” an idea you will often find yourself able to “remember” it if you return to the exact spot where the idea first occurred to you. Sometimes a single circumstance will recall a whole group of ideas, as when the name of a novelist brings instantly to your recollection the incidents in various books which you have read of which he is the author. Sometimes an idea is recalled when its exact opposite is presented to the mind. From the scientific point of view, it is thought probable that particular ideas become connected with particular cells in the brain, and any excitement of a particular area in the brain is therefore likely to bring all the ideas located in that area within the range of ready recollection. We shall consider the subject again in further lessons, when we shall see the practical application and effect of the will in the act of recollection.
X. HEALTH AND MIND.
26. The brain partakes with the rest of the body in the circulation of the blood, and if the circulation is sluggish, the action of the brain also tends to become sluggish. It is partly because the circulation is improved by the exercise of the day that mental work is often accomplished more readily in the evening, though another cause for this lies in the number of brain cells stirred into activity by the events and thoughts of the day. In fever the brain is often more active by reason of the increased circulation of the blood, though sometimes the opposite effect is observable, owing