Memory | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 11, 1883

Memory.

The following, by a writer in the Christian Union, is commended to those individuals who plead poor memory as an excuse for ignorance of the Scriptures or absence from the Sabbath-school:—

People are wont to complain of a defective memory, but unreasonably. The truth is (idiots and the insane excepted), the memory of one individual differs from that of another in direction rather than in degree.

The miser hoards his gold, the book-lover treasures up some rare old volume, the botanist carefully lays away a curious specimen of the floral kingdom, because each is respectively the one thing for which he has an especial regard.

Let a person become thoroughly interested in any subject, and he will readily garner its most minute details into the storehouse of his mind, where he can lay hold upon them at a moment's warning, however much he may forget other matters. There have been those who seemed blessed with marvelous power of memory, but none of them possessed a mind sufficiently comprehensive to embrace an infinite variety of subjects. Indeed, they have almost always excelled—mnemonically—in the direct line of their avocation, thus illustrating the correctness of the view above taken.

Mithridates, King of Pontus, could express himself fluently in the language of each of the twenty-two nations over which he ruled. He frequently forgot an appointment to confer with an ambassador. Magliabechi, librarian to Cosmo III., Grand Duke of Florence, was never a hundred miles from that city. But if given the title of any important book he would instantly state in what particular library it was to be found. He could not remember the names of the streets of his native city.

Asked by a friend who was reading Thucydides the meaning of a word, Richard Porson, the eminent Greek scholar and critic of England, repeated the entire passage in which it occurred, and then told what, and what only, it could mean in such a connection. "How do you know that is the passage I was reading?" inquired the gentleman. "The word is found but twice in Thucydides; once on the right-hand page, again on the left, of the edition you use. I saw on which page you looked, and knew the passage." Very many like anecdotes are narrated of him. But a geometrical demonstration he was with the utmost difficulty able to master.

In 1874 Mozart promised to furnish an original composition to be played by himself and a distinguished violinist before the Emperor Joseph at Vienna. Appearing in the royal presence, he found he had neglected to bring his own part; but, placing a blank sheet of music-paper in front of him, he played his part from memory without a mistake. It is well known that on more than one occasion he forgot whether or not he had dined.

Henry Clay could call each of a score of persons by name, correctly, to whom he had been introduced a month before, and had not seen nor heard of in the interim. This faculty was probably one secret of his great popularity, as everybody is pleased to be remembered. Historical facts, however, with him sometimes became strangely confused.

If, then, one would strengthen his memory, let him cultivate a taste for and pursue with zeal any subject with reference to which he regards it weak. Having mastered this, other subjects are to be treated similarly. Astonishing results will follow. There is hardly any limit to the growth of memory. Most people believe that it is a natural gift which cannot be cultivated to any great extent; on the contrary, it may be strengthened and developed in any direction. A gentleman who five years ago believed himself to possess a very inferior memory has cultivated it to such a degree that he can now speak extemporaneously for an hour, giving fact after fact without any mistake, and without consulting notes.