Ideatypics; or, an Art of Memory

Front matter

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

Introduction

Memory has been well defined by Dugald Stuart as ‘That faculty which enables us to treasure up and preserve, for future use, the knowledge we acquire; a faculty, (he adds,) which is obviously the great foundation of all intellectual improvement, and, without which, no advantage could be derived from the most enlarged experience.’ Any remarks of mine may be spared on the value of this most necessary and excellent condition of mind, when individuals the most gifted and favored by nature speak of the inutility of all labour in wisdom and knowledge, if there be no memory to preserve and use that which is acquired. Dr. Watts says, ‘There can be neither knowledge, nor arts, nor sciences, without memory; nor can there be any improvement of mankind in virtue or morals, or the practise of religion, without the assistance and influence of this power.’ There are some, however, as Locke has observed, that retain the characters drawn on them like marble, others like freestone, others little better than sand. It becomes, then, an important enquiry, in what way we can best assist the imperfect operations of the mind; for in no other light do I regard a deficient memory than as a result of improperly regulated faculties. Of course, I mean cæteris paribus—other things being equal or the same,—because the constitution of our bodies, our organization and temperament, are closely connected with mental action, and produce marked differences, even where there is no marked difference of absolute mental capacity. In this matter, as well as in every thing else, we naturally revert to the sayings and doings of our forefathers, however we may be inclined to make innovation upon those things which they have left us. However disposed we may be, also, under the influence of right reason, to award the palm of great pre-eminence to the moderns in almost every department of human knowledge, we must, nevertheless, acknowledge, there was something extraordinary in the contrivances and results of the mnemonic systems of the ancients, and their local memory.

The foundation of all contrivances which have been, or, perhaps, can be employed to help recollection, is to be traced to the principle of the scheme of Simonides, It is the basis of this which I have designated “Ideatypics,” a term which has been considered peculiarly appropriate by persons on whose judgment I can rely, and who were made acquainted with the principle to which the term was applied by me in the summer of 1843.

The leading feature of the whole system detailed in this Work is, to transfer a train of ideas whose archetypes are not the objects of sense, and are therefore of difficult recollection, to another train which we cannot fail to recollect; because the archetypes are not only objects of sense, but objects of sight, which may be placed actually before our eyes, as things with which we are perfectly familiar.

Simonides, so justly celebrated by Cicero and Quintilian, is represented as taking a house, or any other suitable building, in which he might deliver a discourse, and, with every part of which he was supposed to be perfectly familiar, then, beginning at some fixed point, he would proceed round it in a circular line, till he arrived at the point at which he set out. He would divide the circumference of the house as he perceived the subject required it, taking different compartments for different topics, using distinctive symbols, and introducing therein external objects: e.g. he would take a ship, as a symbol for naval affairs. He would take the symbol of some current coin, and actually transfer, or imagine it to be transferred, to some compartment of the building, when he was desirous of recalling financial subjects to recollection. In all instances, he would produce in his mind an hieroglyphical painting of the sense of any subject, which might always be referred to when mentally deposited in some well-known spot.

What we know of the Mnemonics of the ancient Greeks, is comprised in a small compass. They gave the outline, however, for the moderns to fill up. The Romans, as well as the Greeks, studied it with pleasure and success; and many of their feats of memory are recorded. Julius Cæsar was an adept in the art; and Seneca, the philosopher, was well versed in it; he could repeat 2,000 names in the exact order in which they were rehearsed to him. It is said that Cicero, as well as Seneca, never heard any thing material but it was as imprinted on their memory. Quintilian speaks of the topical memory of the ancients, and the assistance derived from the walls of a city, a well-known road, or any convenient site, for placing objects. He speaks also of a pretended improvement, which he rejected as trifling, in which the words of a discourse were comprehended by constructing symbols for each of them, and referring them severally to compartments.

All the mnemonical systems that have been promulgated during the last 500 years, have been derived from the celebrated topical memory of the ancients. The Germans, perhaps, more than any other nation, have availed themselves of the advantages presented to them in the cultivation of the art of Memory. To this we may, in a great measure, attribute the circumstance of their being so long considered great authorities in Ancient Literature and the Arts. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, various continental writers successively published systems of local and symbolical Memory. In 1236, Raymond Lully, called the illuminated Doctor, brought the Art of Memory into notice, after the lapse of ages. The learned gave it the name of the transcendental art. Then we have Peter of Cologne and Peter of Ravenna, both distinguished by their respective systems. In the year 1533, appeared the “Congestorium Artificiosæ Memoriæ” of Romberch, in which, with many improvements, the various systems previously published were enumerated and detailed. England was not without her share in the honor, when William Fulwood translated Grataroli’s work, under the title of the “Castel of Memorie.” This was afterwards translated into French.

I think I may justly attribute the extraordinary attainments of many of the learned in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to an art of Memory. As early, however, as the fourteenth century, we read of Englishmen distinguished by attempts to work into system the topical memory of the ancients.

No. 3744 in the Sloane Collection, preserved in the British Museum, is the “Ars Memorativa” of Thomas Bradwardine, called the profound Doctor, who was Proctor of Merton College, Oxford, 1325. At the time when this work was produced, learning was, comparatively, little in advance in England. We find, in later times, many distinguished professors of the art at Oxford and Cambridge—men who were said to be profound in their attainments, and who were regarded, on this account, with a sort of superstitious reverence.

Many mnemonical essays were published on the Continent in the 17th century, by Azevedo, Cuirot, Belot, and others whose names are not known.

In 1651, Henry Herdson, professor by public authority in the University of Cambridge, published his “Ars Mnemonica sive Herdsonus, Bruxiatus, etc.” in Latin and English; but this was principally copied from Brux’s Simonides redivivus.

From the year 1715, when Erhardt and Feyjoo published their respective systems, to the end of the 18th century, Mnemonics did not excite much attention, through various circumstances. In 1806, in the Philosophical Magazine, some notice was taken of a new branch of science, studied in Germany, called by the ancients Mnemonica, or the Art of Memory. The following were remarks made upon it:—“We find in Herodotus, that it was carefully taught and practised in Egypt, whence it was brought into Greece. This historian attributes the invention of it to Simonides; but his opinion is refuted in a dissertation published by M. Mongerstern of Dorpat, upon Mnemonica. He there asserts that this science is more intimately connected with the Egyptian Hieroglyphics than is generally supposed, and this connection may help to explain them. However the case may be, this singular, but so long neglected art, has re-appeared in Germany with some eclat.”

There is also mention made of a promise being exacted from the pupils not to write down the lectures of those who taught it. The account here given, seems to be in reference to M. Gregor Von Feinagle, a native of Baden, who visited Paris about this time, and delivered lectures on his “New System of Mnemonics and Methods.” This system, although it was open to great improvements, was nevertheless applicable to every branch of science—easy to be learned, and adapted to all ages and sexes. The Count of Metternich and his secretaries followed the whole course, and gave their testimony to the value of it. The learned spoke of its capabilities and its promise, while many of the public journals spoke injuriously of it, and, with much that was plausible, misled the public; but this arose from the ignorance or venality of some of the journalists, who frequently applaud or condemn as it best serves their interest.

A writer in the Monthly Magazine, vol. xxiv. page 105, records experiments on the power of association,—first, with the several parts of his own house, then with other permanent and familiar classes of objects. He says, “I was as myself educated in the vicinity of Oxford Street; and the streets running out of that street south and north, I made use of for my own purpose of successive association. The greater the variety of ideas connected with this set of objects, which may be called the associative key, the more easy and the more certain is the power of recollection.” He adds, further, “If I do not hazard a charge of egotism, I shall mention, as illustrative facts, that, by this new art, I once committed to memory, in a single morning, the whole of the propositions contained in the three first books of Euclid, and with such perfection, that I could, for years afterwards, specify the number of the book on hearing the proposition named, and could recite the pro- position on hearing the number and the book; and I have, frequently, in mixed companies, repeated backwards and forwards, from fifty to a hundred unconnected words which have been but once called over to me. I may also add, to prove the simplicity of the plan, that I taught two of my own children to repeat 50 unconnected words in a first lesson of not more than half an hour’s continuance.”

Feinagle’s public experiment in England is recorded in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lxxxi. part 1. and in the Morning Post of April 18, 1812.

In the London Encyclopædia, we have a curious notice of Todd’s system; but this and all mnemonical publications to the present time, except those of Grey and Lowe, (who substituted letters for figures) seem to be modifications of the same system; and indeed it would appear, that every method to assist the memory, must be based on combining locality with the subjects to be remembered.

Chapter 1

CHAP. I. IDEATYPIC PRINCIPLES.

An art of Memory implies a certain education of the faculties to which, in consequence of the many fallacies in education, the teacher seldom turns his thoughts. There is a physical, a mental, and a moral training; and he that would understand either, must enter into a close consideration of its nature and value. Not greater care is required to rear the tenderest flower, than is required to foster the expanding mind: ordinary expressions, however, would not lead us to think so. How often do the intricate workings of the childish mind perplex us. How often are we posed by queries pertaining to the commonest things, while we are priding ourselves, perhaps, on our ability to answer many abstruse questions in science or in art.

The operations of a child’s mind are too subtile to be well scrutinized, or at once directed. Hence, parents are generally much better judges of the physical than the mental health of their children; and yet every one feels that he can say something on the teacher’s delicate and mysterious craft: why not prescribe also for our physicians, and help them in the exercise of their vocation? But they are properly qualified, and properly paid for their services. So let the teacher be—the public would be gainers. The teachers and the taught must advance together. The degradation of the teacher is the degradation of the taught.

The different effects perceived in the same class of pupils, shew the need of different appliances; but what the difference of treatment should be, or who is to prescribe, remains a question. Has no one thought that there might be a mode of passing from the “abstract to the concrete” or, from an abstraction to a type, in such a way, that the teacher might educate all who are not positively deficient, in much less time than usual, according to the different extent of their perceptive powers?

Pestalozzi and others half advanced the idea, when they introduced the excellent plan of throwing aside the use of mere abstract terms, when a sensible presentation of an object could be made. A few among the ancients and among the Germans perceived that the usual mode of acquiring knowledge was not based on right principles, and not suited to the faculties of mind; for man is preeminently constituted to perceive sensible objects: we have not even a knowledge of a mind, apart from revelation, but by the contact of our percep- tive powers with their proper object. As mind can only operate relatively, it must be in relation to its perceptions, and through them; hence the mind must lay hold of and retain all matters through the perceptive faculties, or it must apprehend abstractions, which is contrary to our observations of the connection subsisting in the several parts of our constitution. It may be said, indeed, that an educated mind can have, apart from the perception of externals, an intimate perception of an abstraction. It may appear so; but “every thing must have a handle,” as good Rowland Hill used to say; and every thing abstracted will be more or less apprehended and retained, as it comes into our mind under some imagined form, more or less like a form, or composed of forms that have been first received from the external world, through the ordinary perceptive powders. Our thoughts are thus led to perceive that there is a necessary co-operation of mind and body in all instances. The senses—the brain—and the mind, actively co-operate; and though the mind sometimes appears to work alone, it is because it falls back upon perceptions, previously acquired and retained in the memory. The brain is the organ of the mind; and as there are discovered laws which affect this material organ, in connection with mental as well as physical operation, it is our duty to attend to them, and to walk as nearly as possible with the design of nature. Nature, through whom we look up to nature’s God, has surrounded us with laws, never transgressed with impunity. The physical and organic laws “cast their shadows before us;” so that in the dazzling magnificence of the Creator’s power that shines forth in them, we may learn the Divine word that went forth with them—“Do these things and live.” Creation is a revelation of Jehovah’s will to man; and the searcher after truth there learns his imperative duty of obedience to every physical and organic law, or he pays the price of his neglect.

The equally imperative laws of mind, whose functions are manifested to us through physical organs, have been disregarded, because their effects are less easily traced, and less evidence of their certainty is manifest. Yet, can we suppose there is less certainty in the operations of God’s laws, as exhibited to us in the manifestation of mind, than there is in the manifestation of life through material organs? Can we think that the connection between the brain and the external world, admits of less certain laws than any other connection subsisting between matter, and in the connection of matter and spiritual essences? Can we, by anything like reasoning, arrive at the conclusion, that we verge upon something that is wild and extravagant—that owns no law, or is superior to all law? Mind must be subject to Omnipotence, and its operations certain; for it is subject to an influence, that, in no instance, directly or indirectly, admits of “variableness,”—to an influence, that, in no instance apart from the miraculous, manifests itself to man, except through the medium of a determinate channel—a steadfast law.

These remarks apply to the present system of education, which is one of incessant mental toil: all the soul’s energies are expended on the mere attainment of knowledge, without any time for subsequent useful application of it. The fagging system presents us with perhaps one eminent man amidst the mental and physical wreck of five hundred. In these remarks, I do not mean to depreciate application, but to speak of the waste or destruction of the mental powers, in misapplied or excessive toil.

The distribution and arrangement of power is well understood by machinists. There is with them no voluntary waste nor prostration of strength the laws of the Creator are sufficiently apprehended and attended to. The work done by them is not the worse for being done in a fraction of the time once employed: on the contrary, there is greater precision and greater certainty than ever before attained. He who understands this, and has learned some of the conditions of his own economy from Coombe, Brigham, and others, will at once perceive the value of the proposed distribution and management of mental power as detailed in Ideatypics. In referring to the necessity of a teacher’s acquaintance with certain principles, I do not mean that he should enter upon the study of Metaphysics, or dive into the subtleties of Locke, but that he should practise Education as an art, and follow it up as an inductive science,—that he should know the faculties and their objects, and the way in which nature will be most likely to assist his endeavors. For this purpose, I have given a classification of faculties, which is to be considered apart from every system, whatever its name or tendency, and tested by its own value, as the result of observation.

In attempting to give the most prominent simple faculties, and their modes or states, I shall be furnishing a starting-point, and a basis for future remarks.

I have presumed to differ from Locke when he classifies certain mental conditions as faculties; and I have no doubt that, by and by, many will presume as I do.

I recollect that, in a Court of Law, Dr. Elliot was decided to be insane, for asserting that the sun was inhabited; yet only eight years after- wards, the same opinion was expressed by Dr. Herschell, with great applause.

There are certain powers belonging to us, that may be called the Media of Perception, whose ready servants are the senses, and who stand in the way of these and the powers of reflection. Whatever our opinions may be, we must acknowledge that we have an observing group of faculties.

These primitive powers that help us to form simple ideas, are all served by Language, that finds in these two groups the materials of its exercise. It is a delightful task indeed, to observe the gradually manifested powers of a child as it applies language to the objects of the faculties. It should lead us to reflect on the laws of mental manifestation, that we may apply the principles in all our efforts to educate or improve the memory.

There is a group of feelings that come into play in the exercise of the observing group.

Domestic | Group of Feelings that belong to human nature.

Preservative

Prudential

Regulative

Imaginative

Beneficent

The whole are, more or less, influenced by reasoning faculties, by which we are led to discover, reflect, and decide upon

Cause | | and | Effect

Similarity | | and | Dissimilarity

Congruity | | and | Incongruity

I might call these three faculties, with more effect, the Causal, Synthetical, and Analytical powers of the mind. It was necessary that I should speak of all the faculties, that the wide range of Memory might be apprehended, and the relation I have assigned it, in not calling it a faculty, understood.

There are states, conditions, or modes of operation of the faculties, that are usually called faculties, but erroneously. These we must attend to.

1. ATTENTION. Attention is a mode—a state—not a faculty. We must produce this state, and promote attention, by what Nature or Art has to present, directly connected with any subject, or, by a type; as, Science, by books; Virtue, by a crown interwoven with laurel, &c., or any more appropriate symbol. By this means, the senses and the observing group are exercised, and all the necessary powers employed, instead of a part.

2. PERCEPTION. Let the first part be well performed: the second, which is Perception, follows, in greater or less power, as a result arrived at by the proper activity of the faculties. Scarcely any description is now given in a publication without pictorial illustration; and, in the education of children, the value of pictures has been long understood. The first progress of a child’s mind is visible in its perception of similitudes, either in an object that has a real or fancied resemblance to a familiar object, or as a type, more or less like the prototype in the child’s mind. Every one’s faculties have within themselves, a connexion and mutual action, which we designate Association.

3. ASSOCIATION. This is an active condition or mode of operation of the faculties that we shall have to speak of more at large.

4. JUDGMENT. This is an attribute of all the faculties, implying discrimination. Each faculty discerns the limit of its own function; and each perception takes, as it were, its own distinctive marks and boundaries. Not any two perceptions, perhaps, are found alike in any two minds. To improve the Judgment is a most important point, and never ought to be lost sight of in improving the Memory.

We see, then, from what has been said, that Association is a perceptive condition or mode of operation; and Judgment an attribute of the faculties; and that Perception is a condition or mode of operation; and that all the conditions are alike improvable states; and that memory, the last of the conditions, is most cultivated when all the mental conditions are attended to.

We shall enlarge upon the different principles of this System in relation to these conditions of mind.

Chapter 2

CHAP. II. ASSOCIATION.

My object throughout this Work is, to assist the enquirer in directing the faculties of his mind, and to aid him in search of that way of regulating them which is most according to nature—most easily deduced from first principles, and which leads to the best condition of the mental powers. I propose, however, to give a few general remarks, before proceeding to particular Association.

Every individual has a different mental portraiture—if I may use the term,—a differently modified observing power, or perceptive condition of mind; and this gives rise to the various associated forms or notions, which are known to exist in us all. We possess the same primitive powers of mind, but in different degrees; hence different treatment is needed, and different modes of educational process should be employed to draw out the one talent, and regulate the multiplying power of the five. I have, therefore, endeavoured to adopt general principles with a diversified application; because we have general associations, as those in connection with the color of the sky, etc.; while particular associations, as those of heat and cold, etc., will have most to do with our own particular ways of thinking, constitution of mind, and temperament.

Let the letters i, c, f, s, l, e, in all parts of the figure (vide Pl. I) be used for the words Individuality, Colour, Form, Size, Locality, and Eventuality. Let the different circles represent different degrees of mental power, in which there is denoted the tendency of one mind to observe in the order of i, c, f, s, and so on in other minds in encreased degree, as represented in the succeeding circles. Let the different squares also represent different degrees of differently-modified powers, in which there is also denoted a tendency to observe in the contrary order of the letters i, s, f, c; i, l, s, f, c, etc. As there are different degrees of activity in the faculties also, denoted by some letters being before others, in a circle or square,—that which denotes the most active, coming first, we see the difficulty of representing anything abstract, though apprehended by ourselves, that shall sufficiently strike many minds, or even arrest their attention, unless presented under some tangible form, by which one mind shall draw forth the less active or less prominent faculties of other minds. For instance:—the color of that building is a striking point of representation, to which we have sup- posed the more or less active faculties of each to be drawn, as represented by the lines from c to the building. You may draw the lines to any other letter, and pursue the same mode of representation, with reference to form, Sec. The Color, Form, &c., of this building, may be a medium through which much information may be imparted with certainty; because it brings the same faculty in each first into play, and we are not involved in the absurdity of expecting a pupil to think well about, or understand that which he has had but little tendency to observe, either from little exercise, or small powers of observation. Our way, then, of proceeding with a pupil is manifest: we must place him in a way to receive the simple ideas that are requisite. The business of the Educator is, to furnish a type, involving the elements of his own ideal abstractions, or associated forms, or notions, that he may wish to communicate. It must be a type, almost or really tangible—the representation of his own compound idea; under cover of which, he shall best communicate knowledge, and fix it in the memory of another. All the powers will be employed under such an arrangement, and there will be a passing from that which is indefinite and indeterminate, and open at every point to error, to that which is definite and determinate, and certainly known. It will occur to most of us, that the notions of men will be more or less definable—more or less approaching to the perfect notion, or its sign—more or less comprehending the requisite number of simple ideas, as the individual has more or less travelled or observed and thought of things, or been instructed in the right use of his observing faculties, so as to enable him to discourse of form without the existence. This being so, it will be found that we shall make most advances with those who possess the greater number of right notions of things. I have not forgotten those whose knowledge of this Art is to be derived from this book alone. I have reserved the next Chapter for Particular Association.

The use of similitudes or types, every society indirectly acknowledges. The business of life is comparison, and some of man’s mightiest movements have hinged upon feelings arising out of it. The aspirant after glory sets up his pattern; the shadowy phantom of his mind is embodied, and moves before him as something almost tangible. The poet, that revels in all that is bright, shadowy, and indefinable, brings within the range of our mental vision enduring forms, enshrouded in what had before spurned the shadow of an outline—even all the bright fancies that move out of his glowing conceptions of nature. Thought loves the companionship of kindred thought; and though ages intervene, each searches out his own, and clings to it as retained in some type that any other dress of language would for ever hide from our understandings.

Among the different causes that have promoted the civilization of man, there is none, perhaps, so fruitful as the invention of the alphabet, or ideatyped sounds. It would be interesting to trace the progress of language in connection with the march of mind; but it is foreign to our subject. Oral language, no doubt, originated in an attempt to produce a type of sounds, recalling absent objects and the things connected with them. Sounds afford a vast number of symbols. In common life, there is a transfer of sound from particular objects to the expression of abstract qualities, governed by certain principles of association. The reader will, no doubt, perceive that I am drawing principles that are afterwards applied, either in a direct or reverse form, from practices that have been, in part, sanctioned by long usage, yet employed without system. Though less convenient and less valuable than oral language when once invented, a more direct and simple language was first used—more easily contrived, and better understood, viz. the language of pictorial symbols, bound dies, and has no perpetuity; and tradition is only the echo of the voice of the past. A pic- ture on the sea-sand would outlive the sound of the human voice; and more favorable circumstances would preserve a picture for ages, when tradition herself had died away. To represent visible actions and visible objects, would be an easy affair; and signs for abstract qualities might be obtained, as in sounds, upon the principle of association—turning to account the already existing language of sound, rather than form a new series of associations. With this idea, I have avoided much that is arbitrary in Mnemonics, with great advantage. Ideatypics is an archway over Lethe’s stream: one butment is the language of sounds, the other is the language of pictorial symbols; both stand out of the stream; neither, of itself, gives a way over.