1. Contemplation. The next faculty of the mind, whereby it makes a
further progress towards knowledge, is that which I call retention; or
the keeping of those simple ideas which from sensation or reflection
it hath received. This is done two ways.
First, by keeping the idea which is brought into it, for some time
actually in view, which is called contemplation.
2. Memory. The other way of retention is, the power to revive
again in our minds those ideas which, after imprinting, have
disappeared, or have been as it were laid aside out of sight. And thus
we do, when we conceive heat or light, yellow or sweet,- the object
being removed. This is memory, which is as it were the storehouse of
our ideas. For, the narrow mind of man not being capable of having
many ideas under view and consideration at once, it was necessary to
have a repository, to lay up those ideas which, at another time, it
might have use of. But, our ideas being nothing but actual perceptions
in the mind, which cease to be anything when there is no perception of
them; this laying up of our ideas in the repository of the memory
signifies no more but this,- that the mind has a power in many cases
to revive perceptions which it has once had, with this additional
perception annexed to them, that it has had them before. And in this
sense it is that our ideas are said to be in our memories, when indeed
they are actually nowhere;- but only there is an ability in the mind
when it will to revive them again, and as it were paint them anew on
itself, though some with more, some with less difficulty; some more
lively, and others more obscurely. And thus it is, by the assistance
of this faculty, that we are said to have all those ideas in our
understandings which, though we do not actually contemplate, yet we
can bring in sight, and make appear again, and be the objects of our
thoughts, without the help of those sensible qualities which first
imprinted them there.
3. Attention, repetition, pleasure and pain, fix ideas. Attention
and repetition help much to the fixing any ideas in the memory. But
those which naturally at first make the deepest and most lasting
impressions, are those which are accompanied with pleasure or pain.
The great business of the senses being, to make us take notice of what
hurts or advantages the body, it is wisely ordered by nature, as has
been shown, that pain should accompany the reception of several ideas;
which, supplying the place of consideration and reasoning in children,
and acting quicker than consideration in grown men, makes both the old
and young avoid painful objects with that haste which is necessary for
their preservation; and in both settles in the memory a caution for
the future.
4. Ideas fade in the memory. Concerning the several degrees of
lasting, wherewith ideas are imprinted on the memory, we may observe,-
that some of them have been produced in the understanding by an object
affecting the senses once only, and no more than once; others, that
have more than once offered themselves to the senses, have yet been
little taken notice of: the mind, either heedless, as in children,
or otherwise employed, as in men intent only on one thing; not setting
the stamp deep into itself. And in some, where they are set on with
care and repeated impressions, either through the temper of the
body, or some other fault, the memory is very weak. In all these
cases, ideas in the mind quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of
the understanding, leaving no more footsteps or remaining characters
of themselves than shadows do flying over fields of corn, and the mind
is as void of them as if they had never been there.
5. Causes of oblivion. Thus many of those ideas which were
produced in the minds of children, in the beginning of their
sensation, (some of which perhaps, as of some pleasures and pains,
were before they were born, and others in their infancy,) if the
future course of their lives they are not repeated again, are quite
lost, without the least glimpse remaining of them. This may be
observed in those who by some mischance have lost their sight when
they were very young; in whom the ideas of colours having been but
slightly taken notice of, and ceasing to be repeated, do quite wear
out; so that some years after, there is no more notion nor memory of
colours left in their minds, than in those of people born blind. The
memory of some men, it is true, is very tenacious, even to a
miracle. But yet there seems to be a constant decay of all our
ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most
retentive; so that if they be not sometimes renewed, by repeated
exercise of the senses, or reflection on those kinds of objects
which at first occasioned them, the print wears out, and at last there
remains nothing to be seen. Thus the ideas, as well as children, of
our youth, often die before us: and our minds represent to us those
tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass and
marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the
imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in
fading colours; and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and
disappear. How much the constitution of our bodies and the make of our
animal spirits are concerned in this; and whether the temper of the
brain makes this difference, that in some it retains the characters
drawn on it like marble, in others like freestone, and in others
little better than sand, I shall not here inquire; though it may
seem probable that the constitution of the body does sometimes
influence the memory, since we oftentimes find a disease quite strip
the mind of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever in a few days
calcine all those images to dust and confusion, which seemed to be
as lasting as if graved in marble.
6. Constantly repeated ideas can scarce be lost. But concerning
the ideas themselves, it is easy to remark, that those that are
oftenest refreshed (amongst which are those that are conveyed into the
mind by more ways than one) by a frequent return of the objects or
actions that produce them, fix themselves best in the memory, and
remain clearest and longest there; and therefore those which are of
the original qualities of bodies, vis. solidity, extension, figure,
motion, and rest; and those that almost constantly affect our
bodies, as heat and cold; and those which are the affections of all
kinds of beings, as existence, duration, and number, which almost
every object that affects our senses, every thought which employs
our minds, bring along with them;- these, I say, and the like ideas,
are seldom quite lost, whilst the mind retains any ideas at all.
7. In remembering, the mind is often active. In this secondary
perception, as I may so call it, or viewing again the ideas that are
lodged in the memory, the mind is oftentimes more than barely passive;
the appearance of those dormant pictures depending sometimes on the
will. The mind very often sets itself on work in search of some hidden
idea, and turns as it were the eye of the soul upon it; though
sometimes too they start up in our minds of their own accord, and
offer themselves to the understanding; and very often are roused and
tumbled out of their dark cells into open daylight, by turbulent and
tempestuous passions; our affections bringing ideas to our memory,
which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded. This further is to be
observed, concerning ideas lodged in the memory, and upon occasion
revived by the mind, that they are not only (as the word revive
imports) none of them new ones, but also that the mind takes notice of
them as of a former impression, and renews its acquaintance with them,
as with ideas it had known before. So that though ideas formerly
imprinted are not all constantly in view, yet in remembrance they
are constantly known to be such as have been formerly imprinted;
i.e. in view, and taken notice of before, by the understanding.
8. Two defects in the memory, oblivion and slowness. Memory, in an
intellectual creature, is necessary in the next degree to
perception. It is of so great moment, that, where it is wanting, all
the rest of our faculties are in a great measure useless. And we in
our thoughts, reasonings, and knowledge, could not proceed beyond
present objects, were it not for the assistance of our memories;
wherein there may be two defects:-
First, That it loses the idea quite, and so far it produces
perfect ignorance. For, since we can know nothing further than we have
the idea of it, when that is gone, we are in perfect ignorance.
Secondly, That it moves slowly, and retrieves not the ideas that
it has, and are laid up in store, quick enough to serve the mind
upon occasion. This, if it be to a great degree, is stupidity; and
he who, through this default in his memory, has not the ideas that are
really preserved there, ready at hand when need and occasion calls for
them, were almost as good be without them quite, since they serve
him to little purpose. The dull man, who loses the opportunity, whilst
he is seeking in his mind for those ideas that should serve his
turn, is not much more happy in his knowledge than one that is
perfectly ignorant. It is the business therefore of the memory to
furnish to the mind those dormant ideas which it has present
occasion for; in the having them ready at hand on all occasions,
consists that which we call invention, fancy, and quickness of parts.
