Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

264 MIEMIORY.
analogical words, I have studied to avoid such an uniformity in
the employment of them, as might indicate a preference to one
theory rather than another; and, by doing so, have perhaps
sometimes been led to vary the metaphor oftener and more suddenly, than would be proper in a composition which aimed at
any degree of elegance. This caution in the use of the common
language concerning Memory, it seemed to me the more necessary to attend to, that the general disposition which every person feels at the commencement of his philosophical pursuits, to
explain the phenomena of thought by the laws of matter, is, in
the case of this particular faculty, encouraged by a variety of
peculiar circumstances. The analogy between committing a
thing to Memory that we wish to remember, and engraving on
a tablet a fact that we wish to record, is so striking as to present
itself even to the vulgar; nor is it perhaps less natural to indulge the fancy in considering Memory as a sort of repository,
in which we arrange and preserve for future use the materials
of our information. The immediate dependence, too, of this
faculty on the state of the body, which is more remarkable than
that of any other faculty whatever, (as appears from the
effects produced on it by old age, disease, and intoxication,) is
apt to strike those who have not been much conversant with
these inquiries, as bestowing some plausibility on the theory
which attempts to explain its phenomena on mechanical principles.
Effects of disease and old age on Me2mory. -I cannot help
taking this opportunity of expressing a wish, that medical
writers would be at more pains than they have been at hitherto,
to ascertain the various effects which are produced on the Memory by disease and old age. These effects are widely diversified
in different cases. In some, it would seem that the Memory is
impaired in consequence of a diminution of the power of attention; in others, that the power of recollection is disturbed in
consequence of a derangement of that part of the constitution
on which the association of ideas. depends. The decay of Memory, which is the common effect of age, seems to arise from the
former of these causes. It is probable, that, as we advance in