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 ...

iIlEMORY. 277
It is, however, curious, that in consequence of the predominance in his mind of this species of Memory above every other,
he is forced to acknowledge his total want of that command
over his ideas which can only be founded on habits of systematical arrangement. As the passage is extremely characteristical of the author, and affords a striking confirmation of some
of the preceding observations, I shall give it in his own words.
"Je ne me tiens pas bien en ma possession et disposition: le
hazard y a plus de droit que moy: l'occasion, la compagnie, le
branle meme de ma voix tire plus de mon esprit? que je n'y
trouve lorsque je sonde et employe a part moy. Ceci m'advient
aussi, que je ne me trouve pas oil je me cherche; et me trouve
plus par rencontre, que par l'inquisition de mon jugement."*
The differences which I have now pointed out between philosophical and casual Memory, constitute the most remarkable of
all the varieties which the minds of different individuals, considered in respect to this faculty, present to our observation.
But there are other varieties of a less striking nature, the consideration of which may also suggest some useful reflections.
Sights remembered more easily than sounds. - It was before
remarked, that our ideas are frequently associated in consequence
of the associations which take place among their arbitrary signs.
Indeed, in the case of all our general speculations, it is difficult
to see in what other way our thoughts can be associated; for I
before endeavored to show, that, without the use of signs of one
kind or another, it would be impossible for us to make classes,
or genera, objects of our attention.
All the signs by which our thoughts are expressed are addressed either to the eye or to the ear; and the impressions
* [Montaigne's language is so exquisitely idiomatic, that a literal version
gives hardly a glimpse of his meaning. The following is a mere paraphrase of the passage in the text.
"I do not have full possession and command of my own mind; chance
has more power over it than I have; occasion, company, even the sound
of my own voice, draws more out of my understanding than I can, when I
probe and try it in solithde. This also happens to me, that I cannot find
my ideas where I look for them, but rather stumble upon them unawares."]
24