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 ...

280 MEMORY.O
would be spared much of that painful and uninteresting labor,
which is perpetually distracting our intellectual powers from
those more important exertions for which, in their mature state,
they seem to be destined.
This tendency of literary habits in general, and more particularly of philosophical pursuits, to exercise the thoughts
about words, can scarcely fail to have some effect in weakening
the powers of recollection and conception with respect to sensible objects; and, in fact, I believe it will be found, that whatever
advantage the philosopher may possess over men of little education, in stating general propositions and general reasonings,
he is commonly inferior to them in point of minuteness and
accuracy, when he attempts to describe any object which he has
seen, or any event which he has witnessed; supposing the
curiosity of both, in such cases, to be interested in an equal
degree. I acknowledge, indeed, that the undivided attention
which men unaccustomed to reflection are able to give to the
objects of their perceptions, is, in part, the cause of the liveliness and correctness of their conceptions.
yarieties of llemory in respect to technical or general description. — With this diversity in the intellectual habits of cultivated and of uncultivated minds, there is another variety of
Memory which seems to have some connection. In recognizing
visible objects, the Memory of one man proceeds on the general
appearance; that of another attaches itself to some minute and
distinguishing marks. A peasant knows the various kinds of
trees from their general habits; a botanist, from those charace
teristical circumstances on which his classification proceeds.
The last kind of Memory is, I think, most common among
literary men, and arises from their habit of recollecting bsy
means of words. It is evidently much easier to express by
a description a number of botanical marks, than the general
habit of a tree; and the same remark is applicable to other
cases of a similar nature. But to whatever cause we ascrib-e
it, there can be no doubt of the fact, that many individuals are
to be found, and chiefly among men of letters, who, although
they have no memory for the general appearances of objects,