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 ...

282 MEMORY.
ured up in the mind. Of the first kind are the intellectual
feats ascribed to Cineas, and to Hortensius. ThIe former (we
are told) when he came to Rome as ambassador from King
Pyrrhus, saluted, on the day after his arrival. all the senators
and persons of the equestrian order by their names; the latter,
after sitting a whole day at a public sale, gave an account from
Milemory in the evening of all the things sold, with the prices and
the names of the purchasers; which account was found on
examination to agree in every particular with what, had been
taken in writing by a notary. Nor will these anecdotes appear
incredible, when compared with what 3Iuretus himself saw at
Padua, of a young Corsican, who, without stop or hesitation,
recited thirty-six thousand names in the same order in which
he had heard them, and afterwards, beginning at the last, proceeded, in a contrary order, to the first.
To the same class of facts belong (although they indicate
also the strength of still higher faculties) those efforts which
some individuals are able to make, by mere force of attention
and Memory, in the way of arithmetical computation. We are
told by the celebrated Dr. Wallis of Oxford, that "lie himself
could, in the dark, perform arithmetical operations, as multiplication, division, and extraction of roots, to forty decimal places,
particularly, that, in February, 1671, he proposed to himself, by
night in bed, (at the request of a foreigner,) a number of fiftythree places, and found its square root to twenty-seven places,
and that, without ever writing down the number, le dictated the
result from memory twenty days afterwards." None of the
facts, with respect to memory, which I have met with in ancient
authors, conveys to me so high an idea of the wonders which
may be effected by a patient and steady concentration of our
mental powers.
Great Memories of philosophers. -These facts, however, which
relate to occasional exertions of llemory on particular subjects, do
not lead to conclusions of so great practical utility, nor are they.
perhaps, when duly weighed, so astonishing in themselves, as
those which illustrate the comprehensiveness and retentiveness of
which this faculty has Ieen sometimes found susceptible, with