Images de page
PDF
ePub

LECTURE XXXI.

THE REPRODUCTIVE FACULTY.— LAWS OF ASSOCIATION.

IN

In my last Lecture, I entered on the consideration of that faculty of mind by which we keep possession of the Recapitulation. knowledge acquired by the two faculties of External Perception, and Self-consciousness; and I endeavored to explain to you a theory of the manner in which the fact of retention may be accounted for, in conformity to the nature of mind, considered as a self-active and indivisible subject. At the conclusion of the Lecture, I gave you, instar omnium, one memorable example of the prodigious differences which exist between mind and mind in the capacity of retention. Before passing from the faculty of Memory, considered simply as the power of conservation, I may notice two opposite doctrines, that have been maintained, in regard to the relation of this faculty to the higher powers of mind. One of these doctrines holds, that a great development of memory is incompatible with a high degree of intelligence; the other, that a high degree of intelligence supposes such a development of memory as its condition.

Two opposite doctrines maintained in regard to the relations of Memory to the higher powers of mind.

1. That a great power of memory is incompatible with a high degree of intelligence.

The former of these opinions is one very extensively prevalent, not only among philosophers, but among mankind in general, and the words - Beati memoria, expectantes judicium — have been applied to express the supposed incompatibility of great memory and sound judgment. There seems, however, no valid ground for this belief. If an extraordinary power of retention is frequently not accompanied with a corresponding power of intelligence, it is a natural, but not a very logical procedure, to jump to the conclusion, that a great memory

1 [Niethammer, Der Streit des Philanthropinismus und Humanismus, p. 294.] [Ausserdem sey es eine selbst Sprichwörtlich gewordene

Erfahrung (beati memoria exspectant judicium), dass vorherrschende Gedächtnissfertigkeit der Urtheilshraft Abbruch thue. - ED.]

This opinion refuted by facts. Examples of high intelligence and great memory.

Joseph Scaliger.

is inconsistent with a sound judgment. The opinion is refuted by the slightest induction; for we immediately find, that many of the individuals who towered above their fellows in intellectual superiority, were almost equally distinguished for the capacity of their memory. I recently quoted to you a passage from the Scaligerana, in which Joseph Scaliger is made to say that he had not a good memory, but a good reminiscence; and he immediately adds, "never, or rarely, are judgment and a great memory found in conjunction." Of this opinion Scaliger himself affords the most illustrious refutation. During his lifetime, he was hailed as the Dictator of the Republic of Letters, and posterity has ratified the decision of his contemporaries, in crowning him as the prince of philologers and critics. But to elevate a man to such an eminence, it is evident, that the most consummate genius and ability were conditions. And what were the powers of Scaliger, let Isaac Casaubon,1 among a hundred other witnesses, inform us; and Casaubon was a scholar second only to Scaliger himself in erudition. "Nihil est quod discere quisquam vellet, quod ille (Scaliger) docere non posset: Nihil legerat (quid autem ille non legerat?), quod non statim meminisset; nihil tam obscurum aut abolitum in ullo vetere scriptore Græco, Latino, vel Hebræo, de quo interrogatus non statim responderet. Historias omnium populorum, omnium ætatum, successiones imperiorum, res ecclesiæ, veteris in numerato habebat: animalium, plantarum, metallorum, omniumque rerum naturalium, proprietates, differentias, et appellationes, qua veteres, qua recentes, tenebat accurate. Locorum situs, provinciarum fines et varias pro temporibus illarum divisiones ad unguem callebat; nullam disciplinarum, scientiarumve graviorum reliquerat intactam; linguas tam multas tam exacte sciebat, ut vel si hoc unum per totum vitæ spatium egisset digna res miraculo potuerit videri."

His great powers of memory testified to by Casaubon.

For intellectual power of the highest order, none were distinguished above Grotius and Pascal; and Grotius 2 Grotius. Pascal. and Pascal forgot nothing they had ever read Leibnitz and Euler" were not less celebrated for their intelligence than for their memory, and both

Leibnitz. Euler.

or thought.

1 [Prefatio in Opuscula Jos. Justi Scaligeri.]

2 Grotii Manes Vindicati (1727), pars post. p. 585.--ED.

3 Pensées, Pref. (ed. Renouard). — ED.

4 Fontenelle, Eloge de M. Leibnitz-Leib. Op.

p. xx. (edit. Dutens). -ED.

5 [Biunde, Versuch einer Systematischen Be handlung der empirischen Psychologie, i. 356.]

Donellus.

Muratori.

Ben Jonson.

Themistocles.
Cyrus.
Hortensius.

Niebuhr.

Nie

[ocr errors]

could repeat the whole of the Eneid. Donellus' knew the Corpus Juris by heart, and yet he was one of the profoundest and most original speculators in jurisprudence. Muratori, though not a genius of the very highest order, was still a man of great ability and judgment; and so powerful was his retention, that in making quotations, he had only to read his passages, put the books in their place, and then to write out from memory the words. Ben Jonson tells us that he could repeat all he had ever written, and whole books that he had read. Themistocles' could call by their names the twenty thousand citizens of Athens; Cyrus is reported to have known the name of every soldier in his army. Hortensius, after Cicero, the greatest orator of Rome, after sitting a whole day at a public sale, correctly enunciated from memory all the things sold, their prices, and the names of the purchasers. buhr, the historian of Rome, was not less distinguished for his memory than for his acuteness. In his youth he was employed in one of the public offices of Denmark; part of a book of accounts having been destroyed, he restored it from his recollection. Sir James Mackintosh was, likewise, remarkable for his power of memory. An instance I can give you which I witnessed myself. In a conversation I had with him, we happened to touch upon an author whom I mentioned in my last Lecture, Muretus; and Sir James recited from his oration in praise of the massacre of St. Bartholomew some considerable passages. Mr. Dugald Stewart, and the late Dr. Gregory, are, likewise, examples of great talent, united with great memory. But if there be no ground for the vulgar opinion, that a strong faculty of retention is incompatible with intellectual capacity in general, the converse opinion is not better founded, which has been maintained, among others, by Hoffbauer. This doctrine does not, however, deserve an articulate refutation; for the common experience of every one sufficiently

Sir James Mackintosh.

Dugald Stewart.
Dr. Gregory.

2. That a high degree

of intelligence supposes great power of memory.

p.

[ocr errors]

1 Teissier, Eloges des Hommes Savans, t. iv. 146.- -ED.

2 [Biunde, Versuch, etc., as above.] [Vita di Muratori, c. xi. p. 236. — ED]

3 Timber; or, Discoveries made upon Men and Matter (Works, ed. Gifford, vol. ix. p. 169.)-ED. 4 Cicero, De Senectute, c. vii. Val. Maximus, viii 7.-ED.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

The Reproductive

Faculty. This name inappropriate; the limitation in which it is here employed.

proves that intelligence and memory hold no necessary proportion to each other. On this subject I may refer you to Mr. Stewart's excellent chapter on Memory in the first volume of his Elements.' I now pass to the next faculty in order-the faculty which I have called the Reproductive. I am not satisfied with this name; for it does not precisely of itself mark what I wish to be expressed,- viz., the process by which what is lying dormant in memory is awakened, as contradistinguished from the representation in consciousness of it as awakened. The two processes certainly suppose each other; for we cannot awaken a cognition without its being represented, the representation being, in fact, only its state of waking; nor can a latent thought or affection be represented, unless certain conditions be fulfilled, by which it is called out of obscurity into the light of consciousness. The two processes are relative and correlative, but not more identical than hill and valley. I am not satisfied, I say, with the term reproduction for the process by which the dormant thought or affection is aroused; for it does not clearly denote what it is intended to express. Perhaps the Resuscitative Faculty would have been better; and the term reproduction might have been employed to comprehend the whole process, made up of the correlative acts of retention, resuscitation, and representation. Be this, however, as it may, I shall at present continue to employ the term, in the limited meaning I have already assigned. The phænomenon of Reproduction is one of the most wonderful in the whole compass of psychology; and it is one in the explanation of which philosophy has been more successful than in almost any other. The scholastic psychologists seem to have regarded the succession in the train of thought, or, as they called it, the excitation of the species, with peculiar wonder, as one of the most inscrutable mysteries of nature; and yet, what is curious, Aristotle has left almost as complete an analysis of the laws by which this phænomenon is regulated, as has yet been accomplished. It required, however, a considerable progress in the inductive philosophy of mind, before this analysis of Aristotle could be appreciated at its proper value; and in fact, it was only after modern philosophers had rediscovered the principal laws of

Interest excited by the phænomenon of Reproduction.

The Schoolmen.

Aristotle's analysis

of the phænomenon, nearly perfect.

Behandlung der empirischen Psychologie, i. 357, where Ioffbauer is referred to.] [See Hoff

baner, Naturlehre der Seele in Briefen, p. 181183.- ED.]

1 Chap. vi. Works, ii. 348.-ED.

Julius Cæsar
Scaliger.

Poncius.
Oviedo.

[ocr errors]

Association, that it was found that these laws had been more completely given two thousand years before. Joseph Scaliger, speaking of his father, whose philosophical acuteness I have more than once had occasion to commemorate, says, "My father declared, that of the causes of three things in particular he was wholly ignorant,- of the interval of fevers, of the ebb and flow of the sea, and of reminiscence."! The excitation of the species is declared by Poncius to be "one of the most difficult secrets of nature" (ex difficilioribus naturæ arcanis); and Oviedo, a Jesuit schoolman, says, "therein lies the very greatest mystery of all philosophy (maximum totius philosophiæ sacramentum), never to be competently explained by human ingenuity;" "and this because we can neither discover the cause which, for example, in the recitation of an oration, excites the species in the order in which they are excited, nor the reason why often, when wishing to recollect a matter, we do not, whereas when not wishing to recollect it, we sometimes do. Hence the same Poncius says, that for the excitation of the species we must either recur at once to God, or to some sufficient cause, which, however, he does not specify."4 The faculty of Reproduction is governed by the laws which regulate the Association of the mental train; or, Reproduction, what.

to speak more correctly, reproduction is nothing but the result of these laws. Every one is conscious of a ceaseless succession or train of thoughts, one thought suggesting another, which again is the cause of exciting a third, and so on. In what manner, it may be asked, does the presence of any thought determine the introduction of another? Is the train subject to laws, and if so, by what laws is it regulated?

The train of thought subject to laws. This illustrated by Hobbes.

That the elements of the mental train are not isolated, but that each thought forms a link of a continuous and uninterrupted chain, is well illustrated by Hobbes. "In a company," he says, "in which the conversation turned upon the late civil war, what could be conceived more impertinent than for a person to ask abruptly, what was the value of a Roman denarius? On a little reflection, however, I was easily able to trace the train of thought which suggested the question; for the original subject of discourse

[ocr errors]

1 [Prima Scaligerana, v. "Causa,"] [t. ii. p. 46, edit. 1740.-) - ED]

2 [Poncius, Cursus Philosophicus, De Anima, Disp. lxiii. qu. iii. concl. 3.]

De Anima, Cont. v. punct. iv. n. 13] [Cf.
Reid's Works, Note D**, p. 889.- ED.]

4 [Fr. Bonæ Spei, Physica, p. iv. In de Anima, disp. x. p. 94. Cf. Ancillon, Essais Phi

3 [Francisci de Oviedo Cursus Philosophicus, los. (Nouv. Mel.) v. ii. c. iii. p. 139.]

« PrécédentContinuer »