OF RETENTION.
1. Contemplation
The next faculty of the mind, whereby it makes a further progress
towards knowledge, is that which I call RETENTION; or the keeping of
those simple ideas which from sensation or reflection it hath received.
This is done two ways.
First, by keeping the idea which is brought into it, for some time
actually in view, which is called CONTEMPLATION.
2. Memory.
The other way of retention is, the power to revive again in our minds
those ideas which, after imprinting, have disappeared, or have been as
it were laid aside out of sight. And thus we do, when we conceive heat
or light, yellow or sweet,—the object being removed. This is MEMORY,
which is as it were the storehouse of our ideas. For, the narrow mind
of man not being capable of having many ideas under view and
consideration at once, it was necessary to have a repository, to lay up
those ideas which, at another time, it might have use of. But, our
IDEAS being nothing but actual perceptions in the mind, which cease to
be anything; when there is no perception of them; this laying up of our
ideas in the repository of the memory signifies no more but this,—that
the mind has a power in many cases to revive perceptions which it has
once had, with this additional perception annexed to them, that IT HAS
HAD THEM BEFORE. And in this sense it is that our ideas are said to be
in our memories, when indeed they are actually nowhere;—but only there
is an ability in the mind when it will to revive them again, and as it
were paint them anew on itself, though some with more, some with less
difficulty; some more lively, and others more obscurely. And thus it
is, by the assistance of this faculty, that we are said to have all
those ideas in our understandings which, though we do not actually
contemplate yet we CAN bring in sight, and make appear again, and be
the objects of our thoughts, without the help of those sensible
qualities which first imprinted them there.
3. Attention, Repetition, Pleasure and Pain, fix Ideas.
Attention and repetition help much to the fixing any ideas in the
memory. But those which naturally at first make the deepest and most
lasting impressions, are those which are accompanied with pleasure or
pain. The great business of the senses being, to make us take notice of
what hurts or advantages the body, it is wisely ordered by nature, as
has been shown, that pain should accompany the reception of several
ideas; which, supplying the place of consideration and reasoning in
children, and acting quicker than consideration in grown men, makes
both the old and young avoid painful objects with that haste which is
necessary for their preservation; and in both settles in the memory a
caution for the future.
4. Ideas fade in the Memory.
Concerning the several degrees of lasting, wherewith ideas are
imprinted on the memory, we may observe,—that some of them have been
produced in the understanding by an object affecting the senses once
only, and no more than once; others, that have more than once offered
themselves to the senses, have yet been little taken notice of: the
mind, either heedless, as in children, or otherwise employed, as in men
intent only on one thing; not setting the stamp deep into itself. And
in some, where they are set on with care and repeated impressions,
either through the temper of the body, or some other fault, the memory
is very weak. In all these cases, ideas in the mind quickly fade, and
often vanish quite out of the understanding, leaving no more footsteps
or remaining characters of themselves than shadows do flying over
fields of corn, and the mind is as void of them as if they had never
been there.
5. Causes of oblivion.
Thus many of those ideas which were produced in the minds of children,
in the beginning of their sensation, (some of which perhaps, as of some
pleasures and pains, were before they were born, and others in their
infancy,) if in the future course of their lives they are not repeated
again, are quite lost, without the least glimpse remaining of them.
This may be observed in those who by some mischance have lost their
sight when they were very young; in whom the ideas of colours having
been but slightly taken notice of, and ceasing to be repeated, do quite
wear out; so that some years after, there is no more notion nor memory
of colours left in their minds, than in those of people born blind. The
memory of some men, it is true, is very tenacious, even to a miracle.
But yet there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of
those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive; so
that if they be not sometimes renewed, by repeated exercise of the
senses, or reflection on those kinds of objects which at first
occasioned them, the print wears out, and at last there remains nothing
to be seen. Thus the ideas, as well as children, of our youth, often
die before us: and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we
are approaching; where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the
inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away. The
pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours; and if not
sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear. How much the constitution of
our bodies are concerned in this; and whether the temper of the brain
makes this difference, that in some it retains the characters drawn on
it like marble, in others like freestone, and in others little better
than sand, I shall here inquire; though it may seem probable that the
constitution of the body does sometimes influence the memory, since we
oftentimes find a disease quite strip the mind of all its ideas, and
the flames of a fever in a few days calcine all those images to dust
and confusion, which seemed to be as lasting as if graved in marble.
6. Constantly repeated Ideas can scarce be lost.
But concerning the ideas themselves, it is easy to remark, that those
that are oftenest refreshed (amongst which are those that are conveyed
into the mind by more ways than one) by a frequent return of the
objects or actions that produce them, fix themselves best in the
memory, and remain clearest and longest there; and therefore those
which are of the original qualities of bodies, viz. solidity,
extension, figure, motion, and rest; and those that almost constantly
affect our bodies, as heat and cold; and those which are the affections
of all kinds of beings, as existence, duration, and number, which
almost every object that affects our senses, every thought which
employs our minds, bring along with them;—these, I say, and the like
ideas, are seldom quite lost, whilst the mind retains any ideas at all.
7. In Remembering, the Mind is often active.
In this secondary perception, as I may so call it, or viewing again the
ideas that are lodged in the memory, the mind is oftentimes more than
barely passive; the appearance of those dormant pictures depending
sometimes on the WILL. The mind very often sets itself on work in
search of some hidden idea, and turns as it were the eye of the soul
upon it; though sometimes too they start up in our minds of their own
accord, and offer themselves to the understanding; and very often are
roused and tumbled out of their dark cells into open daylight, by
turbulent and tempestuous passions; our affections bringing ideas to
our memory, which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded. This further
is to be observed, concerning ideas lodged in the memory, and upon
occasion revived by the mind, that they are not only (as the word
REVIVE imports) none of them new ones, but also that the mind takes
notice of them as of a former impression, and renews its acquaintance
with them, as with ideas it had known before. So that though ideas
formerly imprinted are not all constantly in view, yet in remembrance
they are constantly known to be such as have been formerly imprinted;
i.e. in view, and taken notice of before, by the understanding.
8. Two defects in the Memory, Oblivion and Slowness.
Memory, in an intellectual creature, is necessary in the next degree to
perception. It is of so great moment, that, where it is wanting, all
the rest of our faculties are in a great measure useless. And we in our
thoughts, reasonings, and knowledge, could not proceed beyond present
objects, were it not for the assistance of our memories; wherein there
may be two defects:—
First, That it loses the idea quite, and so far it produces perfect
ignorance. For, since we can know nothing further than we have the idea
of it, when that is gone, we are in perfect ignorance.
Secondly, That it moves slowly, and retrieves not the ideas that it
has, and are laid up in store, quick enough to serve the mind upon
occasion. This, if it be to a great degree, is stupidity; and he who,
through this default in his memory, has not the ideas that are really
preserved there, ready at hand when need and occasion calls for them,
were almost as good be without them quite, since they serve him to
little purpose. The dull man, who loses the opportunity, whilst he is
seeking in his mind for those ideas that should serve his turn, is not
much more happy in his knowledge than one that is perfectly ignorant.
It is the business therefore of the memory to furnish to the mind those
dormant ideas which it has present occasion for; in the having them
ready at hand on all occasions, consists that which we call invention,
fancy, and quickness of parts.
9. A defect which belongs to the memory of Man, as finite.
These are defects we may observe in the memory of one man compared with
another. There is another defect which we may conceive to be in the
memory of man in general;—compared with some superior created
intellectual beings, which in this faculty may so far excel man, that
they may have CONSTANTLY in view the whole scene of all their former
actions, wherein no one of the thoughts they have ever had may slip out
of their sight. The omniscience of God, who knows all things, past,
present, and to come, and to whom the thoughts of men’s hearts always
lie open, may satisfy us of the possibility of this. For who can doubt
but God may communicate to those glorious spirits, his immediate
attendants, any of his perfections; in what proportions he pleases, as
far as created finite beings can be capable? It is reported of that
prodigy of parts, Monsieur Pascal, that till the decay of his health
had impaired his memory, he forgot nothing of what he had done, read,
or thought, in any part of his rational age. This is a privilege so
little known to most men, that it seems almost incredible to those who,
after the ordinary way, measure all others by themselves; but yet, when
considered, may help us to enlarge our thoughts towards greater
perfections of it, in superior ranks of spirits. For this of Monsieur
Pascal was still with the narrowness that human minds are confined to
here,—of having great variety of ideas only by succession, not all at
once. Whereas the several degrees of angels may probably have larger
views; and some of them be endowed with capacities able to retain
together, and constantly set before them, as in one picture, all their
past knowledge at once. This, we may conceive, would be no small
advantage to the knowledge of a thinking man,—if all his past thoughts
and reasonings could be ALWAYS present to him. And therefore we may
suppose it one of those ways, wherein the knowledge of separate spirits
may exceedingly surpass ours.
10. Brutes have Memory.
This faculty of laying up and retaining the ideas that are brought into
the mind, several other animals seem to have to a great degree, as well
as man. For, to pass by other instances, birds learning of tunes, and
the endeavours one may observe in them to hit the notes right, put it
past doubt with me, that they have perception, and retain ideas in
their memories, and use them for patterns. For it seems to me
impossible that they should endeavour to conform their voices to notes
(as it is plain they do) of which they had no ideas. For, though I
should grant sound may mechanically cause a certain motion of the
animal spirits in the brains of those birds, whilst the tune is
actually playing; and that motion may be continued on to the muscles of
the wings, and so the bird mechanically be driven away by certain
noises, because this may tend to the bird’s preservation; yet that can
never be supposed a reason why it should cause mechanically—either
whilst the tune is playing, much less after it has ceased—such a motion
of the organs in the bird’s voice as should conform it to the notes of
a foreign sound, which imitation can be of no use to the bird’s
preservation. But, which is more, it cannot with any appearance of
reason be supposed (much less proved) that birds, without sense and
memory, can approach their notes nearer and nearer by degrees to a tune
played yesterday; which if they have no idea of in their memory, is now
nowhere, nor can be a pattern for them to imitate, or which any
repeated essays can bring them nearer to. Since there is no reason why
the sound of a pipe should leave traces in their brains, which, not at
first, but by their after-endeavours, should produce the like sounds;
and why the sounds they make themselves, should not make traces which
they should follow, as well as those of the pipe, is impossible to
conceive.