ON MEMORY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue 9303, 20 March 1907, Page 6

ON MEMORY.

Few pecple would willingly admit that their mental condition is weak, and yet this is just wfiat they do acknowledge when they "forget" thing*. The active, up-to-date, successful iran or wonum of the present ago ia the one who remembers, and therefore knows. History is fuJR of marvellous memory examples: probably some of them have grown in proportion with time, and were even slightly era;? gerated in the beginning. MacaiUay and Ben JoKsoii both possessed wonderful memories.' Be.i Jocson could repeat whole books tbat he had nead, and claimed that he could repeat eveiy line that he had written. Macaulay, whose knowledge of English history was remarkable, was unsurpassed in his retention of facts. It is also claarr.ed for Nierbur. the historian, and for Seneca, the rhetorician, that they never forgot anything they read. We learn from Pliny that Cyras the Great knew all his soldiers by naaw. and Cioero tells 11s that ThcmisTocles could call by name 20,000 citizens of Athens. All those examples of prodigious feats of memory