# Ideatypics; or, an Art of Memory/Introduction

INTRODUCTION.
Memory has been well defined by Dugald Stuart as ‘That faculty which enables us to treasure up and preserve, for future use, the knowledge we acquire; a faculty, (he adds,) which is obviously the great foundation of all intellectual improvement, and, without which, no advantage could be derived from the most enlarged experience.’ Any remarks of mine may be spared on the value of this most necessary and excellent condition of mind, when individuals the most gifted and favored by nature speak of the inutility of all labour in wisdom and knowledge, if there be no memory to preserve and use that which is acquired. Dr. Watts says, ‘There can be neither knowledge, nor arts, nor sciences, without memory; nor can there be any improvement of mankind in virtue or morals, or the practise of religion, without the assistance and influence of this power.’ There are some, however, as Locke has observed, that retain the ​characters drawn on them like marble, others like freestone, others little better than sand. It becomes, then, an important enquiry, in what way we can best assist the imperfect operations of the mind; for in no other light do I regard a deficient memory than as a result of improperly regulated faculties. Of course, I mean cæteris paribus—other things being equal or the same,—because the constitution of our bodies, our organization and temperament, are closely connected with mental action, and produce marked differences, even where there is no marked difference of absolute mental capacity. In this matter, as well as in every thing else, we naturally revert to the sayings and doings of our forefathers, however we may be inclined to make innovation upon those things which they have left us. However disposed we may be, also, under the influence of right reason, to award the palm of great pre-eminence to the moderns in almost every department of human knowledge, we must, nevertheless, acknowledge, there was something extraordinary in the contrivances and results of the mnemonic systems of the ancients, and their local memory.
The foundation of all contrivances which have been, or, perhaps, can be employed to help recollection, is to be traced to the principle of the scheme of Simonides, It is the basis of this which ​I have designated “Ideatypics,” a term which has been considered peculiarly appropriate by persons on whose judgment I can rely, and who were made acquainted with the principle to which the term was applied by me in the summer of 1843.
The leading feature of the whole system detailed in this Work is, to transfer a train of ideas whose archetypes are not the objects of sense, and are therefore of difficult recollection, to another train which we cannot fail to recollect; because the archetypes are not only objects of sense, but objects of sight, which may be placed actually before our eyes, as things with which we are perfectly familiar.
Simonides, so justly celebrated by Cicero and Quintilian, is represented as taking a house, or any other suitable building, in which he might deliver a discourse, and, with every part of which he was supposed to be perfectly familiar, then, beginning at some fixed point, he would proceed round it in a circular line, till he arrived at the point at which he set out. He would divide the circumference of the house as he perceived the subject required it, taking different compartments for different topics, using distinctive symbols, and introducing therein external objects: e.g. he would take a ship, as a symbol for naval affairs. He would take the symbol of some current coin, and ​actually transfer, or imagine it to be transferred, to some compartment of the building, when he was desirous of recalling financial subjects to recollection. In all instances, he would produce in his mind an hieroglyphical painting of the sense of any subject, which might always be referred to when mentally deposited in some well-known spot.
What we know of the Mnemonics of the ancient Greeks, is comprised in a small compass. They gave the outline, however, for the moderns to fill up. The Romans, as well as the Greeks, studied it with pleasure and success; and many of their feats of memory are recorded. Julius Cæsar was an adept in the art; and Seneca, the philosopher, was well versed in it; he could repeat 2,000 names in the exact order in which they were rehearsed to him. It is said that Cicero, as well as Seneca, never heard any thing material but it was as imprinted on their memory. Quintilian speaks of the topical memory of the ancients, and the assistance derived from the walls of a city, a well-known road, or any convenient site, for placing objects. He speaks also of a pretended improvement, which he rejected as trifling, in which the words of a discourse were comprehended by constructing symbols for each of them, and referring them severally to compartments.
All the mnemonical systems that have been ​promulgated during the last 500 years, have been derived from the celebrated topical memory of the ancients. The Germans, perhaps, more than any other nation, have availed themselves of the advantages presented to them in the cultivation of the art of Memory. To this we may, in a great measure, attribute the circumstance of their being so long considered great authorities in Ancient Literature and the Arts. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, various continental writers successively published systems of local and symbolical Memory. In 1236, Raymond Lully, called the illuminated Doctor, brought the Art of Memory into notice, after the lapse of ages. The learned gave it the name of the transcendental art. Then we have Peter of Cologne and Peter of Ravenna, both distinguished by their respective systems. In the year 1533, appeared the “Congestorium Artificiosæ Memoriæ” of Romberch, in which, with many improvements, the various systems previously published were enumerated and detailed. England was not without her share in the honor, when William Fulwood translated Grataroli’s work, under the title of the “Castel of Memorie.” This was afterwards translated into French.
I think I may justly attribute the extraordinary attainments of many of the learned in the sixteenth ​and seventeenth centuries to an art of Memory. As early, however, as the fourteenth century, we read of Englishmen distinguished by attempts to work into system the topical memory of the ancients.
No. 3744 in the Sloane Collection, preserved in the British Museum, is the “Ars Memorativa” of Thomas Bradwardine, called the profound Doctor, who was Proctor of Merton College, Oxford, 1325. At the time when this work was produced, learning was, comparatively, little in advance in England. We find, in later times, many distinguished professors of the art at Oxford and Cambridge—men who were said to be profound in their attainments, and who were regarded, on this account, with a sort of superstitious reverence.
Many mnemonical essays were published on the Continent in the 17th century, by Azevedo, Cuirot, Belot, and others whose names are not known.
In 1651, Henry Herdson, professor by public authority in the University of Cambridge, published his “Ars Mnemonica sive Herdsonus, Bruxiatus, etc.” in Latin and English; but this was principally copied from Brux’s Simonides redivivus.
From the year 1715, when Erhardt and Feyjoo published their respective systems, to the end of the 18th century, Mnemonics did not excite much ​attention, through various circumstances. In 1806, in the Philosophical Magazine, some notice was taken of a new branch of science, studied in Germany, called by the ancients Mnemonica, or the Art of Memory. The following were remarks made upon it:—“We find in Herodotus, that it was carefully taught and practised in Egypt, whence it was brought into Greece. This historian attributes the invention of it to Simonides; but his opinion is refuted in a dissertation published by M. Mongerstern of Dorpat, upon Mnemonica. He there asserts that this science is more intimately connected with the Egyptian Hieroglyphics than is generally supposed, and this connection may help to explain them. However the case may be, this singular, but so long neglected art, has re-appeared in Germany with some eclat.”
There is also mention made of a promise being exacted from the pupils not to write down the lectures of those who taught it. The account here given, seems to be in reference to M. Gregor Yon Feinagle, a native of Baden, who visited Paris about this time, and delivered lectures on his “New System of Mnemonics and Methods.” This system, although it was open to great improvements, was nevertheless applicable to every branch of science—easy to be learned, and adapted to all ages and sexes. The Count of Metternich and ​his secretaries followed the whole course, and gave their testimony to the value of it. The learned spoke of its capabilities and its promise, while many of the public journals spoke injuriously of it, and, with much that was plausible, misled the public; but this arose from the ignorance or venality of some of the journalists, who frequently applaud or condemn as it best serves their interest.
A writer in the Monthly Magazine, vol. xxiv. page 105, records experiments on the power of association,—first, with the several parts of his own house, then with other permanent and familiar classes of objects. He says, “I was as myself educated in the vicinity of Oxford Street; and the streets running out of that street south and north, I made use of for my own purpose of successive association. The greater the variety of ideas connected with this set of objects, which may be called the associative key, the more easy and the more certain is the power of recollection.” He adds, further, “If I do not hazard a charge of egotism, I shall mention, as illustrative facts, that, by this new art, I once committed to memory, in a single morning, the whole of the propositions contained in the three first books of Euclid, and with such perfection, that I could, for years afterwards, specify the number of the book on hearing the proposition named, and could recite the pro​position on hearing the number and the book; and I have, frequently, in mixed companies, repeated backwards and forwards, from fifty to a hundred unconnected words which have been but once called over to me. I may also add, to prove the simplicity of the plan, that I taught two of my own children to repeat 50 unconnected words in a first lesson of not more than half an hour’s continuance.”
Feinagle’s public experiment in England is recorded in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lxxxi. part 1. and in the Morning Post of April 18, 1812.
In the London Encyclopædia, we have a curious notice of Todd’s system; but this and all mnemonical publications to the present time, except those of Grey and Lowe, (who substituted letters for figures) seem to be modifications of the same system; and indeed it would appear, that every method to assist the memory, must be based on combining locality with the subjects to be remembered.