# Memory Systems New and Old/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF MINEMONICS.
OWING to the fact that the faculty of memory has always been more neglected than any other, attention has from the earliest times been directed to devising methods to assist it. As one of the earliest instances of such aids I may cite the erection of memorial stones to the children of Israel, described in Exodus xxviii., v. 9 to 12, and in Joshua iv., v. 1 to 24. Others will readily occur to the Biblical student. The numerals of Pythagoras were purely mnemonical. "They were," says Porphyry, "hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained all ideas concerning the nature of all things." Among the Jews it was the practice to abbreviate words, and also to form words of the initial letters of other words, as memory-aids, as Rambam for "Rabbi Moses Ben Maimom." The Jews also made use of natural words to represent numbers, similar to the Roman numerals, and used them for the purpose of dating their Bibles. At the corner of the veil used in the Jewish synagogue during prayer were strings, each with five knots to suggest the five books of Moses, from which, perhaps, has been derived the old-fashioned custom of tying a knot in a handkerchief, or a thread round the finger as a reminder. "When this you see remember me," is another memory-aid, generally used as a ring-posy, and we find it thus used in 1673, by the Rev. Giles Moore, who records in his diary the fact that he presented Ann Brett with a ring bearing this inscription. In the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries the custom was also common, and is thought to have ​originated with the Romans, who gave their lady-loves gems with "Remember" and other mottoes cut upon them.
The earliest attempt to assist the memory by a methodical system was made by Simonides, the Greek poet of Cos, who flourished about 500 в.с., and who invented what is termed the topical or locality memory. Simonides was engaged to recite a poem at a banquet, given by one of his patrons, and after doing so the room fell in, burying all in its débris, and disfiguring the bodies so as to render identification impossible. Simonid Simonides, ho however, had noted the position each guest had occupied, and was thus able to point out the remains of each. Čicero and Quintilian both refer to his system and advocate its use; and we may add that it is the basis of many modern methods. Simonides found that to fix a number of places in the mind in a certain order was a great help to the natural faculty. His plan was to form in the mind a building divided and subdivided into distinct parts arranged in a certain order. The order of these parts was to be thoroughly learnt. As many words as there were parts were then symbolized by the images of living creatures, and when a number of things were to be committed to memory in certain order, mental ental images representing them were to be placed regularly in the several parts of the building. Thus, the porch, the hall, parlor, rooms, walls, and objects in the building were arranged consecutively, and objective images, representing persons and things, were connected with them. From this system we are said to take the phrases used in dividing a discourse—"In the first place," "in the second place," &c.
In the middle ages various attempts were made to systematize the powers of memory, the earliest being by Roger Bacon, the learned monk, who wrote a treatise on the subject. ct. This was never published, but exists in MS. at Oxford. The next attempt was made by Raymond Lully, the "illuminated doctor," who originated what was termed the "Lullian Method" of teaching. This method was developed in a work published at the time by Lully. By his system, "anyone was enabled mechanically to invent arguinents and illustrations upon any subject." The system is described as "a general instrument for assisting invention ​in the study of every kind of science. For this purpose, certain general terms which are common to all the sciences, but principally those of logic, metaphysics, ethics, and theology, are collected and arranged according to the caprice of the inventor. An alphabetical table of such terms was provided; and subjects and predicates taken from these were respectively inscribed in angular spaces upon circular papers. The essences, qualities and relations of things being thus mechanically brought together, the circular papers of subjects were fixed in a frame, and those of predicates were so placed on them as to move freely, and in their revolutions to produce various combinations of subjects and predicates; whenco would arise definitions, axioms, and propositions, varying infinitely, according to the different applications general terms to particular subjects." The use of Lully's method, it is said, would enable any person to argue for a whole day upon any subject without knowing anything of it. Morhof in his dissertation on the subject gives an elaborate account of the system; Athanasius Kircher, in 1669, devoted a book of five hundred pages to an exposition of Lully's method; and a few years previously Jean Belot, in his "L'Oeuvre des Oeuvres," published what purported to be an enlargement of Lully's art of memory, which was said to be superior to the original. Jordano Bruno, in 1582, attempted to perfect Lully's art, publishing several works on the subject; and in 1653 a work on memory was written by one Saunders, who dealt mainly on Lully's art. The subject is also treated in Enfield's "History of Philosophy," from which the particulars given above are taken.
Another MS. on the art of memory was written by Thomas Bradwardin, who was proctor of Merton College, Oxford, in 1325, afterwards confessor to Edward III, and one of the most enlightened ecclesiastics of his age. His "Art of Memory" consists of three and a half small pages, and is an attempt to form a topical system. The MS. is in the Sloane collection.
About 1470, Jacobus Publicius, a Florentine, published his "Ars Memorativa incipit feliciter" and other tracts on memory. This is a curious and scarce book, and is said to ​be the earliest with wooden cuts that was printed with movable types. The volume consists of fourteen leaves, printed in the Gothic character, and with so many and complicated abbreviations as to make it difficult to peruse. It treated of the arrangement of places and the combination of images, several woodcuts of the most rude and grotesque description being used to represent the alphabet by symbols. This work suggested the publication of others, one being by Peter of Cologne, whose system resembles that of Publicius, and who also used woodcuts to represent images of particular objects, as a carpenter by a hammer, a cobbler by a shoe, &c.
In 1491, Peter Ravennas, a Paduan professor, termed by his contemporaries "Petrus a Memoria," published a work entitled "Fœnix." In this he paid the goddess of memory (Mnemosyne, who married Jupiter, and who was the mother of the nine muses) a compliment by choosing the most beautiful maidens his mind could conceive to symbolize the alphabet. Such fair symbols, he considered, were best calculated to excite the memory. He was probably not far wrong. About this time (1492) Conrad Celtes, a German poet, published a system in which the alphabet was substituted for the places used in the old topical method; and in 1515 two other works elaborating the system of Ravennas were published. In 1523 Laurenz Fries issued at Strasburg a German work entitled "A Short Advice: How Memory can be wonderfully Strengthened," in which he prescribes roasted fowls, small birds or young hares, and other delicious things for dinner, with apples and nuts for dessert. The disciple is allowed to enjoy good red wine, but otherwise he must be sober and moderate.
John Romberch de Krypse, in 1533, issued "Congestorium Artificiose Memorie." It abounds in woodcuts of a curious character. Taking Simonides' plan as a base, he divided a wall and a series of rooms into separate spaces, each marked with numerical, literal, and symbolical alphabets, one of the alphabets being represented entirely by birds. A figure of a naked man was used to teach grammar by symbolizing the singular number, each of the cases being placed on certain parts of his body. The plural number ​was represented by a clothed man, the cases being similarly disposed. The rooms were each devoted to distinct subjects. Three chapters are dedicated to gaming, explaining the application of the art to dice, cards, and chess.
Gulielmus Gratarolus published a work on the art of memory in 1555, and in 1562 an edition of it, "Englyshed by William Fulwood," and published under the title of the "Castel of Memorie," was printed in London. In the dedication and preface Fulwood drops into verse, which in the main dwells on the importance of memory, and on the merits of his book. He asks—
And, speaking of his book, he says—
The "Castel of Memorie" consists of seven chapters dealing with what memory is, the chief causes whereby it is hurt, the principal "endamages" of the memory, particuclar helps, medicinal remedies for increasing its powers and rules of remembrance, the last chapter being devoted to local or artificial memory, in which the topical system of previous writers is elucidated. The translator concludes with the following admonition—
memorie sayeth.
​In 1583 Thomas Watson, a London poet, published a Latin treatise on the art of memory. In it he detailed a variation of the topical method. Instead of a house he used a spacious wall, which he divided into numerous compartments, each representing a certain object. What he wished to remember he connected with these objects. He dwells strongly on the importance of "connection" or association.
1602 saw the publication of two works on memory: One, "Ars Reminiscendi," by Baptist Porta, who exchanged letters and numerals for symbols, and treated on the topical system; and another by Marafortius, who devised a system of grouping all necessary reminiscences around forty-four images associated with the backs and palms of the hands.
About this time mnemonics received an impetus by some remarkable public exhibitions in Germany by Lambert Schenkel, and a few years later a number of works were published professing to elucidate his system. The "Gazophylacium Artis Memorice" was the most important of these. Schenkel is the first, of whom there is record, who succeeded in getting mnemonics recognized as a science by educational authorities. He was the original of the many "professors" who have come after him; and, if he taught what he professed to teach, he was certainly the best as well as the first. He travelled through Germany and France teaching his art at the universities, and winning golden opinions as to its merits from all classes. His pupils were prohibited from imparting the art under a severe penalty. One of his pupils, Martin Sommer, was authorized by Schenkel to teach his system through the continent under the same conditions. Sommer was equal to his master in elucidating the system, and in a Latin work published at Venice, in 1619, he advertises it very effectively. "A lawyer," he says, "with the assistance of my mnemonics may impress his causes so strongly on his mind that he may know how to answer each client in any order and at any hour with the same precision as if he had just perused his brief. And in pleading he will not only have all the evidence and reasonings of his own party at his finger ends, but all the grounds and refutations of ​his antagonist also! Let a man go into a library and read one book after another, yet shall he be able to write down every sentence of what he has read many days after at home. The proficient in this science can dictate matters of the most opposite nature to ten or thirty writers alternately! After four weeks' exercise he will be able to class twenty-five thousand disarranged portraits within the saying of a paternoster: aye, and he will do this ten times a day without extraordinary exertion, and with more precision than one ignorant of the art can do it in a year!" The course of study was completed in nine lessons of one hour each, and half-an-hour's daily exercise thereafter was enjoined. Most of Schenkel's feats consisted of repeating disconnected words, numbers, and sentences in a certain order, backward and forward. Arnold Backhusy published details of Schenkel's system in 1643 with a key, but the latter is unintelligible except to the initiated. This key is reprinted in a work on Feinaigle's art of memory published in 1813. A German translation of Schenkel's work was published in 1804. Carl Otto Reventlow, a Danish mnemonist, describes Schenkel's method as nothing but the pictorial system of the ancients. Details of this system may also be found in a French translation published in 1623, entitled "The Magazine of Sciences, or the true Art of Memory by Schenkelius, translated by Adrian Le Cuirot."
In 1610 a work was published under the title of "Simonides Redivivus," by Dr. Brux. In this he gave a mnemonical dictionary; and also devoted a good deal of space to the ars oblivionis—or the art of forgetfulness—the author rightly considering this art to be more valuable than remembrance.
The topical system found, in 1617, another exponent in Martin Ravellin, who treated the subject in much the same way as did Thomas Watson previously noticed. In the same year Fludd, the alchemist, published a volume on memory, attempting to combine Lully's system with the old fashioned topical method. Fludd's work, from the fact that it contained an excellent portrait of the great chemist, with a number of mystical woodcuts, has become extremely rare.
​The following year, 1618, saw the publication of other works on this subject, including a useful compilation of the works of previous authors by Adam Naulius, and another work by John Willis. The latter was translated into English by a bookseller named Sowersby in 1661, and it now ranks as a curious and somewhat rare work. Willis admits that he has "diligently collected" the contents of his work "out of divers learned men's writings." He commences with rules for remembering common affairs, next words, then phrases, afterwards sentences and long speeches, by means of notes and writing. In the second book he treats of remembering without writing, which, he says, consists of "reposition and deposition." As a preliminary he advises the student to first "drown all unnecessary thoughts in oblivion"—by no means an easy task. Reposition he defines as "the manner of charging the memory with note-worthy things"; and advises a thorough acquaintance with the subject to be remembered, and the observance of a perfect logical method in its treatment. "Deposition" pertains somewhat to the art of forgetting, referred to by previous writers. It is the art, says Willis, of "discharging" the mind of things which we desire no longer to retain. Willis writes rather vaguely, but he evidently intends to convey the idea, that having once committed to memory a certain thing, further trouble need not be taken—it has been impressed on the memory, and may be recalled at any time. The mode of "reposition" is further elucidated by the suggested use of extempore verses, and a series of twenty-two questions, which should be applied to subjects that it is desired to remember. The questions are as follow:—
If who? what? whose? to what? whether? why? about what? How? what fashion? how much? by, of, in, and from what? How long? how often? how manifold? whence came that? Where when? how many?
These questions are, the author says, "of excellent use to invent, retain, as also to recall to minde things of great concernment and worthy memory in urgent affairs." In the third book he elaborates a system of local memory. A ​Page:Memory Systems, New and Old (Middleton).djvu/24 ​Page:Memory Systems, New and Old (Middleton).djvu/25 ​Page:Memory Systems, New and Old (Middleton).djvu/26 ​Page:Memory Systems, New and Old (Middleton).djvu/27 ​Page:Memory Systems, New and Old (Middleton).djvu/28 ​Page:Memory Systems, New and Old (Middleton).djvu/29 ​Dialogue and verse were employed by the author to aid the memory. The following is a specimen of his versification:—
Besides history and chronology, the author dealt with geography. A second volume was devoted to this subject, verses being employed to simplify the system.
In 1730 Dr. Richard Grey published his "Memoria Technica," the only work out of the many printed previously to 1800 that has been re-published and extensively used. As an edition of this book was published as recently as 1880, it will be noticed with other modern mnemonical works.
In 1747 a work by Morhoff, a German professor, was published dealing with Lully's art of memory; and in 1781 Feyjoo, a Spaniard, issued a work on the subject, the topical system and medicinal aids to memory being fully treated.
In this historical sketch of old works on memory reference has only been made to those possessing more than ordinary interest. Most of these old works show little originality, the greater part being reprints or adaptations of the better known works, and of others little beyond the titles is now known.