The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1853-07-21
Do we ever Forget?

E Gus phenomena of our nature, is the sud
den revival of the recollection of scenes
events and thoughts, which had apparent
ly been long forgotten. In many in
stances, We can explain this by the law O.
association; but not unfrequently the re.
collection flashes without warning upor
the mind. 1t is as though we had been
gazing out into the blank darkness, which
lighted up all at once by sudden fash
should become theatre upon which the
minutest events of our past life are re-
enacted.
Phenomena of this kind, more or less
distinctly marked, occur in the experience
of every individual, in his ordinary and
normal states. But here, as in many
other cases great light is thrown upon
the latent capabilities of the mind by its
action, when physical disease has induced
changes in the conditions which regulate
its manifestations. The bodily organ in
the healthy state seem to act as checks
and as limitations upon the operations of
the mind, somewhat as the balance wheel
of watch, checks and regulates the un-
coiling of the spring. We do not know
how rapidly the wheels may be impelled,
until the check is taken off. The balance
wheel makes the watch move in time
and it may be the limitation of the bodi-
ly organs only, which compels the mind
to act in reference to time. A disem-
bodied spirit may have as little to do with
time as with space. To all spirits, in
their degree, as we'll as to the Supreme
Spirit, one day may, in the literal accep-
tation of the words, be as athousand years,
and thousand years as one day; SO that
in the future life we may continually live
over again every portion of our past ex-
istence; not piece-meal and fragmentari-
ly, but as an undivided whole; just as the
eye takes in single glance the whole
prospect before it, no matter though it be
bounded only by the remotest distance
from which the furthest ray of light has
come which has been casting upwards
since creation.
Something of this sort has been re-
marked by those few who have so nearly
passed the boundaries between the pres
ent and the future life, that they have
won glimbse of that undiscovered
country from whose bourne the great
dramatist assumes, falsely, perhaps, mo
traveller returns De Quincy, the 'Eag-
lish opium eater relates an incident of
this kind, of friend who was once at
the point of death by drowning. At the
moment when she was on the verge of
death, she saw her whole life, down to its
minute and apparent trivial incidents ar
rayed before her, as if in mirror; and
at the same time she felt within herself,
the sudden development of faculty for
comprehending the whole and every part.
And he intimates the possibility of this
mighty develoment, is confirmed by ex-
periences of his during that abnormal re-
lation between his spiritual and physical
nature, which has been induced by the
use of opium. Abercrombie relates the
case of boy, who at the age of four
years was rendered insensible by some
violence, which fractured his skull. In
this state he underwent the operation of
trepanning. After recovery, he retained
no recollection of the operation or of the
accident which occasioned it. More
than ten years after, he was seized with
violent fever, during which he became
delirious. And now, the faint traces
made so long ago on his Consciousness
traces SO faint that there was no reason
to suspect their existence-were brought
out under the fierce alchemy of disease,
with the utmost distinctness, and he
has related the occurrence with the ut
most minuteness.
One of the most common phenomena
with respect to old age, is the re-awaken-
ing of the dorment recollections, of child
hood. Many cases are on record of en-
igrants who left our German Fatherland, ,
and have sought new home in America,
at SO early an age as to have forgotten
their native language; but when, often in
the EXTREMIST age, they lay upon the bed
of death, those long forgotten words come
back to their recollection, and their latest
prayers are breathed in the language
their cradle hymns were sung. One of
the most affecting and truthful delinea-
tons in modern fiction, is that of the
beautiful English novel, Mary Barton,
where the aged peasant woman, when
just passing the boundaries of the better
land, lives again the days of her child
hood.
Carsten Niebuhr, the oriental traveller,
father of our beloved historian and states
man, furnishes striking example of the
revived recollection of scenes and events
long past. When old and blind, and SO
feeble that be had barley strength to be
borne from his bed to his chair, the dim
remembrance of his early adventures
thronged before his memory with such
viyidness, they painted themselves as
pictures upon his sightless eyeballs. AS
he lay upon his bed pictures of the gorge.
Gus Orient flashed upon his darkness as
distinctly as he had just closed his eyes
to shut them out for an instant. The
cloudless blue Of the eastern heaven:
bending by day over the broad deserts