The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1888-08-30
The Sense OF Pre-. Existing.
Notes and Queries

American Notes and Queries.
Perhaps, after all, if history is
ever to be verified, that v~erifcation
may be found in our own minds. It
has always been a favorite specula-
ton Of poets and neutrality-suspicious.
that man is q microcosm, contain
ing within himself the history Of the
race and of the universe-ifs only we
had wit to read it. De Quincy COM
pared the human brain to d palimp-
sest. Now, ~palimpsest (the word
means twice rubbed") is a roll Of
parchment cleansed Of it's manu-
script in order to make room for new
manuscript. The rude chemistry Of
the ancients could effface the old suff-
GENTLY to leave a field for the new
yet not sufficiently to make the
traces of the elder manuscript irrc-
coverable for us. Palimpsests have
been found that yielded many succes-
sive layers Of manuscript. The
traces of each handwriting, regularly
effaced, have the inverse order regu-
larry called back by the. magic OF
modern chemistry, and as the
chorus of the Athenian stage unWoye
through the anti-strophe every step
that had been mystically woven
through the strophe, SO, by our mod
ern COMPUTATIONS Of science, secrets Of
ages remote from each other have
been exercised from the accumulated
shadows of centuries. "What else
than a natural and mighty palimI-
sest," continues De Quincy, lis the
human brain? Such a palimpsest is.
my brain; such a palimpsest, ohread-
er, is yours. Everlasting layers of
ideas, images, feelings, have fallenup-
on your brain softly as light. Each
succession has seemed to bury all
that went before. And yet, in reality,
not one has been extinguished." Tho
comparison is apt and fine. Every
one has experienced the strange tricks
that memory occasionally plays.
You are engaged in reading, in writ
ing, in serious occupation which en-
crosses your mental powers. Sud-
denly there bursts into your thoughts
some recollection of childhood, some
trivial circumstance that happened
years ago and was forgotten immedi-
ately afterward. Not the minutest
analogy need exist between your pres
emit thoughts and the unbidden recol-
lection that starts, goblin-like, from
the sealed-up vaults ofthepast. Does
this not indicate that experience in
life, nc matter how frivolous, leaves
an indelible print on the mental
nYoro ~ ism -E@ md . that 4lo,,~I,@- Alss'
print may seem to fade, it is still
there, like writing in invisible ink,
or the effaced manuscript on the.
palimpsest-only waiting for some
exciting cause to bring it out clearly
and legibly? The truth is enforced by
the experience of death. Those who
have recovered from drowning or
hanging say that previous to the adj
vent Of Inconsistencies they have
seen asort ofpanorama oftheir whole
previous existence, with not the
smallest incident, thought, or feeling
omitted: and it is thence inferred
that all human beings at the moment
of dissolution experience this awful
resurrection of the dead past. Again
it is well known that very agedpeople
are used to throw back and concen-
trate the light of their memory upon
scenes of early childhood, recalling
many which had faded, even to them
selves, in middle life, while they often
forgot although the whole inter
mediate stages of their existence.
"This shows, says De Quincy. ""that
naturally and without violent agen-
cies the human brain is by tendency
a palimpsest." But our brains are
inherited from our ancestors. Why,
then, may it not be that the human
brain is a p~alimpsest, containing more
or less faded, yet recoverable, records,
not only ofour entire past life, but
OF the lives of u ancestors to the
remotest periods?