Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1913-12-24
him and his supporters in con-
gress.
MEMORY AND ABILITY
GENERAL IDEA THEY ARE sYNoN-
YMoUs TERMS IS WRONG.
Numerous Instances In History Whore
Men OF Intellect Were Notorious for
Their OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
Gus Case In Court.

During the course OF q recent trial
instituted for the purpose Of deciding
whether an aged millionaire had need
OF guardian to administer his affairs,
one Of the principal arguments sup
porting the charge of incompetency
related to defective memory. The Is
sue Is full Of human interest and can
be discussed as a psychological prob
lem quite apart from the legal merits
Of this particular case.
Fate was surely in her most 'ironi-
cal mood when she tempted an alien
list to testify that the octogenarian
must be incompetent because of a
faulty recollection of the court pro-
ceedings. and then forced the special
list to confess that he could not re-
member a question which had been
asked him only a few minutes before.
Hoist with him own petard, the expert
cut an amusing figure, but his profit
from the striking lesson should out
weigh all the personal discontinue to
which he was subjected.
There are few failacies more gen.
orally entertained than the theory
that memory Is an index to mental ca
pacity. While it is true that an ut
ter inability to recall anything out
side OF the fixed idea Is a sign of in
sanity, 1t Is equally true that many
men who have made their mark in the
world have VIGOROUSLY bad memories.
That Is to say, they are remarkable
for the things they forget, but 1t will
usually be found Shat theirs is the
treasure Of selective memory re-
tanning only what is useful for present
purposes.
A distinguished politician, also
something Of wag, said that he owed
his success to an. aptitude for forget
ting everything, including promises
and convictions, but excepting names
and faces.
On the other hand there are count
less instances of men with phenome-
nal memories who scarcely knew
enough to come in out OF the wet.
They are literally peripatetic ency-
clopedias, very useful for reference
purposes to others, but totally unable
to focus their knowledge with any eff
feet upon given object. Their minds
are junk shops rather than work.
shops.
AS a French philosopher observed,
a general Is not great in proportion to
the magnitude of his army, but in pro-
portion to his command Of the army
for any immediate situation. Better
a small army under perfect control
than an unwieldy force apt to degen.
crate into rabble when faced by su-
perior order. He applied the illustra-
ton to the field Of thought and show
ed that 1t was not the multitude of
disorganized ideas, but the smaller
number we'll arranged that usually
won mental conflict.
In othc~ words, success in life, to
say nothing Of mere competency in
the legal sense, is not a matter of
memory. 1t Is the judiciously Belec-
tive rather than the Unfortunately
retentive brain that counts in the bat.
tie Of life. Some few men have had
prodigious memories which were not
developed at the expense Of the rea-
soning processes, but as a rule the
law OF compensation holds, and too
much intellectual fat means too little
intellectual muscles.