taken away its

away its name.

local habitation, you have almost taken

It has no longer any distinct character

as belonging to watch or clock; it has floated off, and

And this I very much The forces of nature hold

become a part of the great all. fear and think is our destiny. the element of life, as you call it, for a little while in this poor timepiece of a body. Like your watch, it is constantly getting out of repair; like your watch, it cannot last long; and then, like the soul of your watch, your spirit loses its local habitation and its name. It is human no longer-it has lost its identity." "Have you done, my friend?" I said, "because I quite see that all the while you walk along, you are only making the case clearer against yourself. Do you not see that up to a certain point, the analogy between the soul of a watch and the soul of a man holds good, but only up to a certain point? I like my figure very well-I think that it is expressive enough; but I will tell you where you have been guilty of an oversight. Look, the soul of the watch has no sentiment of personal identity. It does not know that it is the soul of a watch. It cannot wind itself up. The soul of the watch cannot prescribe for a watch, or for itself. The soul of the watch cannot go to the watchmaker. The soul of the watch cannot in any way regulate its movements. I hold the watch in my hand d; it is a thousandfold more helpless a creature than anything Nature ever made, for it has neither an instinct nor a reason; it is made, and it is held in mere subserviency to mechanical law. Now do you not see here the great

distinction between the two souls? I know that when

your mechanism has fallen to pieces, your watch, or your clock, that principle of weight and attraction of which we spoke, loses its individuality, and is absorbed back again into the universe. It has no longer a dwelling place in that rounded sphere which I carry in my pocket. But have you any right to think it is the same with the soul of man? You see that the soul of man has not only power over the mechanism in which it dwells, to feed it, to command it, to control it, to arrange it; the soul of man has power over itself—its nature, after the dissolution of its surrounding materials and clothing, remains the same. I argue that while the soul of the watch, which passes off to mingle in the universe, is lost like a dew-drop in the air, the soul of a man starts forth like a butterfly from the chrysalis, to enter into the loftier realms and regions of being." My friend was silenced, if not convinced. We walked along,-he said nothing; it was clear that he was arrested with the idea that possibly the organization through which the soul acts, and the soul, are not one and the same. It was but a suggestion, it was not evidence, it was only an analogy, but it sufficed to arrest. Happy are they who have the more sure word of testimony-the light shining in a dark place, till the day dawn, and the day star arise on the heart."

66

CHAPTER V.

THE EDUCATION OF THE MEMORY.

WHAT a fortune would that man make who could sell to people, Memories! This is the universal desideratum. Wherever we go we hear complaints of bad memories, and how is this? and where are we to find a remedy for this for if the memory does not retain, how vain are all the achievements of the Mind.. Memory is the storehouse, and if Time, like a thief, takes out of the storehouse whatever he places there, how useless is the effort to accumulate. With the Ancients, Memory was the mother of the Muses. All the presiding spirits of Science, History, Music, and Poetry, were born of Memory; thus the great framers of the Grecian Mythology indicated their conception of the importance of this faculty of the Mind. But what is Memory? For, perhaps we shall obtain some assistance in giving vitality to it, if we remember the nature of it. Memory, then, it should be remembered, depends upon Attention and Suggestion. Attention places the jewel in the casket, seizes upon and preserves the thing desirable to be remembered; and Suggestion is the Secret Spring touching the lock and presenting the jewel

when it is needed by the possessor. Dr. Thomas Brown cleared up much of the mystery attaching to the powers of Memory, when he declared that, much of the confusion in which Memory has always been involved, resulted from the usual method of speaking. Each faculty of the mind seems to possess the power of recollection; but then there must be something to recollect. A bad memory means very generally an empty cupboard. Is is very frequently the case, that years pass along, and no attempt is made to store the mind; suddenly the person bethinks himself, "I have a bad memory!" He does not condemn his own carelessness, but throws the blame on Nature.

But learn to prize this power, this wonderful power, Memory, which teaches us our individuality and Identity; memory, by which we know ourselves the same beings we were twenty years since, although time has changed our body; thus preaching to us the indivisibility of our mind. Memory, so ready when practised in all emergencies; wielding a wand of power in all professions; pouring upon us like a flood the tears of past emotions, or bowing our spirits with the recollection of old joys; Memory, unseen recorder, the traces of whose invisible ink, when shone upon by the fires of Likeness and Association, come forth to the mental eye vivid and legible, although written a generation ago. The Egyptians had their sarcophagus, with its wondrous and secret hieroglyphics; the Mexicans had their knotted cords; and Babylon of old, and China, in all ages, have alike employed letters of strange and mystic significance; but what are these letters compared

with that wonderful power within every one of us-that bridge between the present and the past, for ever thronged with weird and beautiful shapes and sounds, and surrounded with the scenery of terror and of beauty?

I. In order to the Education of Memory it is very necessary in the first place to FIX THE ATTENTION. Students devote themselves for long years to intellectual habits, and sometimes never do this: unless the Attention is fixed, it will not be engaged; that is not attention which is arrested by every passing object and sound; that is not attention which skims like a butterfly over a subject and never penetrates, nor seeks to penetrate beneath the surface. The real evidence of things is frequently never perceived by the person who supposes that he is talking very learnedly and profoundly upon a matter: and the reason is obvious; his attention has never been enlisted. Mental Dissipation is a cause of impoverished memories; a course of study chains the mind and prevents its vagrancy. There will be a sharpening of all the powers, an absorption of the energies in the pursuit of the one subject, which will give system, consistency, and stability to the mental character. In order to this fixing of the attention, too, it may be recommended to learn to love the study in which you have engaged; attempt to realise it in its most friendly aspects, and in its most familiar relations; if it deals in narrative, acquaint yourself with it; if with diagrams, acquaint yourself with them. Sensible images and corporeal things illustrate frequently notions in themselves; very abstract concatenation, too, fixes the atten