Abstract
FEW could read this useful little book of 115 pages without benefit. The author does not claim originality, but has selected the principles and facts of recognised importance from other works on memory. The author draws special attention to the fact that one man may have a good memory for certain things, and yet be very deficient in remembering others. This fact, though so well known, is constantly overlooked by writers on memory. They can themselves remember, through the possession of some well-developed faculty, and therefore invent a system based on this fact, whereas the majority of persons might find greater difficulty in remembering through the system than, through the ordinary method. The author devotes four chapters to the consideration of concentration and observation. There is a very instructive chapter on the I necessity of reviewing the knowledge we possess, so as I to have it available at any given moment. As we remember entirely from single impressions, it is of the greatest practical importance that when we receive a new impression the previous one be revived. A simple illustration will make this clear: A man may meet another three separate times without remembering that he has met him before; he might subsequently remember that he had met the man on any one of the three occasions, but the remembrance would not be nearly so vivid as if he had recognised his acquaintance each time they met. The chapter on the subconscious, or subjective memory contains many statements which will not admit of proof. As a matter of fact, all memory is subconscious; everything is remembered, and may, in favourable circumstances, be brought before the mind. There are some curious errors· which the author would do well to correct in another edition, such, for instance, as the use of the word “mneumonics,” which occurs repeatedly for “mnemonics,” and the reference to Mr. Gladstone as Sir Wm. Gladstone.
The Rational Memory.
By W. H. Groves. Pp. vi + 115. (Gloucester, Va.: W. H. Groves, n.d.)
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The Rational Memory . Nature 67, 461 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067461b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067461b0