1. Contemplation. The next faculty of the mind, whereby it makes a further progress towards
knowledge, is that which I call retention; or the keeping of those simple ideas which from sensation
or reflection it hath received. This is done two ways.
First, by keeping the idea which is brought into it, for some time actually in view, which is called
contemplation.
2. Memory. The other way of retention is, the power to revive again in our minds those ideas which,
after imprinting, have disappeared, or have been as it were laid aside out of sight. And thus we do,
when we conceive heat or light, yellow or sweet,--the object being removed. This is memory, which
is as it were the storehouse of our ideas. For, the narrow mind of man not being capable of having
many ideas under view and consideration at once, it was necessary to have a repository, to lay up
those ideas which, at another time, it might have use of. But, our ideas being nothing but actual
perceptions in the mind, which cease to be anything when there is no perception of them; this laying
up of our ideas in the repository of the memory signifies no more but this,--that the mind has a
power in many cases to revive perceptions which it has once had, with this additional perception
annexed to them, that it has had them before. And in this sense it is that our ideas are said to be in
our memories, when indeed they are actually nowhere;--but only there is an ability in the mind when
it will to revive them again, and as it were paint them anew on itself, though some with more, some
with less difficulty; some more lively, and others more obscurely. And thus it is, by the assistance of
this faculty, that we are said to have all those ideas in our understandings which, though we do not
actually contemplate, yet we can bring in sight, and make appear again, and be the objects of our
thoughts, without the help of those sensible qualities which first imprinted them there.
3. Attention, repetition, pleasure and pain, fix ideas. Attention and repetition help much to the fixing
any ideas in the memory. But those which naturally at first make the deepest and most lasting
impressions, are those which are accompanied with pleasure or pain. The great business of the
senses being, to make us take notice of what hurts or advantages the body, it is wisely ordered by
nature, as has been shown, that pain should accompany the reception of several ideas; which,
supplying the place of consideration and reasoning in children, and acting quicker than
consideration in grown men, makes both the old and young avoid painful objects with that haste
which is necessary for their preservation; and in both settles in the memory a caution for the future.
4. Ideas fade in the memory. Concerning the several degrees of lasting, wherewith ideas are
imprinted on the memory, we may observe,--that some of them have been produced in the
understanding by an object affecting the senses once only, and no more than once; others, that
have more than once offered themselves to the senses, have yet been little taken notice of: the
mind, either heedless, as in children, or otherwise employed, as in men intent only on one thing; not
setting the stamp deep into itself. And in some, where they are set on with care and repeated
impressions, either through the temper of the body, or some other fault, the memory is very weak. In
all these cases, ideas in the mind quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of the understanding,
leaving no more footsteps or remaining characters of themselves than shadows do flying over fields
of corn, and the mind is as void of them as if they had never been there.
5. Causes of oblivion. Thus many of those ideas which were produced in the minds of children, in
the beginning of their sensation, (some of which perhaps, as of some pleasures and pains, were
before they were born, and others in their infancy,) if the future course of their lives they are not
repeated again, are quite lost, without the least glimpse remaining of them. This may be observed in
those who by some mischance have lost their sight when they were very young; in whom the ideas
of colours having been but slightly taken notice of, and ceasing to be repeated, do quite wear out; so
that some years after, there is no more notion nor memory of colours left in their minds, than in
those of people born blind. The memory of some men, it is true, is very tenacious, even to a miracle.
But yet there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest,
and in minds the most retentive; so that if they be not sometimes renewed, by repeated exercise of
the senses, or reflection on those kinds of objects which at first occasioned them, the print wears
out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen. Thus the ideas, as well as children, of our youth,
often die before us: and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching;
where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the
imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours; and if not
sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear. How much the constitution of our bodies and the make
of our animal spirits are concerned in this; and whether the temper of the brain makes this
difference, that in some it retains the characters drawn on it like marble, in others like freestone, and
in others little better than sand, I shall not here inquire; though it may seem probable that the
constitution of the body does sometimes influence the memory, since we oftentimes find a disease
quite strip the mind of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever in a few days calcine all those images
to dust and confusion, which seemed to be as lasting as if graved in marble.
6. Constantly repeated ideas can scarce be lost. But concerning the ideas themselves, it is easy to
remark, that those that are oftenest refreshed (amongst which are those that are conveyed into the
mind by more ways than one) by a frequent return of the objects or actions that produce them, fix
themselves best in the memory, and remain clearest and longest there; and therefore those which
are of the original qualities of bodies, vis. solidity, extension, figure, motion, and rest; and those that
almost constantly affect our bodies, as heat and cold; and those which are the affections of all kinds
of beings, as existence, duration, and number, which almost every object that affects our senses,
every thought which employs our minds, bring along with them;--these, I say, and the like ideas, are
seldom quite lost, whilst the mind retains any ideas at all.
7. In remembering, the mind is often active. In this secondary perception, as I may so call it, or
viewing again the ideas that are lodged in the memory, the mind is oftentimes more than barely
passive; the appearance of those dormant pictures depending sometimes on the will. The mind very
often sets itself on work in search of some hidden idea, and turns as it were the eye of the soul upon
it; though sometimes too they start up in our minds of their own accord, and offer themselves to the
understanding; and very often are roused and tumbled out of their dark cells into open daylight, by
turbulent and tempestuous passions; our affections bringing ideas to our memory, which had
otherwise lain quiet and unregarded. This further is to be observed, concerning ideas lodged in the
memory, and upon occasion revived by the mind, that they are not only (as the word revive imports)
none of them new ones, but also that the mind takes notice of them as of a former impression, and
renews its acquaintance with them, as with ideas it had known before. So that though ideas formerly
imprinted are not al constantly in view, yet in remembrance they are constantly known to be such as
have been formerly imprinted; i.e., in view, and taken notice of before, by the understanding.
8. Two defects in the memory, oblivion and slowness. Memory, in an intellectual creature, is
necessary in the next degree to perception. It is of so great moment, that, where it is wanting, all the
rest of our faculties are in a great measure useless. And we in our thoughts, reasonings, and
knowledge, could not proceed beyond present objects, were it not for the assistance of our
memories; wherein there may be two defects:--
First, That it loses the idea quite, and so far it produces perfect ignorance. For, since we can know
nothing further than we have the idea of it, when that is gone, we are in perfect ignorance.
Secondly, That it moves slowly, and retrieves not the ideas that it has, and are laid up in store, quick
enough to serve the mind upon occasion. This, if it be to a great degree, is stupidity; and he who,
through this default in his memory, has not the ideas that are really preserved there, ready at hand
when need and occasion calls for them, were almost as good be without them quite, since they
serve him to little purpose. The dull man, who loses the opportunity, whilst he is seeking in his mind
for those ideas that should serve his turn, is not much more happy in his knowledge than one that is
perfectly ignorant. It is the business therefore of the memory to furnish to the mind those dormant
ideas which it has present occasion for; in the having them ready at hand on all occasions, consists
that which we call invention, fancy, and quickness of parts.
9. A defect which belongs to the memory of man, as finite. These are defects we may observe in the
memory of one man compared with another. There is another defect which we may conceive to be
in the memory of man in general;--compared with some superior created intellectual beings, which
in this faculty may so far excel man, that they may have constantly in view the whole scene of all
their former actions, wherein no one of the thoughts they have ever had may slip out of their sight.
The omniscience of God, who knows all things, past, present, and to come, and to whom the
thoughts of men's hearts always lie open, may satisfy us of the possibility of this. For who can doubt
but God may communicate to those glorious spirits, his immediate attendants, any of his
perfections; in what proportions he pleases, as far as created finite beings can be capable? It is
reported of that prodigy of parts, Monsieur Pascal, that till the decay of his health had impaired his
memory, he forgot nothing of what he had done, read, or thought, in any part of his rational age.
This is a privilege so little known to most men, that it seems almost incredible to those who, after the
ordinary way, measure all others by themselves; but yet, when considered, may help us to enlarge
our thoughts towards greater perfections of it, in superior ranks of spirits. For this of Monsieur
Pascal was still with the narrowness that human minds are confined to here,--of having great variety
of ideas only by succession, not al at once. Whereas the several degrees of angels may probably
have larger views; and some of them be endowed with capacities able to retain together, and
constantly set before them, as in one picture, all their past knowledge at once. This, we may
conceive, would be no small advantage to the knowledge of a thinking man,--if all his past thoughts
and reasonings could be always present to him. And therefore we may suppose it one of those
ways, wherein the knowledge of separate spirits may exceedingly surpass ours.
10. Brutes have memory. This faculty of laying up and retaining the ideas that are brought into the
mind, several other animals seem to have to a great degree, as wel as man. For, to pass by other
instances, birds learning of tunes, and the endeavours one may observe in them to hit the notes
right, put it past doubt with me, that they have perception, and retain ideas in their memories, and
use them for patterns. For it seems to me impossible that they should endeavour to conform their
voices to notes (as it is plain they do) of which they had no ideas. For, though I should grant sound
may mechanically cause a certain motion of the animal spirits in the brains of those birds, whilst the
tune is actually playing; and that motion may be continued on to the muscles of the wings, and so
the bird mechanically be driven away by certain noises, because this may tend to the bird's
preservation; yet that can never be supposed a reason why it should cause mechanically--either
whilst the tune is playing, much less after it has ceased--such a motion of the organs in the bird's
voice as should conform it to the notes of a foreign sound, which imitation can be of no use to the
bird's preservation. But, which is more, it cannot with any appearance of reason be supposed (much
less proved) that birds, without sense and memory, can approach their notes nearer and nearer by
degrees to a tune played yesterday; which if they have no idea of in their memory, is now nowhere,
nor can be a pattern for them to imitate, or which any repeated essays can bring them nearer to.
Since there is no reason why the sound of a pipe should leave traces in their brains, which, not at
first, but by their after-endeavours, should produce the like sounds; and why the sounds they make
themselves, should not make traces which they should follow, as well as those of the pipe, is
impossible to conceive.