by Joseph Triemens
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You can make out "image of law," "my shuffle," "matchville," etc., etc.,
as far as you like to work it out.
Now, suppose you wished to memorize the fact that $1,000,000 in gold
weighs 3,685 pounds, you go about it in this way, and here is the kernel
and crux of Loisette's system: "How much does $1,000,000 in gold weigh?"
"Weigh-scales."
"Scales--statue of justice."
"Statue of Justice--image of law."
The process is simplicity itself. The thing you wish to recall, and that
you fear to forget, is the weight; consequently you cement your chain of
suggestion to the idea which is most prominent in your mental question.
What do you weigh with? Scales. What does the mental picture of scales
suggest? The statue of Justice, blindfolded and weighing out award and
punishment to man. Finally, what is this statue of Justice but the image
of law? And the words "image of law," translated back from the
significant letters m, g soft, f and 1, give you 3--6--8--5, the number
of pounds in $1,000,000 in gold. You bind together in your mind each
separate step in the journey, the one suggests the other, and you will
find a year from now that the fact will be as fresh in your memory as it
is today. You cannot lose it. It is chained to you by an unbreakable
mnemonic tie. Mark that it is not claimed that "weight" will of itself
suggest "scales," and "scales" "statue of Justice," etc., but that,
having once passed your attention up and down that ladder of ideas, your
mental tendency will be to take the same route, and get to the same goal
again and again. Indeed, beginning with the weight of $1,000,000, "image
of law" will turn up in your mind without your consciousness of any
intermediate station on the way, after some iteration and reiteration of
the original chain.
Again, so as to fasten the process in the reader's mind even more
firmly, suppose that it were desired to fix the date of the battle of
Hastings (A. D. 1066) in the memory; 1066 may be represented by the
words "the wise judge" (th--1, s--0, j--6, dg--6; the others are
non-significants); a chain might be made thus:
Battle of Hastings--arbitrament of war.
Arbitrament of war--arbitration.
Arbitration--judgment.
Judgment--the wise judge.
Make mental pictures, connect ideas, repeat words and sounds, go about
it any way you please, so that you will form a mental habit of
connecting the "battle of Hastings" with the idea of "arbitrament of
war," and so on for the other links in the chain, and the work is done.
Loisette makes the beginning of his system unnecessarily difficult, to
say nothing of his illogical arrangement in the grammar of the art of
memory, which he makes the first of his lessons. He analyzes suggestion
into--
1. Inclusion.
2. Exclusion.
3. Concurrence.
All of which looks very scientific and orderly, but is really misleading
and badly named. The truth is that one idea will suggest another:
1. By likeness or opposition of meaning, as "house" suggests "room" or
"door," etc.; or, "white" suggests "black"; "cruel," "kind," etc.
2. By likeness of sound, as "harrow" and "barrow"; "Henry" and
"Hennepin."
3. By mental juxtaposition, a peculiarity different in each person, and
depending upon each one's own experiences. Thus, "St. Charles" suggests
"railway bridge" to me, because I was vividly impressed by the breaking
of the Wabash bridge at that point. "Stable" and "broken leg" come near
each other in my experience, as do "cow" and "shot-gun" and "licking."
Out of these three sorts of suggestion it is possible to get from anyone
fact to another in a chain certain and safe, along which the mind may be
depended upon afterwards always to follow.
The chain is, of course, by no means all. Its making and its binding
must be accompanied by a vivid, methodically directed attention, which
turns all the mental light gettable in a focus upon the subject passing
across the mind's screen. Before Loisette was thought of this was known.
In the old times in England, in order to impress upon the mind of the
rising generation the parish boundaries in the rural districts, the boys
were taken to each of the landmarks in succession, the position and
bearing of each pointed out carefully, and, in order to deepen the
impression, the young people were then and there vigorously thrashed--a
mechanical method of attracting the attention which was said never to
have failed. This system has had its supporters in many of the
old-fashioned schools, and there are men who will read these lines
