The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing Part 50

It seems as though a channel were cut in our mind-stuff along which the memory flows. How to construct an easy channel for any event or series of events or facts which one wishes to remember, along which the mind will ever afterward travel, is the secret of mnemonics.

Loisette, in common with all the mnemonic teachers, uses the old device of representing numbers by letters--and as this is the first and easiest step in the art, this seems to be the most logical place to introduce the accepted equivalents of the Arabic numerals:

0 is always represented by s, z or c soft.

1 is always represented by t, th or d.

2 is always represented by n.

3 is always represented by m.

4 is always represented by r.

5 is always represented by l.

6 is always represented by sh, j, ch soft or g soft.

7 is always represented by g hard, k, c hard, q or final ng.

8 is always represented by f or v.

9 is always represented by p or b.

All the other letters are used simply to fill up. Double letters in a word count only as one. In fact, the system goes by sound, not by spelling, For instance, "this" or "dizzy" would stand for ten; "catch"

or "gush" would stand for 76, and the only difficulty is to make some word or phrase which will contain only the significant letters in the proper order, filled out with non-significants into some guise of meaning or intelligibility.

You can remember the equivalents given above by noting that z is the first letter of "zero," and c of "cipher," t has but one stroke, n has two, m three; the script f is very like 8; the script p like 9; r is the last letter of "four;" l is the Roman numeral for 50, which suggests 5.

The others may be retained by memorizing these nonsense lines:

Six shy Jewesses chase George.

Seven great kings came quarreling.

Suppose you wished to get some phrase or word that would express the number 3,685, you arrange the letters this way:

3 .. 6 .. 8 .. 5 a m a sh a f a 1 e e j e v e i i ch i i o o g o o u u u u h h h h w w w w x x x x y y y y

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 pa.s.sed 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 a.n.a.lyzes 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 pa.s.sing 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 who can recall, with an itching sense of vivid impression, the 144 lickings which were said to go with the multiplication table.

In default of a thrashing, however, the student must cultivate as best he can an intense fixity of perception upon every fact or word or date that he wishes to make permanently his own. It is easy. It is a matter of habit. If you will, you can photograph an idea upon your cerebral gelatine so that neither years nor events will blot it out or overlay it. You must be clearly and distinctly aware of the thing you are putting into your mental treasure-house, and drastically certain of the cord by which you have tied it to some other thing of which you are sure. Unless it is worth your while to do this, you might as well abandon any hope of mnemonic improvement, which will not come without the hardest kind of hard work, although it is work that will grow constantly easier with practice and reiteration. You need, then:

1. Methodic suggestion.

2. Methodic attention.

3. Methodic reiteration.

And this is all there is to Loisette, and a great deal it is. Two of them will not do without the third. You do not know how many steps there are from your hall door to your bedroom, though you have attended to and often reiterated the journey. But if there are twenty of them, and you have once bound the word "nice," or "nose," or "news" or "hyenas," to the fact of the stairway, you can never forget it.

The Professor makes a point, and very wisely, of the importance of working through some established chain, so that the whole may be carried away in the mind--not alone for the value of the facts so bound together, but for the mental discipline so afforded.

Here, then, is the "President Series," which contains the name and date of inauguration of each President from Washington to Cleveland. The manner in which it is to be mastered is this: Beginning at the top, try to find in your mind some connection between each word and the one following it. See how you can at some future time make one suggest the next, either by suggestion of sound or sense, or by mental juxtaposition. When you have found this dwell on it attentively for a moment or two. Pa.s.s it backward and forward before you, and then go on to the next step.

The chain runs thus, the names of the President being in capitals, the date words or date phrases being inclosed in parentheses: