Where, however, fuch habits of inattention have unfortunately been contracted, we ought not to defpair of them as perfectly incurable. The attention, indeed, as I formerly remarked, can feldom be forced in particular instances; but we may gradually learn to place the objects we wish to attend to, in lights more interesting than those in which we have been accuftomed to view them. Much may be expected from a change of fcene, and a change of purfuits; but above all, much may be expected from foreign travel, The objects which we meet with excite our furprise by their novelty; and in this manner we not only gradually acquire the power of obferving and examining them with attention, but, from the effects of contraft, the curiosity comes to be roused with refpect to the correfponding objects in our own country, which, from our early familiarity with them, we had formerly been accustomed to overlook. In this respect the effects of foreign travel, in directing the attention to familiar objects and occurrences, is fomewhat analogous to that which the study of a dead or of a foreign language produces, in leading the curiofity to examine the grammatical structure of our own.

Confiderable advantage may also be derived, in overcoming the habits of inattention, which we may have contracted to particular fubjects, from studying the fyftems, true or falfe, which philofophers have proposed for explaining or for arranging the facts connected with them. By means of these fyftems, not only is the curiofity circumfcribed and directed, inftead of being allowed to wander at random, but, in confequence of our being enabled to connect facts with general

principles,

principles, it becomes interested in the examination of those particulars which would otherwise have escaped our notice.

IT

SECTION VIII.

Of the Connexion between Memory and philofophical Genius.

T is commonly supposed, that genius is feldom unit. ed with a very tenacious memory. So far, however, as my own observation has reached, I can scarcely recollect one perfon who poffeffes the former of these qualities, without a more than ordinary share of the latter.

On a fuperficial view of the fubject, indeed, the common opinion has fome appearance of truth; for, we are naturally led, in consequence of the topics about which converfation is ufually employed, to eftimate the extent of memory, by the impreffion which trivial occurrences make upon it; and thefe in general escape the recollection of a man of ability, not because he is unable to retain them, but because he does not attend to them. It is probable, likewife, that accidental affociations, founded on contiguity in time and place, may make but a flight impreffion on his mind. But it does not therefore follow, that his ftock of facts is fmall. They are connected together in his memory by principles of affociation, different from thofe which prevail in ordinary minds; and they are on that very account the more useful: for as the affociations are founded upon real connexions among the ideas, (although they

Hh 4

may

may be lefs conducive to the fluency, and perhaps to the wit of converfation,) they are of incomparably greater ufe in fuggefting facts which are to serve as a foundation for reasoning or for invention.

It frequently happens too, that a man of genius, in confequence of a peculiarly strong attachment to a particular subject, may first feel a want of inclination, and may afterwards acquire a want of capacity of attending to common occurrences. But it is probable that the whole ftock of ideas in his mind, is not inferior to that of other men; and that however unprofitably he may have directed his curiofity, the ignorance which he discovers on ordinary fubjects does not arise from a want of memory, but from a peculiarity in the felection which he has made of the objects of his study.

Montaigne * frequently complains in his writings, of his want of memory; and he indeed gives many very extraordinary inftances of his ignorance on fome of the most ordinary topics of information. But it is obvious to any person who reads his works with attention, that this ignorance did not proceed from an original defect of memory, but from the fingular and whimfical direction which his curiofity had taken at an early period of life. "I can do nothing," fays he, "with"out my memorandum book; and fo great is my dif"ficulty in remembering proper names, that I am "forced to call my domestic servants by their offices. "I am ignorant of the greater part of our coins in "ufe; of the difference of one grain from another,

* Il n'eft homme à qui il fiese fi mal de fe mefler de parler de me. moire. Car je n'en recognoy quafi trace en moy; et ne pense qu'il y en ait au monde une autre fi marveilleuse en defaillance. Effais de MONTAIGNE, liv i. ch. 9.

"both

"both in the earth and in the granary; what use leaven "is of in making bread, and why wine muft ftand "fome time in the vat before it ferments." Yet the same author appears evidently, from his writings, to have had his memory ftored with an infinite variety of apothegms, and of historical paffages, which had ftruck his imagination; and to have been familiarly acquainted, not only with the names, but with the abfurd and exploded opinions of the antient philosophers; with the ideas of Plato, the atoms of Epicurus, the plenum and vacuum of Leucippus and Democritus, the water of Thales, the numbers of Pythagoras, the infinite of Parmenides, and the unity of Mufæus. In complaining too of his want of prefence of mind, he indirectly acknowledges a degree of memory, which, if it had been judiciously employed, would have been more than fufficient for the acquifition of all those common branches of knowledge in which he appears to have been deficient. "When I have an oration to "speak,” says he, " of any confiderable length, I am "reduced to the miferable neceffity of getting it, word "for word, by heart."

The ftrange and apparently inconfiftent combination of knowledge and ignorance which the writings of Montaigne exhibit, led Malebranche (who seems to have formed too low an opinion both of his genius and character) to tax him with affectation; and even to call in question the credibility of fome of his affertions. But no one who is well acquainted with this most amusing author, can reasonably fufpect his veracity; and, in the prefent inftance, I can give him com. plete credit, not only from my general opinion of his

fincerity,

fincerity, but from having obferved, in the course of my own experience, more than one example of the fame fort of combination; not indeed carried to fuch a length as Montaigne describes, but bearing a striking refemblance to it.

The obfervations which have already been made, account, in part, for the origin of the common opinion, that genius and memory are feldom united in great degrees in the fame perfon; and at the fame time fhew, that some of the facts on which that opinion is founded, do not juftify fuch a conclufion. Befides thefe, however, there are other circumstances, which at first view, feem rather to indicate an inconfiftency between extenfive memory and original genius.

The species of memory which excites the greatest degree of admiration in the ordinary intercourfe of fociety, is a memory for detached and infulated facts; and it is certain that thofe men who are poffeffed of it, are very feldom diftinguished by the higher gifts of the mind. Such a fpecies of memory is unfavourable to philofophical arrangement; because it in part supplies the place of arrangement. One great use of philofophy, as I already fhewed, is to give us an extensive command of particular truths, by furnishing us with general principles, under which a number of fuch truths is comprehended. A perfon in whofe mind cafual affociations of time and place make a lafting impreffion, has not the fame inducements to philofophize, with others who connect facts together, chiefly by the relations of cause and effect, or of premises and conclufion. I have heard it obferved, that thofe men who have rifen to the greatest eminence in the profeffion of law, have been