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KOVEMBER 17, 1905
The Commoner.
15
Marvelous Memories
Writers on psychology and philos-l
ophy have cited many examples of
prodigious memory. No doubt some
of these are exaggerations, Others
are fabulous; and only a comparative
fnw admit of Verification.
Three cases are so well authenticat
ed that they may be used to illustrate
the wonderful power of a well culti
vated memory in a mind of strong na
tive endowment. In each instance,
too, this remarkable retentiveness
seems in no way to have retarded the
fullest development of other mental
powers.
Probably the most remarkable of
the three was the memory of Leonard
Euler. Euler was a native of Basle,
but most of his life was spent in St.
Petersburg. He was born in 1707 and
died in 1783. He was a teacher of
great power and a most prolific writ
er. More than half of the forty-six
quarto volumes of mathematics pub
lished by the St. Petersburg academy
between 1727 and 1783 were from nil
pen. At his death he left more than
200 manuscript treatises.
In the later years of his life he
was totally blind. Then, and prob-'
ahly earlier, too, he carried in his
memory a table of the first six pow-i
ers of the "series of natural numbers
up to 100." It is related that on one
occasion two of Euler's students at
tempted to calculate a converging
series. As they progressed they found
there was a disagreement in their re
sults. The results differed by a unit
at the fifteenth figure. The question
was referred to Euler, who decided to
make the calculation. He did this
mentally, and his result was found, to
be correct.
The seventeenth century furnishes
the other two instances to which at
tention is called.- The first is that of
the Italian scholar, Antonio Da Marco
Magliabeechi. Magliabeechi was the
literary prodigy of his time. Royalty
and other distinguished personages
paid tribute to his wonderful learning.
His contemporaries have said that his
memory was prodigious; that he was
also able to retain verbatim most of
the contents of his "multitudinous
books." " "i '
A comparatively recent writer has
declared that (Magliabeechi "could
name all the autndrs who had written
upon any subject, the words, and often
the page." This is doubtless exagT
geration. But, oa. the other hand, it
should be remembered that the dum
ber of books on' any subject were
much fewer thaiat the present time.
Besides this there are two stories
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that have come down from Maglla
beechi's time to ours that give color
to its truth. On ono occasion a gen
tleman of Florence desired to test
Magliabeechl's memory and ascertain
for himself whethor the wonderful
stories were truth or fiction. He gave
him a manuscript to read, then some
days after its return, pretending to
have lost it, he asKed Magliabeechi
to recall it, which, it is said, he did
with remarkable exactness.
At another time the grand duke of
Florence asked fcim if he could pro
cure a certain book ror him. Immed
iately came the response: "No, sir;
it is impossible; there is but one in
the world; that is in the grand seig
noir's library at Constantinople, and
is the seventh book on the seventh
shelf on the right hand as you go in."
The other instance in the sevei
teenth century is that of Dr. John
Wallis. It is not as a theologian, how
ever, that Wallis' name is permanent
ly enrolled in the temple of fame, but
as a mathematician. His great work
is the "Arithmetics InQnitorum." In
this he makes the successful attempt
to solve a number or tno more simp
ler problems of the calculus by the
summation of series of infinity. His
power of concentration and memory
were so strong that "while in the bed
in the dark he extracted the square
root of a number of fifty-three places
in twenty-seven terms and repeated
the result twenty days afterward."
These examples of retentive mem
ory are .auite well authenticated and
give plausibility to tne possible truth
of others frequently cited. Pliny tells
us that Cyrus the Great knew .ill his
soldiers by name, and Cicero in his
"De Senectute," says that Themis
tocles could call the 20,000 citizens of
Athens by name. It is related that
both Horace and Vernet and Gustave
Dore could paint a portrait from mem
ory. There is a story that is more than
tradition that Wolfgang Mozart, "set
down the whole of the Sistine Mise
rere from memory," and that, too,
from hearing it but twice.. Sir Wil
liam Hamilton, in bis "Lectures on
Metaphysics and Logic," gives Mu
retus as authority for the statement
that a young Corsican could repeat in
either direct or reverse order, or be
gin at any point and repeat both ways,
a list of 36,000 names.
Seneca, the rhetorician; Pascal,
Ben Jonson, Scaliger, Niebuhr, and
Macaulay all were men of marvelous
memories. Pascal says he never for
got anything that he read. Ben Jon
son tells us that he could repeat all
he had ever written "and whole
books" that he had read. The same
feat, too, 'is credited jto Niebuhr, the
historian.
It is also told of Niebuhr that in
his youth he was employed in one of
the public offices of Denmark." Part
ot a book of accounts bavins been
destroyed, he was able to restore it
completely through His recollection.
Joseph Justus Scaliger in his youth
was a student of the famous Turebus.
There is a tradition that he became
dissatisfied with his progress in Greek,
and to make more rapid progress he
closeted himself with his Homer. Then
with the aid of a Latin translation
he read the whole of the Iliad and
remmit'eri it to memory in twenty
one days. Wheth. this was an act
ual occurence .or iot, it is certain
that his mind was one of great re
tentiveness. He spoKe thirteen lan
guages and was one of the most eru
dite mon of , the sixteenth century.
Cosnul-w says of him: "He read
nothing (and what did he not read?)
which he did not rorthwith remem-
J5fer " '
fEe many stories told of Macau
lav's aimost pbrteritious memory have
been i tinted too ofen to bear reneti-
tioii. Xcl a few of thfm are on seem-.
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