Victorian Science and Nature/The Power of MemoryPrevious | Home | NextTranscript from original newspaper article: - |
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THE POWER OF MEMORY. – Seneca
could repeat two thousand verses at once, in order, then begin at the
end and repeat them backwards, without missing a single syllable. Cyrus
is said to have been able to call every individual of his numerous army
by his proper name. Mithridates,
who governed twenty three nations, all of different languages, could converse
with every one of them in their own language. In modern times there have
been many instances of extraordinary powers of retention. Dr. Wallis,
in a paper in the “Philosophical Transactions,” informs us
that he extracted the cube root of the number three even to thirty places
of decimals by the aid of memory alone. M.
Euler, the celebrated mathematician, who died 1783, lost his sight
by too intense application to study, but he afterwards composed his “Elements
of Algebra,” and the work “On the inequalities of the Planetary
Motions,” that required immense and complicated calculations, which
he made by memory alone. His memory seemed to retain every idea that was
conveyed to it either from reading or from mediation, and his powers of
reasoning and discrimination were equally acute and capacious. He was
also an excellent classical scholar, and could repeat the “AEneid”
of Virgil
from the beginning to the end, and indicate the first and last line of
every page of the edition used. I have conversed with an individual, who
was born blind, and who could repeat the whole of the Old and New Testament
from beginning to end; and not only so, but could repeat any particular
chapter or verse that might be proposed to him the moment after it was
specified. -
“Say, can a soul possessed The Philosophy of a Future State. Related links: - Dr Wallis and the "Philosophical Transactions" see `On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge (1866)'. Euler, Leonhard (1707-1783 also see `Orbits and gravitation' Main Menu - Shop Online - Email Us
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