Mnemonics

Mnemonics (Gk. mnēmōn, 'mindful'), the art of assisting the memory; a mode of recalling to the mind any fact or number, or a series of disconnected terms or figures. Even ordinary recollection, according to Cicero, is not purely spontaneous or natural, but has some element of artificial suggestion, something to prompt the mind. To recall in the future a fact or figure, we associate it now with something else which is more to our hand; and afterwards the mental reproduction or actual presentation of the latter will give a suggestion of the former, in accordance with the psychological 'law of contiguity.' The number 3·1415926536 seems to a schoolboy hard of recollection till he shows its importance in connection with certain ratios—when measuring a circle, ellipse, sphere, or cone, &c.—and then taught the phrase But I must a while endeavour to reckon right the ratios. Each word in that mnemonic sentence supplies, by the number of its letters, a corresponding figure of the ratio to be remembered. What association has the date 871 with King Alfred? None whatever, directly; but if those digits immediately appear as ami by a scheme which the pupil has already accepted or invented, then a clue or link-word is furnished to serve for a lifetime: $a\; =\; 8$, $m\; =\; 7$, $i\; =\; 1$. Of the surface of our globe 734 thousandths are water, and by the same mnemotechny 734 becomes mer, so that the fact is permanently registered for ready use. The earth's diameter and circumference measure 7926 and 24,900 respectively, which numbers to that mnemotechnist read mnits and trn, suggesting the phrase 'minutes turn' and the association that time is measured by the earth's rotation. The list bijou, joujou, chou, genou, caillou, hubou, in French grammars, gives another familiar instance where recollection would to many be impossible without some artificial association. The following serves that purpose by stringing the words together—'Finding a jewel in the garden, he made a toy of it, and jumping about he tripped against a cabbage and hurt his knee on a flint, whilst the owl overhead hooted derisively.' Some rhythmical mnemotechnic contrivances have been used for ages: one, for example, which, notwithstanding the enormous multiplication of printed calendars, still survives is—'Thirty days hath September,' &c.

The Latin student is thankful for the mnemonic rhyme

In March, July, October, May,
The ides are on the fifteenth day,
The nones I on the seventh lay;
The rest thirteenth and fifth alway; and for centuries no text-book on logic has omitted the five hexameter lines (Barbara, Celarent, &c.) which compress the doctrine of the syllogism into a marvellous minimum of space. In these, however, as well as in the case of those numberless Latin verses over which so much time was till recently spent in our grammar-schools, the only help afforded is from the association of the sounds of certain barbarous dactyls and spondees in the ear. The perfection of mnemotechny is when there is an association by sense or natural suggestiveness. The thought of A will frequently bring Z to the mind sooner than B, because there is something not only not similar but grotesquely dissimilar in the ideas they awaken. Whoever practises the art of memory with success always selects unconsciously such associations as are best suited to the situation from his own point of view; and thus the art cannot be imparted in detail.

The value of mnemotechny under certain aspects is incontestable, considering that many in every class of life are constantly applying some method of storing and then utilising their knowledge. The art is, however, to be distinguished from the general faculty—memory, which is the essential and distinctive faculty of ‘mind.’ As such it depends not only on attention (as philosophers have ever taught), but on the healthy action of the nervous system and general physique, assisted perhaps in some individuals by a certain plastic and assimilative brain-power. Cicero approved of the art of artificial memory, and probably applied the topical method (to be mentioned presently) in some of his elaborate speeches; but Quintilian implies (Inst. xi. 2, 40) that to remember a subject properly we must master it in all its details. Practice and labour, he affirms, constitute the real mnemotechny: the best method of learning much by heart is by long, and if possible, daily study. The aim in such a case, however, was widely different from that which is now generally sought by using artificial memory.

The topical mnemonics (Gr. topos, ‘place’) of the ancients is adapted for recalling in order the arguments and illustrations of a public speech, or the succession of ideas in a poem or narrative. Besides the Roman writers, it is referred to by Plato and Aristotle, and was attributed to Simonides the Greek poet, who died 469 B.C. The speaker having selected, for example, a house with which he is so familiar as to remember well the position, not only of each room and passage, but of all the prominent objects in every room, associates as vividly as possible the introduction of his discourse with the entrance-hall, and systematically assigns thought after thought to the chief points there visible. The first main division of his subject may then be identified, as it were, with the dining-room; and every piece of furniture, every picture, &c., be judiciously utilised for recalling the succession of arguments with their illustrations and results. The second main division may then be associated in like manner with the drawing-room, and everything in it if need be; and thus for the rest of his discourse, till the successive rooms, statues, and windows, &c. are pressed into service, and all the series of his thoughts passed under review. The principle is that to recall a series of ideas they can be associated more easily with familiar (and, as it were, visible) objects or places than with each other. Another form of topical mnemotechny was based on imagining the four walls of each room, and its floor, to be each divided into nine places, and a distinct object—such as a particular bust, picture, or tree, &c.—to be inseparably associated with each place. When these objects are thoroughly known so as to be promptly and faultlessly recalled, then the mnemotechnist who has a succession of things to be remembered assigns them to a particular room and compels himself to detect some association, no matter how incongruous, between each of them and one of the ‘hieroglyphs’ which are to serve as memorial links.

Many minor systems for learning dates and detached numbers have been based on that of Gregor von Feinaigle, a German who lectured in London, 1811. His scheme was

each letter was more or less suggestive of the figure which it represents: moreover, p may be supplanted by f, k by c or g, and b by v or w, &c. Thus, as an example, the Anglian kingdom from the Humber to the Firth of Forth was founded in 547, and by Feinaigle’s scheme that date becomes lrk. By inserting vowels we form the mnemonic words lark, lurk, large, lyric, Alaric, &c., any one of which the historical student may choose to suit his notions of King Ida the Flamebearer, so as to remember the date of his landing in Yorkshire. Another student, for the same date, might prefer la race, la rage, &c., or Lat. lorica (‘cuirass’).

The following system (1730), that of Richard Grey, D.D. (1694–1771), does not require, like Feinaigle’s, the insertion of arbitrary vowels, and is therefore not so elastic:

A recent mnemotechnist, Dr Pick, has improved Feinaigle’s method by introducing a principle not unlike that which we have noted in describing the topical systems. Given a list of detached words—e.g. ‘garden, hair, watchman, philosophy,’ &c.—they can be recalled in order by inserting between each pair a connective word which links them or forms a bridge. Thus, garden, maidenhair fern; hair, bonnet; watchman, wake, study; philosophy, &c. Other mnemotechnists have been Schenkel, 1547; Aimé Paris, 1833; Karl Otto, 1840; Gourand, 1845; and Loiset. Grey’s system was really a modification of that of Winckelmann, which attracted the notice of Leibnitz and gave him the suggestion of a universal alphabet.