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Bible Dictionaries
Memory
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary
or A faculty of the mind, which presents to us ideas or notions of things that are past, accompanied with a persuasion that the things themselves were formerly real and present. When we remember with little or no effort it is called remembrance simply, or memory, and sometimes passive memory. When we endeavour to remember what does not immediately and of itself occur, it is called active memory, or recollection.
A good memory has these several qualifications:
1. It is ready to receive and admit with great ease the various ideas, both of words and things, which are learned or taught.
2. It is large and copious to treasure up these ideas in great number and variety.
3. It is strong and durable to retain, for a considerable time, those words or thoughts which are committed to it.
4. It is faithful and active to suggest and recollect, upon every proper occasion, and those words or thoughts which it hath treasured up.
As this faculty may be injured by neglect and slothfulness we will here subjoin a few of the best rules which have been given for the improvement of it.
1. We should form a clear and distinct apprehension of the things which we commit to memory.
2. Beware of every sort of intemperance, for that greatly impairs the faculties.
3. If it be weak, we must not overload it, but charge it only with the most useful and solid notions.
4. We should take every opportunity of uttering our best thoughts in conversation, as this will deeply imprint them.
5. We should join to the idea we wish to remember, some other idea that is more familiar to us, which bears some similitude to it, either in its nature, or in the sound of the word.
6. We should think of it before we go to sleep at night, and the first thing in the morning, when the faculties are fresh.
7. Method and regularity in the things we commit to the memory are necessary.
8. Often thinking, writing, or talking, on the subjects we wish to remember.
9. Fervent and frequent prayer.
See Watts on the Mind, chap. 17; Grey's Memoria Technica; Rogers' Pleasures of Memory; Reid's Intell. Powers of Man, 303, 318, 338, 356.
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Buck, Charles. Entry for 'Memory'. Charles Buck Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/cbd/m/memory.html. 1802.
