Power of acquiring and retaining Truth, and the Connection between the Memory and the Affections

It is said, the powers of acquiring and retaining truth, because truth is not retained without some continued exertion of the same powers by which it is acquired. There is the most intimate connection of the memory with the affections. This connection is obvious from many familiar expressions; such as remember me to any one, by which is signified a desire to be borne in his or her affections—do not forget me, by which is meant do not cease to love me —get by heart, which means to commit to memory. It is also obvious from observation of our own minds; from the constant recurrence of those subjects which we most love, and the extreme difficulty of detaching our own minds or the minds of others from a favorite pursuit. It is obvious from the power of attention on which the memory principally depends, which, if the subject have a place in our affections, requires no effort; if it have not, the effort consists principally in giving it a real or an artificial hold of our feelings; as it is possible, if we do not love a subject, to attend to it, because it may add to our fame or our wealth. It is obvious from the never-fading freshness retained by the scenes of childhood, when the feelings are strong and vivid, through the later periods of life. As the old man looks back on the road of his pilgrimage, many years of active life lie unseen in the valley, as his eye rests on the rising ground of his younger days; presenting a beautiful illustration of the manner in which the human mind, when revelation shall have accomplished its work, shall no longer regard the scene of sin and misery behind, but having completed the circle, shall rest, as next to the present moment, on the golden age, the infancy of the world.

The connection of the memory with the affections is also obvious from the association of ideas; since the train of thoughts suggested by any scene or event in any individual, depends on his own peculiar and prevailing feelings; as whatever enters into the animal system, wherever it may arise, seems first to be recognized as a part of the man, when it has found its way to the heart, and received from that its impulse. It is but a few years, (how strange to tell!) since man discovered that the blood circulated through the human body. We have, perhaps, hardly learned the true nature ot that intellectual circulation, which gives life and health to the human mind. The affections are to the soul, what the heart is to the body. They send forth their treasures with a vigor not less powerful, though not material, throughout the intellectual man, strengthening and nourishing; and again receive those treasures to themselves, enlarged by the effect of their own operation.

Memory is the effect of learning, through whatever avenue it may have entered the mind. It is said, the effect, because the man who has read a volume, and can perhaps tell you nothing of its contents, but simply express his own views on the same subject with more clearness and precision, may as truly be said to have remembered, as he that can repeat the very words. In the one case, the powers of the mind have received a new tone; in the other, they are encumbered with a useless burden-in the one, they are made stronger; in the other, they are more oppressed with weight— in the one, the food is absorbed and becomes a part of the man; in the other, it lies on the stomach in a state of crude indigestion.

There is no power more various in different individuals, than the memory. This may be ascribed to two reasons. First, this partakes of every power of the mind, since every mental exertion is a subject of memory, and may therefore be said to indicate all the difference that actually exists. Secondly, this power varies in its character as it has more or less to do with time. Simple divine truth has nothing to do with time. It is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. The memory of this is simply the development of the mind. But we are so surrounded by facts of a local and temporal nature; the place where, and the time when, make so great a part of what is presented to our consideration, that the attribute is mistaken for the subject; and this power sometimes appears to have exclusive reference to time, though, strictly speaking, it has no relation to it. There is a power of growth in the spiritual man, and if in his progress we be able to mark, as in the grain of the oak, the number of the years, this is only a circumstance, and all that is gained would be as real if no such lines existed. The mind ought not to be limited by the short period of its own duration in the body, with a beginning and end comprising a few years; it should be poised on its own immortality, and what is learned, should be learned with a view to that real adaptation of knowledge to the mind which results from the harmony of creation; and whenever or whereever we exist, it will be useful to us.

The memory has, in reality, nothing to do with time, any more than the eye has with space. As the latter learns by experience to measure the distance of objects, so the consciousness of the present existence of states of mind, is referred to particular periods of the past. But when the soul has entered on its eternal state, there is reason to believe that the past and the future will be swallowed up in the present; that memory and anticipation will be lost in consciousness; that everything of the past will be comprehended in the present, without any reference to time, and everything of the future will exist in the divine effort of progression.

What is time? There is perhaps no question that would suggest such a variety of answers. It is represented to us from our infancy as producing such important changes, both in destroying some, and in healing the wounds it has inflicted on others, that people generally imagine, if not an actual person, it is at least a real existence. We begin with time in the Primer, and end with reasoning about the foreknowledge of God. What is time? The difficulty of answering the question, (and there are few questions more difficult,) arises principally from our having ascribed so many important effects to that which has no real existence. It is true that all things in the natural world are subject to change. But however these changes may be connected in our minds with time, it requires but a moment's reflection to see that time has no agency in them. They are the effects of chemical, or more properly, perhaps, of natural decompositions and reorganizations. Time, or rather our idea of it, so far from having produced anything, is itself the effect of changes. There are certain operations in nature, which, depending on fixed laws, are in themselves perfectly regular; if all things were equally so, the question how long? might never be asked. We should never speak of a late season, or of premature old age; but everything passing on in an invariable order, all the idea of time that would remain with respect to any object, would be a sort of instinctive sense of its condition, its progress or decay. But most of the phenomena in the natural world are exceedingly irregular; for though the same combination of causes would invariably produce the same effect, the same combination very rarely occurs. Hence, in almost every change, and we are conversant with nothing but changes, we are assisted in ascertaining its nature and extent, by referring it to something in itself perfectly regular. We find this regularity in the apparent motions of the sun and moon. It is difficult to tell how much our idea of time is the effect of artificial means of keeping it, and what would be our feelings on the subject, if left to the simple operations of nature—but they would probably be little else than a reference of all natural phenomena to that on which they principally depend, the relative situation of the sun and earth; and the idea of an actual succession of moments would be, in a measure, resolved into that of cause and effect.

Eternity is to the mind what time is to nature. We attain a perception of it, by regarding all the operations in the world within us, as they exist in relation to their first cause; for in doing this, they are seen to partake somewhat of the nature of that Being on whom they depend. We make no approaches to a conception of it, by heaping day upon day or year upon year. This is merely an accumulation of time; and we might as well attempt to convey an idea of mental greatness by that of actual space, as to communicate a conception of eternity by years or thousands of years. Mind and matter are not more distinct from each other than their properties; and by an attempt to embrace all time, we are actually farther from an approach to eternity than when we confine ourselves to a single instant; because we merely collect the largest possible amount of natural changes, whereas that which is eternal approaches that which is immutable. This resembles the attempt to ascend to heaven by means of the tower of Babel, in which they were removed by their pride from that which they would have approached, precisely in proportion to their apparent progress. It is impossible to conceive of either time or space without matter. The reason is, they are the effect of matter; and as it is by creating matter that they are produced, so it is by thinking of it that they are conceived of. It need not be said how exceedingly improper it is to apply the usual ideas of time and space to the Divine Being; making him subject to that which he creates.

Still our conceptions of time, of hours, days, or years, are among the most vivid we possess, and we neither wish nor find it easy to call them in question. We are satisfied with the fact, that time is indicated on the face of the watch, without seeking for it among the wheels and machinery. But what is the idea of a year? Every natural change that comes under our observation leaves a corresponding impression on the mind; and the sum of the changes which come under a single revolution of the earth round the sun, conveys the impression of a year. Accordingly, we find that our idea of a year is continually changing, as the mind becomes conversant with different objects, and is susceptible of different impressions; and the days of the old man, as they draw near their close, seem to gather rapidity from their approach to the other world. We have all experienced the effect of pleasure and pain in accelerating and retarding the passing moments; and since our feelings are constantly changing, we have no reason to doubt that they constantly produce a similar effect, though it may not be often noticed. The divisions of time, then, however real they may seem to be, and however well they may serve the common purposes of conversation, cannot be supposed to convey the same impression to any two minds, nor to any one mind in different periods of its existence. Indeed, unless this were the fact, all artificial modes of keeping it, would be unnecessary. Time, then, is nothing real so far as it exists in our own minds.

Nor do we find a nearer approach to reality by any analysis of nature. Everything, as was said, is subject to change, and one change prepares the way for another; by which there is growth and decay. There are also motions of the bodies, both in nature and art, which in their operation observe fixed laws; and here we end. The more we enter into an analysis of things, the farther are we from finding anything that answers to the distinctness and reality which are usually attached to a conception of time, and there is reason to believe that when this distinctness and reality are most deeply rooted, (whatever may be the theory,) they are uniformly attended with a practical belief of the actual motion of the sun, and are indeed the effect of it. Let us then continue to talk of time, as we talk of the rising and setting of the sun; but let us think rather of those changes in their origin and effect, from which a sense of time is produced. This will carry us one degree nearer the actual condition of things; it will admit us one step further into the temple of creation—no longer a temple created six thousand years ago, and deserted by him who formed it; but a temple with the hand of the builder resting upon it, perpetually renewing, perpetually creating—and as we bow ourselves to worship the "I AM," "Him who liveth forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are therein, and the earth and the things that are therein, and the sea and the things that are therein," we may hear in accents of divine love the voice that proclaims " that there shall be time no longer."

It is not the living productions of nature, by which the strongest impression of time is produced. The oak, over which may have passed a hundred years, seems to drive from our minds the impression of time, by the same power by which it supports its own life, and resists every tendency to decay It is that which is decayed, though it may have been the offspring of an hour; it is the rained castle mouldering into dust; still more, if the contrast be strengthened by its being covered with the living productions of nature; it is the half consumed remains of some animal once strong and vigorous, the discoveries of the undertaker, or the filthy relics of the catacomb, by which the strongest impression of time is conveyed. So it is with the possessions of the mind. It is that which is not used, which seems farthest in the memory, and which is held by the most doubtful tenure; that which is suffered to waste and decay because it wants the life of our own affections; that which we are about to lose, because it does not properly belong to us : whereas that truth, which is applied to the use and service of mankind, acquires a higher polish the more it is thus employed, like the angels of heaven, who forever approximate to a state of perfect youth, beauty, and innocence. It is not a useless task, then, to remove from our minds the usual ideas of time, and cultivate a memory of things. It is to leave the mind in the healthy, vigorous, and active possession of all its attainments, and exercise of all its powers; it is to remove from it, that only which contains the seeds of decay and putrefaction; to separate the living from the dead; to take from it the veil by which it would avoid the direct presence of Jehovah, and preserve its own possessions without using them.

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