we consider that it has a practical bearing, and involves important moral and religious consequences. Some one will perhaps inquire, Is it possible, is it in the nature of things, that we should be able to recall the millions of little acts and feelings which have transpired in the whole course of our lives? Let such an inquirer be induced to consider, in the first place, that the memory has its fixed laws, in virtue of which the mental exercises are recalled; and that there can be found no direct and satisfactory proof of such laws ever wholly ceasing to exist. That the operation of those laws appears to be weakened, and is in fact weakened, by lapse of time, is admitted; but while the frequency, promptness, and strength of their action may be diminished in any assignable degree, the laws themselves yet remain. This is the view of the subject which at first obviously and plainly presents itself; and, we may venture to add, is recommended by common experience. It is known to every one, that thoughts and feelings sometimes unexpectedly recur which had slumbered in forgetfulness for years. Days, and months, and years have rolled on; new scenes and situations occupy us; and all we felt, and saw, and experienced in those former days and years, appears to be clothed in impenetrable darkness. But suddenly some unexpected event, the sight of a waterfall, of a forest, of a house, a peculiarly pleasant or gloomy day, a mere change of countenance, a word, almost anything we can imagine, arouses the soul, and gives a new and vigorous turn to its meditations. At such a moment we are astonished at the novel revelations which are made, the recollections which are called forth, the resurrections of withered hopes and perished sorrows, of scenes and companionships that seemed to be utterly lost. "Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, This is, perhaps, a faint exhibition of that perfect restoration of thought which Bacon and other philosophic minds have supposed to be possible. But if the statement be correct, it is undoubtedly one circumstance among others in support of that sentiment, although of subordinate weight. 168. Mental action quickened by influence on the physical system. The ability of the mind to restore its past experiences, depends, in some degree, on the state of the physical system. It is well known that there is a connexion existing between the mind and the body, and that a reciprocal influence is exercised. It is undoubtedly true, that the mental action is ordinarily increased or diminished, according as the body is more or less affected. And may not the exercise of the laws of memory be quickened, as well as the action of other powers? While it is admitted that an influence on the body exerts an influence on the mind, may it not be true that this general influence sometimes takes the particular shape of exciting the recollection, and of restoring long-past events? There are various facts having a bearing on this inquiry, and which seem to show that such suggestions are not wholly destitute of foundation.-It appears, for instance, from the statements of persons who have been on the point of drowning, but have been rescued from that situation, that the operations of their minds were peculiarly quickened. In this wonderful activity of the mental principle, the whole past life, with its thousand minute incidents, has almost simultaneously passed before them, and been viewed as in a mirror. Scenes and situations long gone by, and associates not seen for years, and perhaps buried and dissolved in the grave, came rushing in upon the field of intellectual vision in all the activity and distinctness of real existence. If such be the general experience in cases of this kind, it confirms a number of important views; placing beyond doubt that there is a connexion between the mind and body; that the mental operation is susceptible of being quickened; and that such increase of action may be attributable, in part at least, to an influence on the body. The proximate cause of the great acceleration of the intellectual acts, in cases of drowning, appears to be (as will be found to be the fact in many other similar cases) an affection of the brain. That is to say; in consequence of the suspension of respiration, the blood is prevented from readily circulating through the lungs, and hence becomes accumulated in the brain. It would seem that the blood is never thrown into the brain in unusual quantities without being attended with unusual mental affections. § 169. Other instances of quickened mental action, and of a restoration of thoughts. The doctrine which has been proposed, that the mental action may be quickened, and that there may be a restoration or remembrance of all former thoughts and feelings, is undoubtedly to be received or rejected in view of facts. The only question in this case, as in others, is, What is truth? And how are we to arrive at the truth? If the facts which have been referred to be not enough to enable one to form an opinion, there are others of a like tendency, and in a less uncertain form. A powerful disease, while at some times it prostrates the mind, at others imparts to it a more intense action. The following passage from a recent work (although the cause of the mental excitement, in the instance mentioned in it, is not stated) may properly be appealed to in this connexion.-"Past feelings, even should they be those of our earliest moments of infancy, never cease to be under the influence of the law of association, and they are constantly liable to be renovated, even to the latest period of life, although they may be in so faint a state as not to be the object of consciousness. "It is evident, then, that a cause of mental excitement may so act upon a sequence of extremely faint feelings, as to render ideas, of which the mind had long been previously unconscious, vivid objects of consciousness. Thus it is recorded of a female in France, that while she was subjected to such an influence, the memory of the Armorican language, which she had lost since she was a child, suddenly returned."* ◊ 170. Effect on the memory of a severe attack of fever. We may add here the following account of the mental Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions, part iv., chapter v. affections of an intelligent American traveller. He was travelling in the State of Illinois, and suffered the common lot of visitants from other climates, in being taken down with a bilious fever." As very few live," he remarks, "to record the issue of a sickness like mine, and as you have requested me, and as I have promised to be particular, I will relate some of the circumstances of this disease. And it is in my view desirable, in the bitter agony of such diseases, that more of the symptoms, sensations, and sufferings should be recorded than have been; and that others in similar predicaments may know that some before them have had sufferings like theirs, and have survived them. "I had had a fever before, and had risen and been dressed every day. But in this, with the first day, I was prostrated to infantile weakness, and felt with its first attack that it was a thing very different from what I had yet experienced. Paroxysms of derangement occurred the third day, and this was to me a new state of mind. That state of disease in which partial derangement is mixed with a consciousness generally sound, and a sensibility preternaturally excited, I should suppose the most distressing of all its forms. At the same time that I was unable to recognise my friends, I was informed that my memory was more than ordinarily exact and retentive, and that I repeated whole passages in the different languages, which I knew with entire accuracy. I recited, without losing or misplacing a word, a passage of poetry, which I could not so repeat after I had recovered my health," &c.* 171. Approval and illustrations of these views from Coleridge. An opinion favourable to the doctrine of the durability of memory, and the ultimate restoration of thought and feeling, is expressed in the BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA of Coleridge, in an article on the Laws of association. In confirmation of it, the writer introduces a statement of certain facts which became known to him in a tour in Germany in 1798, to the following effect. In a Catholic town of Germany, a young woman of * Flint's Recollections of the Valley of the Mississippi, letter xiv. four or five-and-twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever, during which she was incessantly talking Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, with much pomp and distinctness of enunciation. The case attracted much attention, and many sentences which she uttered, being taken down by some learned persons present, were found to be coherent and intelligible, each for itself, but with little or no connexion with each other. Of the Hebrew only a small portion could be traced to the Bible; the remainder was that form of Hebrew which is usually called Rabbinic. Ignorant, and simple, and harmless, as this young woman was known to be, no one suspected any deception; and no explanation could for a long time be given, although inquiries were made for that purpose in different families where she had resided as a servant. Through the zeal, however, and philosophical spirit of a young physician, all the necessary information was in the end obtained. The woman was of poor parents, and at nine years of age had been kindly taken to be brought up by an old Protestant minister, who lived at some distance. He was a very learned man; being not only a great Hebraist, but acquainted also with Rabbinical writings, the Greek and Latin Fathers, &c. The passages which had been taken down in the delirious ravings of the young woman, were found by the physician precisely to agree with passages in some books in those languages which had formerly belonged to him. But these facts were not a full explanation of the case. It appeared, on further inquiry, that the patriarchal Protestant had been in the habit for many years of walking up and down a passage of his house, into which the kitchen door opened, and to read to himself with a loud voice out of his fa vourite books. This attracted the notice of the poor and ignorant domestic whom he had taken into his family; the passages made an impression on her memory; and although probably for a long time beyond the reach of her recollection when in health, they were at last vividly restored, and were uttered in the way above mentioned, in consequence of the feverish state of the physical system, particularly of the brain. From this instance, and from several others of the |