The Trained Memory | Page 7

whole vast store of all present and past experiences to draw upon, he selects
only those groups and those isolated instances that are related to our general interests and
aims. He disregards others.
[Sidenote: How the Attention Works]
The attention operates in a manner complementary to the general Laws of Recall. It is an
active principle not of association, but of dissociation.
You choose, for example, a certain aim in life. You decide to become the inventor of an
aeroplane of automatic stability. This choice henceforth determines two things. First, it
determines just which of the sensory experiences of any given moment are most likely to
be selected for your conscious perception. Secondly, it determines just which of your past
experiences will be most likely to be recalled.
Such a choice, in other words, determines to some extent the sort of elements that will
most probably be selected to make up at any moment the contents of your consciousness.
[Sidenote: Iron Filings and Mental Magnets]

From the instant that you make such a choice you are on the alert for facts relevant to the
subject of your ambition. Upon them you concentrate your attention. They are presented
to your consciousness with greater precision and clearness than other facts. All facts that
pertain to the art of flying henceforth cluster and cling to your conscious memory like
iron filings to a magnet. All that are impertinent to this main pursuit are dissociated from
these intensely active complexes, and in time fade into subconscious forgetfulness.
[Sidenote: The Compartment of Subconscious Forgetfulness]
By subconscious forgetfulness we mean a compartment, as it were, of that reservoir in
which all past experiences are stored.
Consciousness is a momentary thing. It is a passing state. It is ephemeral and flitting. It is
made up _in part of present sense-impressions_ and in part of past experiences. These
past experiences are brought forth from subconsciousness. Some are voluntarily brought
forth. Some present themselves without our conscious volition, but by the operation of
the laws of association and dissociation. Some we seem unable voluntarily to recall, yet
they may appear when least we are expecting them. It is these last to which we have
referred as lost in subconscious forgetfulness. As a matter of fact, none are ever actually
lost.
[Sidenote: Making Experience Count]
All the wealth of your past experience is still yours--a concrete part of your personality.
All that is required to make it available for your present use is a sufficient concentration
of your attention, _a concentration of attention that shall dwell persistently and
exclusively upon those associations that bear upon the fact desired_.
The tendency of the mind toward dissociation, a function limiting the indiscriminate
recall of associated "groups," is also manifested in all of us in the transfer to
unconsciousness of many muscular activities.
[Sidenote: How Habits Are Formed]
As infants we learn to walk only by giving to every movement of the limbs the most
deliberate conscious attention. Yet, in time, the complicated co-operation of muscular
movements involved in walking becomes involuntary and unconscious, so that we are no
longer even aware of them.
It is the same with reading, writing, playing upon musical instruments, the manipulation
of all sorts of mechanical devices, the thousand and one other muscular activities that
become what we call habitual.
The moment one tries to make these habitual activities again dependent on the conscious
will he encounters difficulties.
"The centipede was happy quite, Until the toad, for fun, Said, 'Pray which leg goes after
which?' This stirred his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering

how to run."
_All these habitual activities are started as acts of painstaking care and conscious
attention. All ultimately become unconscious._ They may, however, be started or stopped
at will. They are, therefore, still related to the conscious mind. They occupy a
semi-automatic middle ground between conscious and subconscious activities.

THE FALLACY OF MOST MEMORY SYSTEMS
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CHAPTER VI
THE FALLACY OF MOST MEMORY SYSTEMS
[Sidenote: Practice in Memorizing Inadequate]
It is evident that if what we have been describing as the process of recall is true, then the
commonly accepted idea that practice in memorizing makes memorizing easier is false,
and that there is no truth in the popular figure of speech that likens the memory to a
muscle that grows stronger with use.
So far as the memory is concerned, however, practice may result in a more or less
unconscious improvement in the methods of memorizing.
_By practice we come to unconsciously discover and employ new associative methods in
our recording of facts, making them easier to recall, but we can certainly add nothing to
the actual scope and power of retention._
[Sidenote: Torture of the Drill]
Yet many books on memory-training have