Читать книгу The Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training - Lessons I to XII - Анон - Страница 25

19. The faculty of memory comprises three stages—impression, retention and recollection, and if any one of these three factors is impaired, the memory is in a corresponding degree defective. You are earnestly requested to pay very close attention to this portion of your First Lesson, since it forms a groundwork upon which much of your future success will be built.

Impressions are of two kinds; those coming to the mind from outside; and those arising within the mind itself, as in the case of thought and of imagination. Ease of recollection depends more upon the strength and vividness of the first impression than upon any other factor. Whenever an idea originates within the mind, endeavour to trace consciously the train of thought that led up to it. Ask yourself: “Why did that idea occur to me? How did it come?” Do not hurry away from it. Turn it over in consideration. Ask yourself what bearing it has upon the department of life, or study, or business with which it may be concerned. If it is an idea likely to prove of value, revive it in the mind after a brief interval. Later on in the Course, we shall describe various methods of association by which you will inevitably be able to recall any idea after any lapse of time. But there are other things which you must learn first, and for the present you must treat impressions with the means already at your disposal. We aim at developing your natural memory and not giving you an artificial one. If we provide special aids too early in the Course, you will be tempted to trust too much to them, and too little to your own inherent faculties.