Simonides Redivivus, or the Art of Memory and Oblivion

PREFACE.

For you may hear some people so unfair and importunate that they demand from those whom they know to be instructed in this art the knowledge and cognition not only of those three disciplines, or (as they are commonly called) faculties, but of almost all things. However, let such greedy and most unjust judges know that memory is one thing, as it possesses the power of existing without those three; while Theology is another, Jurisprudence another, and Medicine another, though none of them can exist without it.

But in truth, how much assistance memory brings to the attainment of erudition is so open and manifest that I am reluctant to say it. For it is observed through a long series of things and the interval of time that all those who had quickly become noble and conspicuous in any branch of learning were strong in memory: so that for this reason, I believe the art of reminiscing can not undeservedly be called the instrument of instruments. For just as forgetfulness is most truly called the mother of ignorance, so memory has not less truly been called the mother of the Muses. This is confirmed also by the authority of M. Anton. Sabellicus, who writes in this manner: "God," he says, "according to reason, has given nothing to man more holy, nothing more useful, and nothing more apt for erudition than memory. This is the treasure of all disciplines and the most faithful guardian of arts sought after through study and labor. The wise poet certainly saw something who called memory the mother of the Muses; nor was he less prudent who established Lethe, its opposite, among the spirits of the underworld."

Book 10, Chapter 9. Examples of Memory.