e born blind. The memory of
some men, it is true, is very tenacious, even to a miracle. But yet
there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those which
are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive; so that if they be
not sometimes renewed, by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection
on those kinds of objects which at first occasioned them, the print
wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen. Thus the ideas,
as well as children, of our youth, often die before us: and our minds
represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though
the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time,
and the imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our minds are laid
in fading colours; and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear.
How much the constitution of our bodies are concerned in this; and
whether the temper of the brain makes this difference, that in some
it retains the characters drawn on it like marble, in others like
freestone, and in others little better than sand, I shall here inquire;
though it may seem probable that the constitution of the body does
sometimes influence the memory, since we oftentimes find a disease quite
strip the mind of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever in a few days
calcine all those images to dust and confusion, which seemed to be as
lasting as if graved in marble.

6. Constantly repeated Ideas can scarce be lost.

But concerning the ideas themselves, it is easy to remark, that those
that are oftenest refreshed (amongst which are those that are conveyed
into the mind by more ways than one) by a frequent return of the objects
or actions that produce them, fix themselves best in the memory, and
remain clearest and longest there; and therefore those which are of the
original qualities of bodies, viz. solidity, extension, figure, motion,
and rest; and those that almost constantly affect our bodies, as heat
and cold; and those which are the affections of all kinds of beings, as
existence, duration, and number, which almost every object that affects
our senses, every thought which employs our minds, bring along with
them;--these, I say, and the like ideas, are seldom quite lost, whilst
the mind retains any ideas at all.

7. In Remembering, the Mind is often active.

In this secondary perception, as I may so call it, or viewing again the
ideas that are lodged in the memory, the mind is oftentimes more than