Attention
and repetition help much to the fixing any ideas in the memory. But
those which naturally at first make the deepest and most lasting
impressions, are those which are accompanied with pleasure or pain.
The great business of the senses being, to make us take notice of what
hurts or advantages the body, it is wisely ordered by nature, as has
been shown, that pain should accompany the reception of several ideas;
which, supplying the place of consideration and reasoning in children,
and acting quicker than consideration in grown men, makes both the old
and young avoid painful objects with that haste which is necessary for
their preservation; and in both settles in the memory a caution for
the future.
4. Ideas fade in the memory. Concerning the several degrees of
lasting, wherewith ideas are imprinted on the memory, we may observe,-
that some of them have been produced in the understanding by an object
affecting the senses once only, and no more than once; others, that
have more than once offered themselves to the senses, have yet been
little taken notice of: the mind, either heedless, as in children,
or otherwise employed, as in men intent only on one thing; not setting
the stamp deep into itself. And in some, where they are set on with
care and repeated impressions, either through the temper of the
body, or some other fault, the memory is very weak.
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