Here is another warning from the pen of Archbishop Whately:
“Some people have been intellectually damaged by having what is called a good memory. An unskilful teacher is content to put before children all they ought to learn, and to take care that they remember it; and so, though the memory is retentive, the mind is left in a passive state, and men wonder that he who was so quick at learning and remembering should not be an able man, which is as reasonable as to wonder that a cistern if filled should not be a perpetual fountain. Many men are saved by their deficiency of memory from being spoiled by an education; for those who have no extraordinary memory are driven to supply its place by thinking. If they do not remember a mathematical demonstration, they are driven to devise one. If they do not remember what Aristotle or Bacon said, they are driven to consider what they are likely to have said or ought to have said.”[26]
In his letter to a student who lamented his defective memory, P. C. Hamerton says that, so far from writing, as might be expected, a letter of condolence on a miserable memory, he felt disposed to write a letter of congratulation. “It is possible that you may be blessed with a selecting memory which is not only useful for what it retains, but also for what it rejects. In the immense mass of facts which come before you in literature and in life it is well that you should suffer as little bewilderment as possible. The nature of your memory saves you from this by unconsciously selecting what has interested you and letting the rest go by.”[27]
In the last quotation we get a hint of the form of memory which Latham styles the analytical. “The analytical memory is exercised when the mind furnishes a view of its own and thereby holds together a set of impressions selected out of a mass. Thus a barrister strings together the material facts of his case, and a lecturer those of his science by their bearing on what he wants to establish.”
Many thinkers sift everything they read, hear, and see. That which they do not need is rejected and forgotten. That which has a bearing upon their investigations is selected, retained, and utilized. As an aid in thinking a form of retention called the index memory is very helpful. The lawyer should know where to find such law as he does not carry in his head. Having found the required statute or judicial interpretation, he applies it to the case in hand. No sooner is a case finally decided or settled than he drops its details from his mind and directs his intellectual strength to the interests of the next client.