Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/379

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CATO THE YOUNGER.

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easily provoked to anger, but if once incensed, he was no less difficult to pacify.

³When he began to learn, he proved dull, and slow to apprehend, but of what he once received, his memory was remarkably tenacious. And such, in fact, we find generally to be the course of nature; men of fine genius are readily reminded of things, but those who receive with most pains and difficulty, remember best; every new thing they learn, being, as it were, burnt and branded in on their minds.^[1] ⁴Cato's natural stubbornness and slowness to be persuaded, may also have made it more difficult for him to be taught. For to learn, is to submit to have something done to one; and persuasion comes soonest to those who have least strength to resist it. Hence young men are sooner persuaded than those that are more in years, and sick men, than those that are well in health. In fine, where there is least previous doubt and difficulty, the new impression is most easily accepted. ⁵Yet Cato, they say, was very obedient to his preceptor, and would do whatever he was commanded; but he would also ask the reason, and inquire the cause of every thing. And, indeed, his teacher was a very well-bred man, more ready to instruct, than to beat his scholars. His name was Sarpedon.

¹When Cato was a child, the allies of the Romans sued to be made free citizens of Rome. Pompædius Silo, one of their deputies, a brave soldier, and a man of great

↑ The two Greek words employed to express this distinction, are, anamnestic and mnemonic. Men of genius are anamnestic. Cato was mnemonic. The significance of the first word may perhaps be illustrated by Plato's dictum, that all learning (mathesis) is an anamnesis, a recollecting; we knew originally, and are now reminded. The man of a retentive memory, the mnemonicus, has his facts always at command; the anamnesticus requires some hint or suggestion to call up the image. The distinction between a strong and a lively memory is, perhaps, nearly equivalent.

[1] The two Greek words employed to express this distinction, are, anamnestic and mnemonic. Men of genius are anamnestic. Cato was mnemonic. The significance of the first word may perhaps be illustrated by Plato's dictum, that all learning (mathesis) is an anamnesis, a recollecting; we knew originally, and are now reminded. The man of a retentive memory, the mnemonicus, has his facts always at command; the anamnesticus requires some hint or suggestion to call up the image. The distinction between a strong and a lively memory is, perhaps, nearly equivalent.

[1]