Page:Hamilton Men I Have Painted 074.jpg

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

MEN I HAVE PAINTED

their heads, in conjunction with my observation of the kind of mental activities required of them, I should say that an intensive cultivation of memory and of memory cells gives the explanation for the growth of the head, and in part explains their success.

Artists and scientists, who generally have small heads and small brains, must not take up their cudgels at this, because an instant's reflection should reassure them. Memory is not reason; memory is merely a collection of objects and images stored away for use. The collection may be interesting and amusing, but it is only like a jumble of carved stones for a Gothic building, of little value until co-ordinated and correlated and cemented together by something more than mere intelligence.

The need for a comprehensive memory is paramount in a man who attains to the dominant position of Prime Minister of England. It is not a debatable assertion that the memory of Mr. Gladstone was and that of Mr. Asquith is surpassingly great, their brains unusually large, and that there was a gradual increase in their size. And it is still more remarkable that I have seen pictures of the two statesmen that bear a kind of resemblance to each other, although there is no resemblance between the two men.

Mr. Asquith appears to me to be more human than Mr. Gladstone. This may be considered a compliment to both men in proportion to the quality of the meaning attached to the word by the reader. But the position they have both occupied among men was so much above the others that any close judgment upon their respective characters will have to be rendered when time shall have placed them among the few other figures in history of equal stature.


74