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

 CATO THE YOUNGER. 371 easily provoked to anger, but if once incensed, he was no less difficult to pacify. When 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 gen- erally 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* Cato'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 }'oung 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. Yet 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. When Cato was a child, the allies of the Romans sued to.be made free citizens of Rome. Pompcedius Silo, one of their deputies, a brave soldier, and a man of great ed to express this distinction, are, The man of a retentive memory, anamnestic and mnemonic. Men the mnemonicus, has his facts al- »f genius are anamnestic. Cato ways at command ; the anamnes- was mnemonic. The significance ticus requires some hint or sug- of the first word may perhaps be gestion to call up the image. illustrated by Plato's dictum, that The distinction between a strong all learning (mathesis) is an an- and a lively memory is, perhaps, amnesis, a recollecting ; we knew nearly equivalent.
 * The two Greek words employ- originally, and are now reminded,