  Several devices exhibiting memory effects have shown up in nonlinear circuit
theory in recent years. Among others, these circuit elements include Chua's
memristors, as well as memcapacitors and meminductors. These and other related
devices seem to be beyond the, say, classical scope of circuit theory, which is
formulated in terms of resistors, capacitors, inductors, and voltage and
current sources. We explore in this paper the potential extent of nonlinear
circuit theory by classifying such mem-devices in terms of the variables
involved in their constitutive relations and the notions of the differential-
and the state-order of a device. Within this framework, the frontier of first
order circuit theory is defined by so-called hybrid memristors, which are
proposed here to accommodate a characteristic relating all four fundamental
circuit variables. Devices with differential order two and mem-systems are
discussed in less detail. We allow for fully nonlinear characteristics in all
circuit elements, arriving at a rather exhaustive taxonomy of C^1-devices.
Additionally, we extend the notion of a topologically degenerate configuration
to circuits with memcapacitors, meminductors and all types of memristors, and
characterize the differential-algebraic index of nodal models of such circuits.
