Translated by J.I. Beare
Part I
1.
We have to treat of memory and
remembering, considering its nature, its cause, and the part of the soul to
which this experience, as well as that of recollecting, belongs. For the
persons who possess a retentive memory are not identical with those who excel
in power of recollection; indeed, as a rule, slow people have a better memory,
whereas those who are quick-witted and clever are better at recollecting.
2.
We must first consider the objects of memory,
a point on which mistakes are often made. Now to remember what is future is not
possible – that is an object of opinion or expectation (and indeed there might
be actually a science of expectation, like that of divination, in which some
believe); nor is there memory of what is present, but only sense-perception.
For by the latter we do not know what is future or past, but what is present
only. But memory relates to what is past. No one would say that he remembers
what is presnet, when it is present, e.g. a given white object at the moment
when he sees it; nor would one say that he remembers an object of scientific
contemplation at the moment when he is actually contemplating it, and has it
full before his mind; - of the former he would say only that he perceives it,
of the latter only that he knows it. But when one has knowledge or perception
apart from the objects, he thus remembers as to the former, that he learned it,
or thought it out for himself, as to the latter, that he heard, or saw, it or
had some sensible experience of it. For whenever one exercises the faculty of
remembering, he must say within himself that he formerly heard or perceived or
thought of that.
3.
Memory is, therefore, neither perception nor
conception, but a state of affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of
time. As already observed, there is no such thing as memory of the present
while present; for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of
expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory, therefore,
implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive time
remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that whereby they
remember.
4.
The subject of imagination has been already
considered in our work On the Soul. Without an image thinking is impossible.
For there is such activity an affection identical w/ one in geometrical
demonstrations. For in the latter case, though we do not make any use of the
fact that the quantity in the triangle is determinate, we nevertheless draw it
deeterminate in quantity. So likewise when one thinks, although the object may
not be quantitative, one envisages it as quantitative, though he thinks of it
in abstraction from quantity; while, on the other hand, if it is something by
nature quantitative but indeterminate, one envisages it as if it had
determinate quantity, though one thinks of it only as a quantity. Why we cannot
think of anything wihtout a continuum or think of non-temporal things without
time, is another question. Now, one must recognize magnitude and motion by
means of the same faculty by which one recognizes time. Thus it is clear that
the cognition of these objects is effected by the primary faculty of
perception, and memory even of intellectual objects involves an image and the
image is an affection of the common sense. Thus memory belongs incidentally to
the faculty of thought, and essentially it belongs to the primary faculty of
sense-perception.
5.
Hence not only human beings and the beings
which possess opinion or intelligence, but also certain other animals, possess
memory. If memory were a function of the thinking parts, it would not have been
an attibute of many of the other animals, but probably, in that case, no mortal
beings would have had memory; since, even as the case stands, it is not an
attribute of them all, just because all have not the faculty of perceiving
time. Whenever one actually remembers having seen or heard or learned
something, he perceives in addition as we have already observed that it
happened before; and before and after are in time.
6.
Accordingly, if asked, of which among the
parts of the soul memory is a function, we reply: manifestly of that part to
which imagination also appertains; and all objects of which there is
imagination are in themselves objects of memory, while those which do not exist
without imagination are objects of memory incidentally.
7.
One
might ask how it is possible that though the affection is present, and the fact
absent, the latter – that which is not present – is remembered. It is clear
that we must conceive that which is generated through sense-perception in the
soul, and in the part of the body which is its seat,- viz. that affection the
state whereof we call memory- to be some such thing as a picture. The process
of movement stamps in, as it were, a sort of impression of the percept, just as
persons do who make an impression with a seal. This explains why, in those who
are strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no memory is formed; just
as no impression would be formed if the movement of the seal were to impinge on
running water; while there are others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being
frayed, as happens to old walls, or owind to the hardness of the receiving
surface, the requisite impression is not implanted at all. Hence both very
young and very old persons are defective in memory; they are in a state of
flux, the former because of their growth, the latter, owing to their decay.
Similarly, both those who are too quick and those who are too slwo have bad
memories. The former are too moist, the latter too hard, so that in the case of
the former the image does not remain in the soul, while on the latter it is not
imprinted at all.
8.
But then, if this is what
happens in the genesis of memory, when one remembers, is it this affection that
he remembers, or is it the thing from which this was derived? If the former, it
would follow that we remember nothing which is absent; if the latter, how it is
possible that, though perceiving directly only the impression, we remember that
absent thing which we do not perceive? Granted that there is in us something
like an impression or picture, why should the perception of this be memory of
something else, and not of this itself? For when one actually remembers, this
impression is what he contemplates, and this is what he perceives. How then
will he remember what is not present? One might as well suppose it possible
also to see or hear that which is not present. Or can this in a way actually
happen? A picture painted on a panel is at once a picture and a likeness; that
is, while one and the same, it is both of these, although the being of both is
not the same, and one may contemplate it either as a picture, or as a likeness.
Just in the same way we have to conceive that the image within us is both
something in itself and relative to something else. In so far as it is regarded
in itself, it is only an object of contemplation, or an image; but when
considered as relative to something else, e.g., as its likeness, it is also a
reminder. Hence, whenever its movement is actual, if the soul perceives this in
its own right, it appears to occur as a mere thought or image; but if the soul
perceives it qua related to something else, then- just as when one comtemplates
the painting in the picture as being a likeness, and without having seen the
actual Coriscus, contemplates it as a likeness of Coriscus, and in that case the
experience involved in this contemplation of it is different from what one has
when he contemplates it simply as a painted figure- of the objects in the soul,
the one presents itself simply as a painted figure- of the objects in the soul,
the one presents itself simply as a thought, but the other, just because, as in
the painting, it is a likeness, presents itself as a reminder.
9.
We can now understand why it is
that sometimes, when we have such processes, based on some former act of
perception, occuring in the soul, we do not know whether this really implies
our having had perceptions corresponding to them, and we doubt whether the case
is or is not one of memory. But occasionally it happens that we get a sudden
idea and recollect that we heard or saw something formerly. This happens
whenever, from contemplating a mental object in itself, one changes his point
of view, and regards it as relative to something else.
10. The opposite also occurs, as happened in the cases of Antipheron of
Oreus and others suffering from mental derangement; for they were accustomed to
speak of their images as facts of their past experience, and as if remembering
them. This takes place whenever one contemplates what is not a likeness as if
it were a likeness.
11. Mnemonic exercises aim at preserving one’s memory of something by
repeatedly reminding him of it; which implies nothing else than the frequent
contemplation of something as a likeness, and no in its own right.
12. As regard the question, therefore, what memory or remembering is, it
has now been shown that it is the having of an image, related as a likeness to
that of which it is an image; and as to the question of which of the faculties
within us memory is a function, it has been shown that it is a function of the
primary faculty of sense-perception, i.e. of that faculty whereby we perceive
time.
13. Next comes the subject of recollection, in dealing with which we
must assume the truths elicited in our tentative discussions. For recollection
is not the recovery or acquisition of memory; since at the instant when one at
first learns or experiences, he does not thereby recover a memory, inasmuch as
none has preceded, nor does he acquire one ab initio. It is only at the instant
when the state or affection is implanted in the soul that memory exists, and
therefore memory is not itself implanted concurrently with the implanation of
the senseory experience. Further, when it has first been implanted in the
indivisible and ultimate organ, there is then already established in the person
affected the affection, or the knowledge (if one ought to apply the term
‘knowledge’ to the state or affection; and indeed one may well remember, in the
incidental sense, some of the things which one knows; but to remember, strictly
speaking, is an activity which will not occur until time has elapsed. For one
remembers now what one saw or other wise experience formly, one does not
remember now what one experiences now.
14. Again, it is obviously
possible, without any present act of recollection, to remember as a continued
consequence of the original perception or other experience; whereas one
recovers some knowledge which he had before, or some perception, or some other
experience, the state of which we above declared to be memory, it is then, and
then only, that this recovery may amount to a recollection of any of the thing
aforesaid; and memory follows on recollection.
15. But even the assertion that
recollection is the reinstatement of something which was there before requires
qualification- it is right in one way, wrong in another. For the same person
may twice learn, or twice discover the same fact. Accordingly, the act of
recollecting ought to be distinguished from these acts; i.e. recollection must
imply in those who recollect the presence of some source over and above that
from which they originally learn.
16. Acts of recollection are due
to the fact that one movement has by nature another that succeeds it.
17. If this order be necessary,
whenever a subject experiences the former of two movements thsu connected, it
will experience the latter; if, however, the order be not necessary, but
customary, only for the most part will the subject experience the latter of the
two movements. But it is a fact that there are some movements, by a single
experience of which persons take the impress of custom more deeply than they do
by experiencing others many times; hence upon seeing some things but once
remember them better than others which we may have seen frequently.
18. Whenever, therefore, we are recollecting, we are experiencing one of
the antecedent movement until finally we experience the one after which
customarily comes that which we seek. This explains why we hunt up the series,
having started in thought from the present or some other, and from something
either similar, or contrary, to what we seek, or else from that which is
contiguous with it. That is how recollection takes placel; for the movements
involved in these starting-points are in some cases identical, in others,
again, simultaneous, while in others they comprise a portion of them, so that
the remnant which one experienced after that portion is comparatively small.
19. Thus, then it is that persons seek to recollect, and thus, too, it
is that hey recollect even without seeking to do so, viz. when the movement has
supervened on some other. For, as a rule, it is when antecedent movements of
the classes here described have first been exicted, that the particular
movement implied in recollection follows. We need not examine a series of which
the beginning and end lie far apart, in order to see how we remember; one in
which they lie near one another will serve equally well. For it is clear that
the method is in each case the same. For by the effect of custom the movements
tend to succeed one another in a certain order. Accordingly, therefore, when
one wishes to recollect, that is what he will do: he will try to obtain a
beginning of movement whose sequel shall be the movement which he desire to
reawaken. This explains why attemps at recollection succeed sonnest and best
when they start from a beginning. For, in order of succession, the movements
are to one another as the objects. Accordingly, things
arranged in a fixed order, like the successive demonstrations in geometry, are
easy to remember, while badly arranged subjects are remembed with difficulty.
20. Recollection differs also in this respect from relearning, that one
who recollects will be able, somehow, to move, solely by his own effort, to the
term next after the starting-point. When one cannot do this of himself, but
only by external assistance, he no longer remembers. It often happens that,
though a person cannot recollect at the moment, yet by seeking he can do so,
and discovers what he seeks. This he succeeds in doing by setting up many
movements, until finally he excites one of a kind which will have for its
sequel the fact he wishes to recollect. For remembering is the existence of a
movement capable of stimulating the mind to the desired movement, and this, as
has been said, in such a way that the person should be moved from within
himself, i.e. in consequence of movements wholly contained within himself.
21. But one must get hold of a starting-point. This explains why it is
that persons are supposed to recollect sometimes by starting from ‘places’. The
cause is that they pass swiftly from one point to another, e.g. from milk to
white, from white to mist, and then to moist, from which one remembers Autumn
if this be the season he is trying to recollect.
22. It seems general that the middle point among all things is a good
starting-point. For if one does not recollect before, he will do so when he has
come to this, or, if not, nothing can help him; as, e.g. if one were to have in
mind A B C D E F G H I. For, if he does not remember at I, he remembers at E;
because from E movement in either direction is possible, to D or to F. But, if
it is not for one of these that he is searching, he will remember when he has
come to C, if he is searching for A for B. But if not, he will remember by
going to G, and so in all cases. The cause of one’s sometimes recollecting and
sometimes not, though starting from the same point, is, that from the same
starting-point a movement can be made in several directions, as, for instance,
from C to B or to D. If, then, the mind has not moved in an old path, it tends to
move to the more customary; for custom now assumes the role of nature. Hence
the rapidity with which we recollect what we frequently think about. For as one
thing follows another by nature, so too that happens by custom; and frequency
creates nature. And since in the realm of nature occurences take place which
are even contrary to nature, or fortuitous, the same happens a fortiori in the
sphere swayed by custom, since in this sphere nature is not similarly
established. Hence it is that the mind receives an impulse to move sometimes in
the required direction, and at other times otherwise, particularly when
something else somehow deflects the mind from the right direction and attracts
it to itself. This last consideration explains too how it happens that, when we
want to remember a name, if we know one somewhat like it, we blunder on to
that.
23. Thus, then recollection
takes place.
24. But the point of capital
importance is that one should know, determinately or indeterminately, the
time-relation. There is,- let it be taken as a fact, - something by which one
distinguishes a greater and a smaller time; and it is reasonable to think that
one does this in a way analogous to that in which one discerns magnitudes. For
it is not by the mind’s reaching out towards them, as some say a visual ray
from the eye does that one thinks of large things at a distance in space (for
even if they are not there, one may similarly think of them); but one does so
by a proportionate movement. For there are in the mind similar figures and movements.
Therefore, when one thinks of the greater objects, in what will his thinking of
those differ from his thinking of the smaller? For all ther internal though
smaller are as it were proportional. Now, as we may assume within a person
something proportional to the forms, so too, we may doubtless assume something
else proportional to their distances. It is as though, if one has the movment
AB, BE, he constructs CD; for AC and CD are proportional. Why then does he
construct CD rather than FG? Is it not because as AC is to AB, so is H to I?
These movements therefore he has simultaneously. But if he wishes to think of
FG, he thinks of Be in like manner as before; but now, instead of H, I, he
think of K, L; for these are so related as is FA to BA.
25. (restriction by a great man,
one should think in whatever way one feels that is challenging or inventive.)
26. When, therefore, the
movement corresponding to the object and that corresponding to its time occur,
then one actually remembers. If one supposes he does without really doing so,
he supposes himself to remember. For one may be mistaken, and think that he
remembers when he really does not. But it is not possible that when one
actually remembers he should not suppose himself to remember, but should
remember unconsciously. For that is what remembering is. If however, the
movement corresponding to the object takes place without that corresponding to
the time, or, if the latter takes place without the former, one does not
remember.
27. The movement answering to
the time is of two kinds. Sometimes in remembering a fact one has no
determinate time-notion of it, no such notion as that, e.g., he did something
or other on the day before yesterday; while in other cases he has a determinate
notion of the time. Still, even though one does not remember with actual
determination of the time, he genuinely remembers, none the less. People often
say that they remember, but yet do not know when whenver they do not know
determinately the exact length of time.
28. It has been already stated
that those who have a good memory are not identical with those who are quick at
recollecting. But the act of recollectin differs from that of remembering, not
only in respect of time, but also in this, that many also of the other animals
have memory, but, of all that we are acquainted with, none, we venture to say,
except man, shared in the faculty of recollection. The cause of this is that
recollection is, as it were, a mode of inference. For he who endeavours to
recollect infers that he formerly saw or heard, or had some such experience,
and the process is, as it were, a sort of investigation. But to investigate in
this way belongs naturally to those animals alone which are also endowed with
the faculty of deliberation; for deblieration is a form of inference.
29. That the affection is
corporeal, i.e. that recollection is a searching for an image in a corporal
substrate, is provided by the fact that some persons, when, despite the most
strenuous application of thought, they have been unable to recollect, feel
discomfort, which even though they abandon the effort at recollection, persists
in them none the less; and especially persons of melancholic temperament. For
these are most powerfully moved by images. The reason why the effort of
recollection is not under control of their will is that, as those who throw a
stone cannot stop it at their will when thrown, so he who tries to recollect
and hunts sets up a process in a material part, in which resides the affection.
Those who have moisture around that part which is the centre of
sense-perception suffer most discomfort of this kind. For when once the
moisture has been set in motion it is not easily brought to rest, until the
idea which was sought for has again presented itself, and thus the movement has
found a straight course. For a similar reason bursts of anger or fits of
terror, when once they have excited such motions, are not at once allayed, even
though the angry or terrified persons set up counter motions, but the passions
continue to move them on, in the same direction as at first. The affection
resembles also that in the case of words, tunes, or sayings, whenever one of
them has become inverterate on the lips. People give them up and resolve to
avoid them; yet again and again they find themselves humming the forbidden air,
or using the prohibited word.
30. Those whose upper parts are
abnormally large, as is the case with dwarfs, have abnormally weak memory, as
compared with their opposites, because of the great weight which have resting
upon the organ of perception, and because their movements are, from the very
first, not able to keep true to a course, but are dispersed, and because, in
the effort at recollection, these movement do not easily find a direct onward
path. Infants and very old persons have bad memories, oweing to the amount of
movement going on within them; for the latter are in process of rapid decay,
the former in process of vigorous growth; and we may add that children, until
considerably advanced in years, are dwarf-like. Such then is our theory as
regards memory and remembering- their nature, and the particular organ of the
soul by which animals remember; also as regards recollection, its definition,
and the manner and causes of its performance.
