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- 370373
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- confessions
- text
- contain at random and unarranged, be laid up at hand as it were in that
same memory where before they lay unknown, scattered and neglected, and
so readily occur to the mind familiarised to them. And how many things
of this kind does my memory bear which have been already found out, and
as I said, placed as it were at hand, which we are said to have learned
and come to know which were I for some short space of time to cease to
call to mind, they are again so buried, and glide back, as it were, into
the deeper recesses, that they must again, as if new, be thought out
thence, for other abode they have none: but they must be drawn together
again, that they may be known; that is to say, they must as it were be
collected together from their dispersion: whence the word "cogitation"
is derived. For cogo (collect) and cogito (re-collect) have the same
relation to each other as ago and agito, facio and factito. But the mind
hath appropriated to itself this word (cogitation), so that, not what is
"collected" any how, but what is "recollected," i.e., brought together,
in the mind, is properly said to be cogitated, or thought upon.
The memory containeth also reasons and laws innumerable of numbers and
dimensions, none of which hath any bodily sense impressed; seeing they
have neither colour, nor sound, nor taste, nor smell, nor touch. I have
heard the sound of the words whereby when discussed they are denoted:
but the sounds are other than the things. For the sounds are other in
Greek than in Latin; but the things are neither Greek, nor Latin,
nor any other language. I have seen the lines of architects, the very
finest, like a spider's thread; but those are still different, they
are not the images of those lines which the eye of flesh showed me: he
knoweth them, whosoever without any conception whatsoever of a body,
recognises them within himself. I have perceived also the numbers of the
things with which we number all the senses of my body; but those numbers
wherewith we number are different, nor are they the images of these,
and therefore they indeed are. Let him who seeth them not, deride me for
saying these things, and I will pity him, while he derides me.
All these things I remember, and how I learnt them I remember. Many
things also most falsely objected against them have I heard, and
remember; which though they be false, yet is it not false that I
remember them; and I remember also that I have discerned betwixt those
truths and these falsehoods objected to them. And I perceive that the
present discerning of these things is different from remembering that
I oftentimes discerned them, when I often thought upon them. I both
remember then to have often understood these things; and what I now
discern and understand, I lay up in my memory, that hereafter I may
remember that I understand it now. So then I remember also to have
remembered; as if hereafter I shall call to remembrance, that I have now
been able to remember these things, by the force of memory shall I call
it to remembrance.
The same memory contains also the affections of my mind, not in the same
manner that my mind itself contains them, when it feels them; but far
otherwise, according to a power of its own. For without rejoicing I
remember myself to have joyed; and without sorrow do I recollect my
past sorrow. And that I once feared, I review without fear; and without
desire call to mind a past desire. Sometimes, on the contrary, with joy
do I remember my fore-past sorrow, and with sorrow, joy. Which is not
wonderful, as to the body; for mind is one thing, body another. If
I therefore with joy remember some past pain of body, it is not so
wonderful. But now seeing this very memory itself is mind (for when we
give a thing in charge, to be kept in memory, we say, "See that you keep
it in mind"; and when we forget, we say, "It did not come to my mind,"
and, "It slipped out of my mind," calling the memory itself the mind);
this being so, how is it that when with joy I remember my past sorrow,
the mind hath joy, the memory hath sorrow; the mind upon the joyfulness
which is in it, is joyful, yet the memory upon the sadness which is in
it, is not sad? Does the memory perchance not belong to the mind? Who
will say so? The memory then is, as it were, the belly of the mind, and
joy and sadness, like sweet and bitter food; which, when committed to
the memory, are as it were passed into the belly, where they may be
stowed, but cannot taste. Ridiculous it is to imagine these to be alike;
and yet are they not utterly unlike.
But, behold, out of my memory I bring it, when I say there be four
perturbations of the mind, desire, joy, fear, sorrow; and whatsoever I
can dispute thereon, by dividing each into its subordinate species, and
by defining it, in my memory find I what to say, and thence do I bring
it: yet am I not disturbed by any of these perturbations, when by
calling them to mind, I remember them; yea, and before I recalled
and brought them back, they were there; and therefore could they, by
recollection, thence be brought. Perchance, then, as meat is by chewing
the cud brought up out of the belly, so by recollection these out of the
memory. Why then does not the disputer, thus recollecting, taste in the
mouth of his musing the sweetness of joy, or the bitterness of sorrow?
Is the comparison unlike in this, because not in all respects like? For
who would willingly speak thereof, if so oft as we name grief or fear,
we should be compelled to be sad or fearful? And yet could we not speak
of them, did we not find in our memory, not only the sounds of the names
according to the images impressed by the senses of the body, but notions
of the very things themselves which we never received by any avenue of
the body, but which the mind itself perceiving by the experience of its
own passions, committed to the memory, or the memory of itself retained,
without being committed unto it.
But whether by images or no, who can readily say? Thus, I name a stone,
I name the sun, the things themselves not being present to my senses,
but their images to my memory. I name a bodily pain, yet it is not
present with me, when nothing aches: yet unless its image were present
to my memory, I should not know what to say thereof, nor in discoursing
discern pain from pleasure. I name bodily health; being sound in body,
the thing itself is present with me; yet, unless its image also were
present in my memory, I could by no means recall what the sound of
this name should signify. Nor would the sick, when health were named,
recognise what were spoken, unless the same image were by the force of
memory retained, although the thing itself were absent from the body. I
name numbers whereby we number; and not their images, but themselves
are present in my memory. I name the image of the sun, and that image is
present in my memory. For I recall not the image of its image, but the
image itself is present to me, calling it to mind. I name memory, and
I recognise what I name. And where do I recognise it, but in the memory
itself? Is it also present to itself by its image, and not by itself?
What, when I name forgetfulness, and withal recognise what I name?
whence should I recognise it, did I not remember it? I speak not of the
sound of the name, but of the thing which it signifies: which if I had
forgotten, I could not recognise what that sound signifies. When then I
remember memory, memory itself is, through itself, present with itself:
but when I remember forgetfulness, there are present both memory
and forgetfulness; memory whereby I remember, forgetfulness which I
remember. But what is forgetfulness, but the privation of memory? How
then is it present that I remember it, since when present I cannot
remember?