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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-4",
    "name": "Ennead IV — On the Soul"
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      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 6,
    "slug": "6-perception-and-memory",
    "title": "IV.6 — Perception and Memory",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 1888,
    "text": "## SIXTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SIXTH TRACTATE.\n\nPERCEPTION AND MEMORY.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Perceptions are no imprints, we have said, are not to be\nthought of as seal-impressions on soul or mind: accepting this\nstatement, there is one theory of memory which must be definitely\nrejected.\n\nMemory is not to be explained as the retaining of information in\nvirtue of the lingering of an impression which in fact was\nnever made;\nthe two things stand or fall together; either an impression is made\nupon the mind and lingers when there is remembrance, or, denying the\nimpression, we cannot hold that memory is its lingering. Since we\nreject equally the impression and the retention we are\nobliged to seek\nfor another explanation of perception and memory, one excluding the\nnotions that the sensible object striking upon soul or mind makes a\nmark upon it, and that the retention of this mark is memory.\n\nIf we study what occurs in the case of the most vivid form of\nperception, we can transfer our results to the other cases, and so\nsolve our problem.\n\nIn any perception we attain by sight, the object is grasped\nthere where it lies in the direct line of vision; it is there that\nwe attack it; there, then, the perception is formed; the mind looks\noutward; this is ample proof that it has taken and takes no inner\nimprint, and does not see in virtue of some mark made upon it like\nthat of the ring on the wax; it need not look outward at all if,\neven as it looked, it already held the image of the object, seeing by\nvirtue of an impression made upon itself. It includes with the\nobject the interval, for it tells at what distance the vision takes\nplace: how could it see as outlying an impression within itself,\nseparated by no interval from itself? Then, the point of magnitude:\nhow could the mind, on this hypothesis, define the external size of\nthe object or perceive that it has any- the magnitude of the sky,\nfor instance, whose stamped imprint would be too vast for it to\ncontain? And, most convincing of all, if to see is to accept\nimprints of the objects of our vision, we can never see these\nobjects themselves; we see only vestiges they leave within us,\nshadows: the things themselves would be very different from\nour vision\nof them. And, for a conclusive consideration, we cannot see if the\nliving object is in contact with the eye, we must look from a\ncertain distance; this must be more applicable to the mind;\nsupposing the mind to be stamped with an imprint of the object, it\ncould not grasp as an object of vision what is stamped upon itself.\nFor vision demands a duality, of seen and seeing: the seeing agent\nmust be distinct and act upon an impression outside it, not upon one\noccupying the same point with it: sight can deal only with an object\nnot inset but outlying.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. But if perception does not go by impression, what is the\nprocess?\n\nThe mind affirms something not contained within it: this is\nprecisely the characteristic of a power- not to accept\nimpression but,\nwithin its allotted sphere, to act.\n\nBesides, the very condition of the mind being able to exercise\ndiscrimination upon what it is to see and hear is not, of\ncourse, that\nthese objects be equally impressions made upon it; on the contrary,\nthere must be no impressions, nothing to which the mind is passive;\nthere can be only acts of that in which the objects become known.\n\nOur tendency is to think of any of the faculties as\nunable to know\nits appropriate object by its own uncompelled act; to us it seems to\nsubmit to its environment rather than simply to perceive it,\nthough in\nreality it is the master, not the victim.\n\nAs with sight, so with hearing. It is the air which takes the\nimpression, a kind of articulated stroke which may be compared to\nletters traced upon it by the object causing the sound; but\nit belongs\nto the faculty, and the soul-essence, to read the imprints thus\nappearing before it, as they reach the point at which they become\nmatter of its knowledge.\n\nIn taste and smell also we distinguish between the impressions\nreceived and the sensations and judgements; these last are mental\nacts, and belong to an order apart from the experiences upon which\nthey are exercised.\n\nThe knowing of the things belonging to the Intellectual is not\nin any such degree attended by impact or impression: they come\nforward, on the contrary, as from within, unlike the sense-objects\nknown as from without: they have more emphatically the character of\nacts; they are acts in the stricter sense, for their origin is in\nthe soul, and every concept of this Intellectual order is the soul\nabout its Act.\n\nWhether, in this self-vision, the soul is a duality and views\nitself as from the outside- while seeing the\nIntellectual-Principal as\na unity, and itself with the Intellectual-Principle as a unity- this\nquestion is investigated elsewhere.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. With this prologue we come to our discussion of Memory.\n\nThat the soul, or mind, having taken no imprint, yet achieves\nperception of what it in no way contains need not surprise us; or\nrather, surprising though it is, we cannot refuse to believe in this\nremarkable power.\n\nThe Soul is the Reason-Principle of the universe, ultimate among\nthe Intellectual Beings- its own essential Nature is one of\nthe Beings\nof the Intellectual Realm- but it is the primal Reason-Principle of\nthe entire realm of sense.\n\nThus it has dealings with both orders- benefited and quickened\nby the one, but by the other beguiled, falling before resemblances,\nand so led downwards as under spell. Poised midway, it is aware of\nboth spheres.\n\nOf the Intellectual it is said to have intuition by memory upon\napproach, for it knows them by a certain natural identity with them;\nits knowledge is not attained by besetting them, so to speak, but by\nin a definite degree possessing them; they are its natural vision;\nthey are itself in a more radiant mode, and it rises from its duller\npitch to that greater brilliance in a sort of awakening, a progress\nfrom its latency to its act.\n\nTo the sense-order it stands in a similar nearness and to such\nthings it gives a radiance out of its own store and, as it were,\nelaborates them to visibility: the power is always ripe and, so to\nsay, in travail towards them, so that, whenever it puts out its\nstrength in the direction of what has once been present in\nit, it sees\nthat object as present still; and the more intent its effort the\nmore durable is the presence. This is why, it is agreed,\nchildren have\nlong memory; the things presented to them are not constantly\nwithdrawn\nbut remain in sight; in their case the attention is limited but not\nscattered: those whose faculty and mental activity are busied upon a\nmultitude of subjects pass quickly over all, lingering on none.\n\nNow, if memory were a matter of seal-impressions retained, the\nmultiplicity of objects would have no weakening effect on the\nmemory. Further, on the same hypothesis, we would have no need of\nthinking back to revive remembrance; nor would we be subject to\nforgetting and recalling; all would lie engraved within.\n\nThe very fact that we train ourselves to remember shows that\nwhat we get by the process is a strengthening of the mind: just so,\nexercises for feet and hands enable us to do easily acts which in no\nsense contained or laid up in those members, but to which they may\nbe fitted by persevering effort.\n\nHow else can it be explained that we forget a thing heard once\nor twice but remember what is often repeated, and that we recall a\nlong time afterwards what at first hearing we failed to hold?\n\nIt is no answer to say that the parts present themselves sooner\nthan the entire imprint- why should they too be forgotten?- [there\nis no question of parts, for] the last hearing, or our effort to\nremember, brings the thing back to us in a flash.\n\nAll these considerations testify to an evocation of that faculty\nof the soul, or mind, in which remembrance is vested: the mind is\nstrengthened, either generally or to this particular purpose.\n\nObserve these facts: memory follows upon attention;\nthose who have\nmemorized much, by dint of their training in the use of leading\nindications [suggestive words and the like], reach the point of\nbeing easily able to retain without such aid: must we not conclude\nthat the basis of memory is the soul-power brought to full strength?\n\nThe lingering imprints of the other explanation would tell of\nweakness rather than power; for to take imprint easily is to be\nyielding. An impression is something received passively; the\nstrongest\nmemory, then, would go with the least active nature. But what\nhappens is the very reverse: in no pursuit to technical\nexercises tend\nto make a man less the master of his acts and states. It is as with\nsense-perception; the advantage is not to the weak, the weak eye for\nexample, but to that which has the fullest power towards its\nexercise.\nIn the old, it is significant, the senses are dulled and so is the\nmemory.\n\nSensation and memory, then, are not passivity but power.\n\nAnd, once it is admitted that sensations are not impressions,\nthe memory of a sensation cannot consist in the retention of an\nimpression that was never made.\n\nYes: but if it is an active power of the mind, a fitness towards\nits particular purpose, why does it not come at once- and not with\ndelay- to the recollection of its unchanging objects?\n\nSimply because the power needs to be poised and prepared: in\nthis it is only like all the others, which have to be readied for\nthe task to which their power reaches, some operating very swiftly,\nothers only after a certain self-concentration.\n\nQuick memory does not in general go with quick wit: the\ntwo do not\nfall under the same mental faculty; runner and boxer are not often\nunited in one person; the dominant idea differs from man to man.\n\nYet there could be nothing to prevent men of superior\nfaculty from\nreading impressions on the mind; why should one thus gifted be\nincapable of what would be no more than a passive taking and holding?\n\nThat memory is a power of the Soul [not a capacity for taking\nimprint] is established at a stroke by the consideration\nthat the soul\nis without magnitude.\n\nAnd- one general reflection- it is not extraordinary that\neverything concerning soul should proceed in quite other ways than\nappears to people who either have never enquired, or have hastily\nadopted delusive analogies from the phenomena of sense, and\npersist in\nthinking of perception and remembrance in terms of characters\ninscribed on plates or tablets; the impossibilities that beset this\ntheory escape those that make the soul incorporeal equally with\nthose to whom it is corporeal.",
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