Greco-Christian stream·Corpus Aristotelicum (Complete Works of Aristotle)·On Memory and Recollection

On Memory

Περὶ Μνήμης · De Memoria et Reminiscentia · biology

[449a.1] WE have, in the next place, to treat of Memory and Re- membering, considering its nature, its cause, and the part of the soul to which this experience, as well as that of Recollect- ing, belongs. lor 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 good memory, whereas those who are quick-witted and clever are better at recollecting. We must first form a true conception of the objects of memory, a point on which mistakes are often made. Now to re- member the future is not possible, but this 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 the present, but only sense-perception. For by the latter we know not the future, nor the past, but the present only. But memory relates to the past. No one would say that he remembers the present, 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 con- templation 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 scientific knowledge, or perception, apart from the actualizations of the faculty concerned, he thus ‘ re- members’ | that * the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles]; 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 such sensible experience of it. [οὐ whenever one exercises the faculty of remembering, he must say within him- self, ‘I formerly heard (or otherwise perceived) this,’ or ‘I formerly had this thought’. * This is spurious. CHAPTER I Memoty is, therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state’ or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse οἵ. 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. The subject * of ‘presentation’ has been already considered in our work de Anima.’ Without a presentation intellectual activity isimpossibJe. For there is in such activity an incidental affection identical with one also incidental in geometrical demonstrations. For in the latter case, though we do not for the purpose of the proof make any use of the fact that the quantity in the triangle | for example, which we have drawn] is determinate, we nevertheless draw it determinate in quantity. So likewise when one exerts the intellect [e. g. on the subject of first principles], although the object may not be quantitative. one envisages it as quantitative, though he thinks it in abstrac- tion from quantity ; while, on the other hand, if the object of 1 ἕξις conjoined, as here, with πάθος can only have its usual Aristotelean meaning of a mode of ποιύτης, a sate. The definition of memory implies that in its genesis an αἴσθησις (or ὑπόληψις) has undergone something (πάθος) owing to lapse of time since the ἐνέργεια. The residue of the This settled state of relationship, to be explained and defined more precisely in 451% 16, is what ἕξις here means. The gualification or modification effected by lapse of time in the residue of the αἴσθησις (or ὑπόληψις) and resulting in the settled state, is denoted by the combined words ἔξις and πάθος. ἕξις, of course, can, and does in a few places, mean ‘having’. Cf. Aristotle, J7e¢. 1022" 4-12 and 1022” 15-21, where when he makes ἕξις and πάθος here undistinguishable. és adds the notion of ‘relativity’ toa past. This—how a present state of mind can pick up a past—is the real epistemological ‘crux’, and Aristotle, with his usual unerring insight, singles it out as what peculiarly demands explanation. * For apod. to ἐπεί see 450% 12 note. Most translators render φαντασία ‘imagination,’ but this, from the pyschologist’s point of view, is liable to objection. * Cf. 427» 29 seqq.

[449b.1] the intellect is essentially of the class of things that are quantitative, but indeterminate, one envisages it as if it had determinate quantity, though subsequently, in thinking it, he abstracts from its determinateness. Why we cannot exercise the intellect on any object absolutely apart from the! con- tinuous, or apply it even to non-temporal* things unless in connexion with time,® is another question. Now, one must cognize magnitude * and motion by means of the same faculty by which one cognizes® time [i.e. by that which is also the faculty of memory], and the presentation [involved in such cognition] is an affection of the sexsus communis ; whence this follows, viz. that the cognition of these objects [ magnitude, motion, time] is effected by the [said sensus communis, i.e. the] primary faculty of perception. Accordingly,° memory [not merely of sensible, but] even of intellectual’ objects involves a presentation: hence we may conclude that it belongs to the faculty of intelligence * only incidentally, while ‘rou is generic: it should not be struck out, as Freudenthal pro- poses. temporal (or ‘eternal’) truths of mathematics. Cf. 221» 3 seqq., 1044» 7. χρύνος is essentially continuous, not an ἀριθμός, despite its definition

[449b.5] Freudenthal’s translation—‘ Grésse und Bewegung muss aber der vorstellen der Zeit vorstellt’—is, though correct in a sense, grammatically difficult. Besides what is the meaning of saying @ (ἀναγκαῖον) χρύνον γνωρίζειν; Supply γνωρίζει. The point of the text is to identify the faculty which perceives time (which has been shown to be that of memory) with that which supplies the φαντάσματα for the use of νόησις. This is done by identifying both with that which perceives κίνησις in general — the empirical type and basis of continuity: for even time is that time itself is an arithmetical number essentially discontinuous). Freudenthal is astray in thinking καὶ κίνησιν unintelligible except on his view of the construction. ὁ ἡ δὲ μνήμη... ἐστιν resumes, or sums up the result of, the protasis commenced at ἐπεί 449” 30, and thus prefaces ὥστε ἃ 13, which com- mences the apodosis. them involves and depends upon the same φαντάσματα. For such μνήμη has elapsed, and the ἐνέργεια has ceased. Though the νοητά may be ‘eternal,’ or at least non-temporal, the faculty which perceives time (τὸ πρῶτον αἰ θη κυν}} is that which supplies their empirical basis, and there- fore the ground of remembering them. ἡ Far the easiest correction “of the νοουμένου of all MSS. is Prof. By- CHAPTER I directly and essentially it belongs to the primary faculty of sense-perception. 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 [pure] intellect, it would not have been as it is an attribute of many of the lower 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 includes in this act (as we have already observed) the consciousness of ‘formerly’; and the distinction of ‘former’ and ‘ latter’ is a distinction in time. Accordingly, if asked, of which among the parts of the soul memory is a function, we reply: manifestly of that part to which ‘presentation’ appertains; and all objects capable of being presented [viz. αἰσθητά] are immediately and properly objects of memory, while those [viz. vonra] which necessarily involve [but vv/y involve] presentation are objects of memory incidentally. One might ask how it is possible that though the affection [the presentation] alone is present, and the [related] fact absent, the latter—that which is not present—is remembered. { This question arises |, because it is clear that we must con- ceive that which is generated through sense-perception in the sentient 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 ; Reason as well as reasonzvg. to beings which have the sense of time (τὸ αἰσθητικόν), none of whom possess pure intellect; so that if it were a purely intellectual function, of in the Parva Naturalia. Theclause ro... εἶναι 15 difficult, but may be right. That thing, the é&s of which is μνήμη, is a φάντασμα 4513 15, then is the πάθος here the ἕξις of which is μνήμη ἢ We must conclude it to to be described later on as εἰκών of its original. The word πάθος here does not mean an affection of the particular αἴσθησις or ὑπόληψις, as in 449” 25, AK PN E 450 ἃ 15 [9] 5S) 450 ἃ

[450b.1] involved in the act of perception 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 mnemonic impression 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 [the stucco on] old [chamber] walls, or owing 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. In like manner, also, both those who are too quick and those who are too slow have bad memories. The former are too soft,® the latter too hard [in the texture of their receiving organs], so that in the case of the former the presented image [though imprinted] does not remain in the soul, while on the latter it is not imprinted at all. But then, if this truly describes what happens in the genesis of memory, [the question stated above arises:] when one remembers, is it this impressed affection that he remembers, or is it the objective thing from which this was derived? If the former, it would follow that we remember nothing which sis absent; if the latter, how is it possible that, though per- ceiving 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 the mere impression be memory of something else, instead of being related to this impression alone? For when one actually remembers, this impression is what he is the whole predicate after εἶναι. taken almost literally from Plato, 7Aeactetus, 191 Ὁ. ὃ ὑγρότεροι. τὸ ὑγρόν, ‘the moist’ = the elemental quality which ex- plained softness in bodies; just as τὸ ξηρόν, ‘the dry’ (a notion funda- mental also in ro σκληρόν) explained hardness. CHAPTER | contemplates, and this is what he perceives. How then does he remember what is not present? One might as well sup- pose it possible also to see or hear that which is not present. In reply, we suggest that this very thing is quite conceivable, nay, actually occurs in experience. 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 mnemonic presentation within us is something which by itself is merely an object of contemplation, while, in relation to something else, it is also a presentation of that other thing. In so far as it is regarded in itself, it is only an object of contemplation, or a presentation; but when considered as relative to something else, e.g.,as_ its likeness, it is also’ a mnemonic token. Hence, whenever the residual sensory process ® implied by it is actualized in consciousness, if the soul perceives this in so far as it is something absolute, it appears to occur as a mere thought or presentation; but if the soul perceives it gva related to something else, then,— just as when one contemplates the painting in the picture as being a likeness, and without having [at the moment] scen | the actual Koriskos, contemplates it as a likeness of Koriskos, and in that case’ the experience involved in this contempla- tion of it [as relative] is different from what one has when he contemplates it simply as a painted figure—[so in the case of memory we have the analogous difference, for], of the objects ° = ‘picture’ generally, not ‘picture of animal’. This use of the word is as early as Empedocles (Karst. 372), and Herod. iv. 88. To restrict the meaning here to painted as/nza/s would spoil the illust-ation, since then ζῷον would be relative at once and from the first.

[450b.15] 2 Freudenthal thinks the καί unmeaning; but on the contrary it indispensable. The relative φάντασμα is as it were an εἰκών (for this is only a simile), and this is also a ‘reminder’. So in 451°2 ὅτὲ εἰκὼν, 5. Every such φάντασμα depends for its possibility on a κίνησις within the organs, which persists as a survival or relic of the original perception. * The reading of Bekker re... τε (450” 31-4518 1)—a rare mode of conjunction—might mark the parallelism between the cases. But EMY have τὸ ἐν for ἔν re in 45121, and this has been translated. δ τὸ ἐν is, by a sort of " Attic’ apposition, subdivided into the τὸ μέν and τὸ δέ which follow. E 2 ty te ce (0) 451 ἃ 451 ἃ 15 in the soul, the one [the unrelated object] presents itself simply as a thought, but the other [the related object], just because, as in the painting, it is a likeness, presents itself as a mnemonic token. We can now understand why it is that sometimes, when we have such processes, based on some former act of perception, occurring 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 [while thus doubting] we get a sudden idea and recollect that we heard or saw something formerly. This [occurrence of the ‘sudden idea’] happens whenever, from contemplating a mental object as absolute, one changes his point of view, and regards it as relative to something else. | The opposite [sc. to the case of those who at first do not recognize their phantasms as mnemonic] also occurs, as hap- pened in the cases of Antipheron of Oreus and others suffering from mental derangement ; for they were accustomed to speak of their mere phantasms 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. Mnemonic exercises aim at preserving one’s memory of something by repeatedly reminding him of it; which implies nothing else [on the learner’s part] than the frequent con- templation of something [viz. the ‘mnemonic’, whatever it may be] asalikeness, and not as out of relation. As regards the question, therefore, what memory or re- membering is, it has now been shown that it is the state of a presentation, related as a likeness to that of which it is ἃ presentation ; 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, 1. e. of that faculty whereby we perceive time. CHAPTER II Next comes the subject of Recollection,! in dealing with which we must assume as fundamental the truths elicited above in our introductory discussions.” For recollection ts not the ‘recovery’ or ‘acquisition’® of memory; since at the instant when ὁ one at first learns [a fact of science] or experi- ences [a particular fact of sense], he does not thereby ‘ recover ’ a memory, inasmuch as none has preceded, nor does he acquire 1 In the first paragraph of this chapter Aristotle is occupied with correcting what he thinks the imperfect views Of μνήμη as σωτηρία Philebus 34 A-B. There is no reference, whatever to the metaphysical ‘reminiscence ’ theory of the JZeno and Phaedo, as Thurot thinks. See note on 451° 6. (Index, 99* 40) has been followed. The expression may, however, refer to the current discussions and assumptions (e.g. in the Platonic school) on the subject of memory. But appearances are in favour of Bonitz’ view here. Cf. especially 449” 15-29 where the notion of memory as implying lapse of time is developed. On this implication too the notion of Re- collection rests. On this point the significance of yap ὃ. 20 turns. For πάθος, in which μνήμη consists, requires lapse of time; while it is not μνήμης ἀνάληψις because defore time has elapsed since the experience there is NO μνήμη to be recovered, while after time has elapsed the μνήμη may be revived by processes that are not ἀναμνήσεις —by re-learning or re- experiencing, instead of by an internal effort. a supposed initial moment of the μάθησις or πάθησις regarded as con- tinuous processes, in ὃ. 21-25 ὅταν. ἐγγίνεται [with a parenthetic hit (οὔτ᾽ avad.—mpoyeyover) at the theory of ἀνάληψις} and with reference to the final moment, when the μάθησις or πάθησις is supposed to be perfected, in ἔτι... pynpovevrct ® 25-31. Nextit is shown, 4510 3 (ἔτι) to 451 6 (ἀκολουθεῖ), again fails as a definition ; for ἀνάμνησις always implies the recovery of an because one may recover μνήμη by re-learning or re-experiencing (re- perceiving, &c.). For two reasons then, this last and that given paren- thetically above, 451% 22 (οὐδεμία yap mpoyeyover), ἀνάμνησις is not merely ἀνάληψις ΠΡ μῆς. But the short parenthetical argument is used with reference merely to the moment of the original experience (at which if one does not acquire μνήμην, a forttort he does not recover it), whereas the argument 4510 6-10 is used with reference to the later period when μνήμη has now been established. * @21=pa0n... πάθη, and 8. 23 ἐγγένηται. We must attend to the meaning of the aorists, which is carefully calculated here by the writer.

[451a.1] zitio. It is only at the instant when the aforesaid is implanted in the soul that memory exists, and therefore memory is not itself implanted concurrently with the con- tinuous implantation of the | original]? sensory experience. Further: at the very individual and concluding * instant when first [the sensory experience or scientific knowledge] has been completely implanted, there is then already * established in the person affected the [sensory] affection, or the scientific ὅ knowledge (if one ought to apply the term ‘ scientific know- ledge’ to the [mnemonic] state or affection; and indeed one may well remember, in the ‘incidental’ sense, some of the =n. The mnemonic ἕξις and πάθος here are not to be taken for the primary experiences referred to in ® 21, ὃ 25, where the words τὸ πρῶτον are used to mark the difference. But πάθος is ambiguous, referring sometimes (as in ® 26) to the primary affection of the subject of a sensory experience, sometimes (as in 449” 25) to the mnemonic affection which this experience itself undergoes by lapse of time. In ® 24 it has both meanings. * Therefore the disputed definitions fail with regard to the initial stage, not only as to recollection, but even as to memory, of which also they betray a misconception. * Kampe’s explanation (after Themistius) of τῷ ἀτύμῳ καὶ ἐσχάτῳ here as ‘das letzte und untheilbare Sinnesorgan’ is unsatisfactory. ἐσχάτῳ denotes the limit of the completion of the experience—the πάθησις or μάθησις. [We agree with Kampe and Themistius (241. 29, ed. Spengel), and would translate: ‘has come to be present in the individual and ultimate organ.’ Edd.| * There is no tautology, and, if there were, Freudenthal’s τε before τῷ, ἃ 25, would not stave it off. ‘The point of the proposition ὅτε ἐγγέγονε, τότε ἐνυπάρχει ἤδη lies in the contrasted meaning of these two verbs: when once the πάθος or ἐπιστήμη has been perfectly engendered, thereupon or therein the foundation of memory —the immanence of the πάθος or ἐπιστήμη —is laid. The πάθος or ἐπιστήμη does not pass away, but abides as an ἀρχή in the mind, which is the force of ἐνυπάρχει. But memory itself is not there yet: time must first elapse. To understand this passage we have to bear in mind Aristotle's definition 2220 7. Thus ἤδη here denotes the very moment of the event referred a coming series of moments. ‘The experience occurs in the first moment, and in that and all succeeding moments the πάθους or ἐπιστήμη is found to or ἐπιστήμη to Which memory shall refer is now indeed implanted, but no time has yet passed. Before τὸ μνημονεύειν is possible, time must have passed. This πάθος is not the πάθος (or ἕξις) in which memory has been said tion in their residual κινήσεις Caused by lapse of time. The former is the original sensory experience to which memory shall refer. δ Sc. in the person who has learned it: after ἐπιστήμη understand τῷ CHAPTER II Pree things [i. 6. τὰ καθόλου] which are properly objects of scientific! knowledge); but to remember, strictly and properly speak-

[451a.30] ing, is an activity which will not be immanent until the original experience has undergone lapse of time. For one remembers now what one saw or otherwise experienced formerly ; the moment of the original experience and the moment of the memory of it are never identical. Again,’ [even when time has elapsed, and one can be said really to have acquired memory, this is not necessarily

[451b.1] recollection, for firstly] it is obviously possible, without any present act of recollection, to remember as ἃ continued consequence of the original perception or other experience ; whereas * when [after an interval of obliviscence] one recovers some scientific knowledge which he had before, or some per- ception, 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 things aforesaid. But, { though, as observed above, remembering does not necessarily imply recollecting], recollecting always implies Or is spoken of as δυνάμει (Met. 1087" 15, cf. Locke’s ‘ Habitual Know- ledge’) it can subsist in the mnemonic ἔξις ; for we may ‘remember’ objects of ἐπιστήμη; for this word was (like our ‘science’) extended to include even ἡ πυκτική, and many other matters of the sort that can be direct objects of memory. The question here raised about the term ἐπιστήμη being used of a e&s shows how far é&s is from meaning a ‘having’ in this connexion. remembering involves time-lapse.

[451b.5] Freudenthal i is right 1 in interpreting this argument as directed against the proposition ἀνώμνησις = μνήμης Anis; for a person may have acquired μνήμη but not parted with it, and ἀνάμνησις implies always at least an interruption of μνήμη, though it implies more, as will be shown. Freudenthal wrongly thinks that Aristotle will not allow avausnaue to involve the expression μνήμης ἀνάληψις was part of the traditional definition: ἀναλαμ- . Bavew μνήμην is used by Plato, PAz/. 34 B, and Aristotle has no objection to it as a definition, provided it be qualified by reference to the πλείων apxn of » 10 below. In accepting the expression, thus qualified, he may be following the ἐπιχειρηματικοὶ λόγοι, in the sense referred to above in the note on. these words as alternative to that in which they are taken by Bonitz. There should not be a full stop, but only a colon, or comma, before To - remembering,! and actualized memory follows [upon {πὸ successful act of recollecting]. But secondly,” even the assertion that recollection is the reinstatement in consciousness of something which was there before but had disappeared requires qualification. This assertion may be true, but it may also be false ; for the same person may twice learn [from some teacher], or twice discover [i.e. excogitate], the same fact. Accordingly, the act of re- collecting ought |in its definition] to be distinguished from these acts ; i.e. recollecting must imply in those who recollect the presence of some spring ὁ over and above that from which they originally learn. Acts of recollection, as they occur in experience, are due to the fact that one movement has by nature another that succeeds it in regular order. If this order be necessary, whenever a subject experiences the former * of two movements thus connected, it will [invari- ably] experience the latter; if, however, the order be not necessary, but customary, only in the majority of cases will the subject experience the latter of the two movements. But it is a fact that there are some movements, by a single experi- ence of which persons take the impress of custom more deeply than they do by experiencing others many times; hence ”® ἀναμεμνῆσθαι, and the latter is accompanied by and implies a reinstate- ment of ἡ μνήμη. This last is both the condition and the consequence of ἀνάμνησις : the condition, for if there be no (potential) μνήμη, ἀναμ. 1S impossible (cf. 452% 7 οὐκέτι μέμνηται) ; the conseguence, for ἀνάμν. results in the reviviscence of (actual) μνήμη. ‘A man has not the power to recollect what is not in his mind,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘but when a thing is in his mind he may remember it.’ * Even here Plato had been beforehand with Aristotle. Cf. PAz/. 34 B ἑαυτῇ, Where both the interval of obliviscence and the internal activity are required for the definition of Recollection, So in the J/eno 85 Ὁ πάνυ ye. Both in AZeno 81 D and Phaedo 73 1) recollection is conceived as a ζήτησις. Aristotle is superior to Plato chiefly in the detail with which he examines the process of ἀνάμνησις. * For the meaning of πλείων ἀρχή see below, 452. 4-7, and 452° 11-12. * Grammar and sense require ἐκείνην. here. * How can one reason (διό) from ἐνίους to éma? Try how one will, one cannot, with Biehl’s text, avoid logical absurdity and confusion. recommending also κινουμένας Ὁ 15 seems to miss seeing that the CHAPTER II pee upon seeing some things but once we remember them better than others which we may have seen frequently. Whenever, therefore, we are recollecting, we are expert- encing ! certain [read τινάς with Freudenthal | of the antecedent movements until finally we experience the one after which customarily comes that which we seek. This explains why we hunt up the series? [of κινήσεις]. having started in thought either from a present intuition or some other, and from some- thing either similar, or contrary, to what we seek, or else from that which is contiguous® with it. Such is the empirical ground of the process of recollection ; for the mnemonic movements involved in these starting-points are in some cases identical, in others, again, simultaneous, with those of the idea we seek, while in others they comprise a portion of them, so that the remnant which one experienced after that portion [and which still requires to be excited in memory | is comparatively small. Thus, then, it is that persons seek to recollect, and thus, too, it is that they recollect even without the effort * of seeking to bo Oo 22 stand οἱ a different footing; for there the person is supposed to be making active voluntary efforts to stir up or arouse some idea. Besides, the expression ai κινήσεις ἐθίζονται would be absurd: it is the What Aristotle is thinking of here is the greater impressiveness of some experiences as compared with others: he is not alluding to the greater impressibility of some persons as compared with others ; but the idea that he must also have referred to the latter point is possibly what first corrupted the text. The use of μνημονεύομεν, however,—the first person standing for all persons— shows that the latter point was not intended here. * Here κινούμεθα includes both the active and the passive sense. This * For the meaning of τὸ ἐφεξῆς (which is not a continuum) see Phys. 231° 22, 259° 16. ‘i.e. as coefficient in one total idea. ‘ The association between the parts and the whole would be the typical form of all association. This fundamental law of all association of ideas might be called the law of totality.’ See Hoffding, Psych. p. 159, E. T. Such seems the force of the compound σύνεγγυς in » 20. By τὸ νῦν of course is meant not an abstract instant of time, but the concrete filling of an instant. We may begin by calling to mind what we were thinking of at avy moment, or start from what we are thinking of wow. Thus the time-factor in recollection is put in the forefront here, though not fully dealt with till 452° 7- 453" 4. * For such non-voluntary ἀνάμνησις cf. 2fra 4538 17-18. The train of ideas is part of the mechanism of nature, which the will avails itself of, but which may lead to recollection without an effort of will. 25 30 452 ἃ | do so, viz. when the movement implied in recollection has supervened on some other which is its condition. For, as a rule, it is when antecedent movements of the classes here described have first been excited, 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 [by recollection] 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, that is, one hunts up the objective series, without any previous search or previous recollection. For [there is, besides the natural order, viz. the order of the πράγματα, or events of the primary experience, also a customary order, and] by the effect of custom the mnemonic movements tend to succeed one another ina certain order... Accordingly, therefore, when one wishes to recollect, this is what he will do: he will try to obtain a beginning of movement whose sequel shall be the movement which he desires to reawaken. This explains why attempts at re- collection succeed soonest and best when they start from a beginning [of some objective series]. For, in order of succession, the mnemonic movements are to one another as the objective facts [from which they are derived]. Accordingly, things arranged in a fixed order, like the successive demonstrations in geometry, are easy to remember [or recollect |,* while badly ° arranged subjects are remembered with difficulty. Recollecting 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- 452 7. * τὰ σύνεγγυς, i.e. a train of ideas whose extremes—the mnemonic ἀρχή and ἡ κίνησις ‘éxeivn’—are not far apart from one another; τὰ πόρρω just above is the opposite. * There must not have been previous ζήτησις or ἀνάμνησις, for previous prejudice, so far, our efforts to discover the natural τρόπος of ἀνάμνησις, with which Aristotle is here concerned. μόνευτα and such compounds. CHAPTER II ree point. When one cannot do this of himself, but only by external assistance, he no longer remembers [i. 6. he has totally forgotten, and therefore of course cannot recollect]. 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

[451b.10] sequel the fact he wishes to recollect. For remembering! [which is the condicio sine qua non of recollecting]| is the existence, potentially, in the mind of a movement capable of stimulating it to the desired movement, and this, as has been said, in such a way that the person should be moved [prompted to recollection] from within himself, i.e. in conse- quence of movements wholly contained within himself. But one must get hold of a starting-point. This explains why it is that persons are supposed to recollect sometimes by starting from mnemonic ἐρεῖ. The cause is that they pass swiftly in thought from one point to another, e.g. from milk to white, from white to mist’, and thence to moist, from which one remembers Autumn [the ‘season of mists ’], if this be the season he is trying to recollect. ? Freudenthal is quite wrong in thinking that we should read here what follows. See next note. a well-known fact, and the Simonidean mnemonic art, or art of topical memory, was cultivated widely long before Aristotle’s time, as well as ever since. Cf. Xen. Symp. iv. 62 (with Schneider’s note); Cic. de Orat. il. 86-88; Auct. ad Herenn. iii. 16 to end; Quintil. /zst. Or. xi. 2 (de memoria) ; Plato, /7Af. Maz. 285, where Hippias who has τὸ μνημονικόν boasts of his power to repeat fifty names after hearing them only once. as giving the impression present to the sleepers’ minds). Why δοκοῦσιν and ἐνίοτε here, words which seem to express doubt of the pretensions of the professors of the mnemonic art? But on the whole it seems best not to adopt Sir W. Hamilton’s ἀπ᾿ ἀτόπων, very tempting as it is; for (a) the instances given here are not quite ἄτοπα, and (ὁ) Aristotle habitually speaks with caution and reserve, often usirg such words as suggest hesitation even when he cannot really be in doubt. Freudenthal suggests τάχιστα for ἐνίοτε, but this can hardly be ventured. * ἀήρ, for Aristotle, is naturally and distinctively white: it is the im- mixture of this that causes the whiteness of snow and foam. See Prantl, Arist. de Coloribus, p. 105. The history of the word in classical usage from Homer onwards shows that it properly meant thick or misty air. 452 ἃ 20 to It seems true in general that the middle point also among all things is a good mnemonic starting-point from which to reach any of them. 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, 6. g. if one were to have in mind the numerical ! series denoted by the symbols A, 8.6, ΔΕ 2,0, ©.. For, ifthe does not remember what he wants at E,? then at E he re- members Ὁ ἢ; because from E movement in either direction is possible, to A or to C. But, if it is not for one of these that he is searching, he will remember [what he 7s searching for] when he has come ἴο Γ, if he is searching for H or I. But if [it is] not [for H or I that he is searching, but for one of the terms that remain], he will remember by going to A, and so in all cases [in which one starts from a middle point]. 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 F ® to I or to A. If, then, the mind has alterations of MSS, readings are (a) the insertion of C after E, which is easy; (4) the alteration of E to C in ὃ 22, which is also easy; and (c) the insertion of τοῦ before © in ® 20. 2 For the use of this as a numerical symbol 77 the ¢ime of Aristotle there is evidence enough. The disappearance of numeral letters from our texts is due to the rule by which the Byzantine and even earlier copyists translated them into words. 5. If the text is not here dittographic, it may mean, ‘if E itself be not what he wants.’ * When he has come to E, the middle point, he will remember ©; 1.6. being at 5 he moves to 4, and by the proximity of these in thought he gets 9. In Greek arithmetic in many cases the juxtaposition of symbols implies addition. Thus at E (which it has to be observed he does not ever abandon) he has also A,and so he has ©. We may bring the case under the rule of τὸ σύνεγγυς 451% 18-20. What he would get if he moved upwards, viz. EC = 11,is not mentioned, as this lies outside the series. δ When he has come to F (still, of course, keeping hold of E) he similarly obtains H, i.e. 5 + 3, or else he obtains I by τὸ ἐναντίον (cf. 451 19) thus: in the series 3, 5, 7, of which 5 is τὸ μέσον, either ἔσχατον with τὸ μέσον tends to bring to mind the other ἔσχατον. For this see WV. £. 1106* 33 seqq. Thus it is that from F E here he gets (or may get) I. Allthe cases here given come, in fact, under two of the rules mentioned as governing recollection in 451 18 seqq. ° From F he may go to I by ἐναντιότης as just explained, to A by CHAPTER II ‘not [when starting from ΕἼ] moved in an old path? [i.e. one -in which it moved when first having the objective experience, and that, therefore, in which un-‘ ethized’ φύσις would have it again move], it tends to move to the more customary ; for [the mind having, by chance or otherwise, mzssed moving in the ‘old’ way] Custom now? assumes the rédle of Nature.” Hence the rapidity with which we recollect what we fre- quently ¢ think about. For as regular sequence of events is in accordance with nature, so, too, regular sequence is ob- served in the actualization of κινήσεις [in consciousness], and here frequency tends to produce [the regularity of]° nature. And since in the realm of nature occurrences ὃ take place which 414827, The well-supported μή with διὰ παλαιοῦ has been here adopted. The only change desirable would seem to be the insertion of τοῦ before παλαιοῦ. Critics have not seen how the ‘ παλαιόν may differ from the ‘customary ’. Suppose 1 want to recollect the name of the Spartan who said χρήματα χρήματ᾽ ἀνήρ, and get, as a clue, the abbreviation ‘Aristo.’ I once knew the name well, but since then my reading habits have changed. If my thoughts leap along their old path (as they zafura//y should, with the question and the clue to guide them) they bring me from Aristo to ‘Aristodemus’. If, however, they miss the old track, they bring me to some name with which I am now more familiar, 6. g. ‘Aristotle’. Custom has superseded mere φύσις. Freudenthal, however, asks ‘Aber ist nicht eben τὸ συνηθέστερον ebenfalls eine Affection die man vor Alters gehabt hat?’ This isthe fons et ortgo errorts. 2428. ἤδη, 1.6. at once, upon the ‘old’ path having been missed, custom takes the reins. % 430, There being many possible paths for the mind to move in from Γ, while that taken by it in its old, i.e. original, experience is only one, if it misses this old track, φύσις alone no longer rules: ἔθος also now has a power of interfering, and even deciding where it shall move. Thus the ‘old’ track and the ‘customary’ are contrasted ; which is quite intelligible, for the mind may have only moved once διὰ (rod) παλαιοῦ, i.e. from [ to the desired goal, but offen from [ to other points. Therefore loses the guidance of φύσις (for which see 451” 11) in his particular quest, and falls under that of ἔθος. > ποιεῖ φύσιν. For the whole cf. V. 45. 11. i. 11038 20 (with Stewart's notes). φύσις here=organic nature; €60s=the realm of the actualization δ 45251. EMY omit μή before ὁμοίως "2. We should, if we followed these MSS., suppose Aristotle to mean that Nature as a theatre or subject of ‘freaks’ is equally present in the sphere of Custom. This, however, is foreign to the whole tenor of these tracts, in which φύσις (cf. the frequent πέφυκε, especially in 451 11) implies a power making for order and show that here too he may be thinking only of organic nature). Cf. 767” 5, 1255" 1 seqq. For ἀπὸ τύχης cf. 1027" 12, but especially 197% 36

[452a.1] are even contrary to nature, or fortuitous, the same happens a fortiori in the sphere swayed by custom, since in this sphere natural law is not similarly established. Hence it is that {from the same starting-point| the mind receives an impulse to move sometimes in the required direction,! and at other times otherwise, [doing the latter] particularly when some- thing 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, we remember one somewhat like® it, indeed, but blunder in reference to [i.e. in pronouncing] the one we intended. Thus, then, recollection takes place. But the point of capital importance is that [for the pur- pose of recollection] one should cognize, determinately or indeterminately, the time-relation | of that which he wishes to recollect]. 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 1 ἐκεῖ = ἐκεῖσε (which Aristotle does not use). Cf. the regular ἐκείνη for the κίνησις to be recollected, ἐκεῖθεν in next line, and ἐκεῖ just below 452” 10. So ἄλλως here virtually τε ἄλλοσε (which also Aristotle does not use), though it comes awkwardly before the ἄλλως in a different sense just following. ΣῈ MY give αὐτύς for αὐτόσε ὃ 4, but this would make the person’s will perverse, which would be foreign to the matter here. It is something e/se that misleads his thoughts. For αὐτόσε cf. Plato, Rep. 369 D. We cannot take ἀφέλκῃ intransitively, but might read deren {τι). Yet Aristotle often leaves the indefinite subject to be supplied. [ἀφέλκῃ without a subject, and αὐτόσε, are difficult. Perhaps we should read αὐτός and take ἀφέλκῃ intransitively. Edd.] clause: there is no difficulty in the accusative, for παρόμοιον = παρόμοιόν τι (rather than ὄνομα), and besides even if ὄνομα were supplied it could stand, as μνημονεύειν takes accusative even with such ‘outer’ object. Cf. γνωρίζειν properly = to ‘cognize’ (or get into the mind) Χ νοεῖν = to have in mind. The determinate cognition of time is explained and illustrated (down to Ὁ 24) by the mathematical mode of determining distance. Then, from Ὁ 30, the indeterminate mode of estimating it is considered. Knowing the time is a prime help towards recollecting the other circumstances of an event. The time- association is ἃ chief element in the memory-idea. Aristotle’s time-«wnoes in what follows may perhaps, as an assumption, be compared with Lotze’s ‘local signs’. CHAPTER II to that in which one discerns [spatial] magnitudes. For it is not by the mind’s reaching out towards them, as some say a visual ray from the eye does [in seeing], that one thinks! of large things at a distance in space (for even if they are not there, one may similarly think them); but one does so by a pro- portionate mental movement. For there are in the mind the like figuresand movements [1. 6. ‘like’ to those of objects and events]. Therefore, when one thinks the greater objects, in what will his thinking those differ from his thinking the smaller? [In nothing,] because all the internal though smaller are as it were proportional to the external. Now. as we may assume within a person something proportional to the forms® [of distant magnitudes], so, too, we may doubtless assume also something else proportional to their distances. As, therefore, if one has [psychically] the move- ment in AB, BE,* he constructs in thought [i.e. knows objectively | ΓΔ, since ΑΓ and ΓΔ bear equal ratios respectively ° [to AB and BE], [so® he who recollects also proceeds]. Why then does he construct ΓΔ rather than ZH? Is it not because ? 1 yoet: the νόησις referred to here and below is of course carried on must refer as elsewhere to the real or ‘ outward things’. σχήματα, including ‘forms’ of events as well as of objects, stored (without the matter) for use in imagination and memory. * See Figure. BE=the psychic analogue of the eidos of a real object ; AB =the analogue (the ἄλλο of © 16) of its ἀπόστημα; TA = the real object; AT = its real distance. τὴν AB sc. κίνησιν. All the lines are lines of ‘movement’, by moving in which the mind ‘constructs’ real things and distances. νοεῖν is used here of the inner or representative lines (the given data), ποιεῖν, except in » 21, of the outer objects constructed in thought, or, in other words, objectively known. Possibly ποῆσαι should be read for νοῆσαι in>21. The epistemological implications of ποιεῖν here are interesting. ° Not the same as saying ΑΓ : ΓΔ: : AB: BE, for so we should not have ΑΓ: AB: :ΓΔ : BE, as required by the reasoning. δ The application of the geometrical illustration (prefaced by ὥσπερ "9 above) to memory is left to the reader, and the apodosis did not need to be expressed. * Manifestly AB: BE: ΑΓ ΓΔ. But if A: AB were unknown, ΓΔ could not be determined. We have, however (thanks to the power ᾧ κρίνει Ὁ 8 above) the ratio of AT: AB, viz.@:1. Thus ΓΔ is determined ; for when the mind moves in the κίνησις AB, BE, it moves at the same time in that of the determinative ratio 6:1. In constructing ZHit moves similarly in BE, but now the concurrent determinative ratio is K: A. We know

[452b.1] is to AB, sois © tol? These movements therefore [sc. in AB, BE, avd in ©: 1] he has simultaneously. But if he wishes to construct to thought ZH, he has in mind BE in like H manner as before [when con- yng structing PA], but now, instead | of [ the movements of the ratio] | @:1, he has in ΟΣ Lace of x a. the ratio] K: A; forK: A: ZA: BA. When, therefore, the ‘movement’ corresponding to the object and that corresponding to its time concur, then one actually remembers. If one supposes [himself to move in these different but concurrent ways] 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, conversely, that when one actually remembers he should not suppose himself to remember, but should re- member unconsciously. For remembering, as we have con- ceived it, essentially implies consciousness of itself. If, however, the movement corresponding to the objective fact takes place without that corresponding to the time, or, if the latter takes place without the former, one does not remember.’ 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 ὃ; while in other cases he has AI. BE AB, BE, and that AB: BE:: AP: ra; Δ᾽ Ξ AB But © : I gives BE. ABY Al in terms of AB; e.g., AV = AB&. Hence la = <= = BEx. Simi- «{ larly, ZH would appear in terms of BE; e.g. as ΒΕ. 1 big ἈΠ of the codices is right, as is I of EMY in» 20. [The above explanation of ἢ 17-24 is, in form, due to Professor Smyly. It is the same in principle as that given by the translator (Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition, pp. 320-1 n.), but it is simpler, and requires less change in the letters of the MSS. | * Biehl’s paragraphing is here wrong. orav... μέμνηται Ὁ 23-29 should run on with what precedes, for all this has been intended to show the impor- tance of the time for memory and therefore for recollecting. What follows, on the other hand, is explanatory. 5. The οἷον clause refers to μέτρῳ-- not to οὐ μέτρῳ. Hence there is no CHAPTER II ; 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. Persons are wont to say that they remember [something], but yet do not know when [it occurred, as happens] whenever they do not know deter- minately the exact length of time implied in the ‘when’. It has been already stated that those who have a good memory are not identical with those who are quick at re- collecting. But the act of recollecting differs from that of remembering, not only chronologically ', but also in this, that many also of the other animals [as well as man] have memory; but, of all that we are acquainted with, none, we venture to say, except man, shares 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 zzfers that he formerly saw, or heard, or had some such experience, and the process [by which he succeeds in recollecting] 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 ; [which proves what was said above}, for deliberation is a form of inference. That the affection is corporeal, i.e. that recollection is a searching for an ‘image’ in a corporeal substrate, is proved by the fact that in some persons, when, despite the most sense goes ; for critically the question is on a different footing, as Diehl’s apparatus shows. chronologically posterior to τὸ μνημονεύειν. Μνήμη is the presupposition of ἀνάμνησις. A memory must have been grounded, and one must (potentially) remember, before one can recollect. Cf. 4511 seqq., 4528 7. * The συλλογισμός here is an inference from effect to cause—from the φάντασμα to its origin in past experience, and the process is compared to the ζήτησις involved in deliberation, for which cf. V. £. iii. 1112 20-24 proceeds analytically to account for the φάντασμα. The only deductive factor in the process is the major, that every such φάντασμα must have a Cause (viz. an ‘ experience’) or be capable of being accounted for. This starts the process of ζήτησις. While βούλευσις ends by finding out ¢#e way to act, ἀνάμνησις ends by placing the φάντασμα in its relation to past experience. The συλλογισμός here=the deductive inference which starts the ζήτησις + the ζήτησις itself. ‘Syllogism,’ as a rendering, is hopelessly wrong. * Reasoning’ would serve but ‘ inference’ seems best. AR PN F 453 ἃ 453 ἃ 20 to 20

[453b.1] strenuous application of thought, they have been unable to recollect, it [viz. the ἀνάμνησις =the effort at recollection| excites a feeling of discomfort, which, even though they abandon the effort at recollection,’ persists in them none the less; and especially in persons of melancholic tempera- ment. For these are most powerfully moved by presentations. The reason why the effort of recollection is not under the 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’ [after an idea] sets up a process in a material part, [that] 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 |by efforts of will] set up counter motions, but the passions continue to move them on, in the same direction as at first, in opposition to such counter motions. The affection resembles also that in the case of words, tunes, or sayings, whenever one of them has become inveterate on the lips. People give them up and resolve to avoid them; yet again and again they find them- selves humming the forbidden air, or using the prohibited word. 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 they being made copulative, the subject changes from τὴν ἀνάμνησιν to ἐνίους, and there are other difficulties; but the sense would be in keeping with Prof. James’s Principles of Psychology, . 681: ‘Something we have made the most strenuous efforts to recall, but all in vain, will, soon after we have given up the attempt, saunter into the mind as innocently as if it had never been sent for.’ 2 In which memory consists, see 449” 25, 450% 10. > Ch, Diog. of Apollonia, apud Theophr. de Sens. § $45, Diels, Vorsokrat. to continue: motion in ἃ straight line, to cease. Cf. 2618 27-.2638 3. CHAPTER II 453 b have resting upon the organ of perception, and because their mnemonic 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 movements do not easily find a direct onward path. Infants and very old persons have bad memories, owing 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 in their bodily structure. 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, τὸ its formal definition, and the manner and causes of its per- formance.

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