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21. This same memory contains also the affections of my mind; not
in the manner in which the mind itself contains them when it suffers
them, but very differently according to a power peculiar to memory.
For without being joyous, I remember myself to have had joy; and
with out being sad, I call to mind my past sadness; and that of which
I was once afraid, I remember without fear; and without desire
recall a former desire. Again, on the contrary, I at times remember
when joyous my past sadness, and when sad my joy. Which is not to be
wondered at as regards the body; for the mind is one thing, the body
another. If I, therefore, when happy, recall some past bodily
pain, it is not so strange a thing. But now, as this very memory
itself is mind (for when we give orders to have a thing kept in
memory, we say, "See that you bear this in mind;" and when we
forget a thing, we say, "It did not enter my mind," and, "It
slipped from my mind," thus calling the memory itself mind), as this
is so, how comes it to pass that when being joyful I remember my past
sorrow, the mind has joy, the memory sorrow, the mind, from the
joy than is in it, is joyful,yet the memory, from the sadness that is
in it, is not sad? Does not the memory perchance belong unto the
mind? Who will say so? The memory doubtless is, so to say, the
belly of the mind, and joy and sadness like sweet and bitter food,
which, when entrusted to the memory, are, as it were, passed into
the belly, where they can be reposited, but cannot taste. It is
ridiculous to imagine these to be alike; and yet they are not utterly
unlike.
22. But behold, out of my memory I educe it, when I affirm that
there be four perturbations of the mind, desire, joy, fear,
sorrow; and whatsoever I shall be able to dispute on these, by
dividing each into its peculiar species, and by defining it, there I
find what I may say, and thence I educe it; yet am I not disturbed
by any of these perturbations when by remembering them I call them to
mind; and before I! recollected and reviewed them, they were there;
wherefore by remembrance could they be brought thence. Perchance,
then, even as meat is in ruminating brought up out of the belly, so by
calling to mind are these educed from the memory. Why, then, does
not the disputant, thus recollecting, perceive in the mouth of his
meditation the sweetness of joy or the bitterness of sorrow? Is the
comparison unlike in this because not like in all points? For who
would willingly discourse on these subjects, if, as often as we name
sorrow or fear, we should be compelled to be sorrowful or fearful?
And yet we could never speak of them, did we not find in' our memory
not merely the sounds of the names, according to the images imprinted
on it by the senses of the body, but the notions of the things
themselves, which we never received by any door of the flesh, but
which the mind itself, recognising by the experience of its own
passions, entrusted to the memory, or else which the memory itself
retained without their being entrusted to it.
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