Memory and Reminiscence E-book

                                350 BC

                      ON MEMORY AND REMINISCENCE

                             by Aristotle

                      translated by J. I. Beare






Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)



                              CHAPTER 1
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  WE have, in the next place, 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 good memory, whereas those who are quick-witted and clever are
better at recollecting.
  We must first form a true conception of these objects of memory, a
point on which mistakes are often made. Now to remember 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 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 scientific
knowledge, or perception, apart from the actualizations of the faculty
concerned, he thus 'remembers' [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. For whenever one
exercises the faculty of remembering, he must say within himself, 'I
formerly heard (or otherwise perceived) this,' or 'I formerly had this
thought'.
  Memory is, therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state
or 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.
  The subject of 'presentation' has been already considered in our
work On the Soul. Without a presentation intellectual activity is
impossible. 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 abstraction from quantity; while, on the other hand, if the object
of 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 continuous, 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 sensus 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 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.
aistheta] are immediately and properly objects of memory, while
those [viz. noeta] which necessarily involve [but only 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. [The question
arises], because it is clear that we must conceive 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 [sensory stimulation] 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 is absent; if the latter, how is it 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
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 contemplates, and this is what he
perceives. How then does he remember what is not present? One might as
well suppose 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 qua 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] seen the actual Koriskos, contemplates
it as a likeness of Koriskos, and in that case the experience involved
in this contemplation 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
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 happened 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 contemplation of something [viz. the
'mnemonic', whatever it may be] as a likeness, and not as out of
relation.
  As regards the question, therefore, what memory or remembering is,
it has now been shown that it is the state of a presentation, related
as a likeness to that of which it is a 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, i.e. of that faculty whereby we perceive time.


                              CHAPTER 2
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  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 is not the 'recovery' or
'acquisition' of memory; since at the instant when one at first learns
[a fact of science] or experiences [a particular fact of sense], 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 aforesaid state or affection [of the aisthesis or upolepsis]
is implanted in the soul that memory exists, and therefore memory is
not itself implanted concurrently with the continuous 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 knowledge (if one ought to
apply the term 'scientific knowledge' to the [mnemonic] state or
affection; and indeed one may well remember, in the 'incidental'
sense, some of the things [i.e. ta katholou] which are properly
objects of scientific knowledge); but to remember, strictly and
properly speaking, 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 recollection, for
firstly] it is obviously possible, without any present act of
recollection, to remember as a 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 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 things
aforesaid. But, [though as observed above, remembering does not
necessarily imply recollecting], recollecting always implies
remembering, and actualized memory follows [upon the 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 recollecting ought [in its definition] to be
distinguished from these acts; i.e. recollecting must imply in those
who recollect the presence of some spring 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 [invariably],
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 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 we remember them better than
others which we may have been frequently.
  Whenever therefore, we are recollecting, we are experiencing certain
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 kineseis], having started in thought either from
a present intuition or some other, and from something 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 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
pragmata, or events of the primary experience, also a customary
order, and] by the effect of custom the mnemonic movements tend to
succeed one another in a 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
recollection 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-point. When one cannot do
this of himself, but only by external assistance, he no longer
remembers [i.e. 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 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 consequence 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 loci. 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.
                                                        
  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, e.g. if one were to have
in mind the numerical series denoted by the symbols A, B, G, D, E, Z,
I, H, O. For, if he does not remember what he wants at E, then at E he
remembers O; because from E movement in either direction is possible,
to D or to Z. But, if it is not for one of these that he is searching,
he will remember [what he is searching for] when he has come to G 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 G to I or to D. If, then, the mind has not [when
starting from E] moved in an old path [i.e. one in which it moved
first having the objective experience, and that, therefore, in which
un-'ethized' phusis would have it again move], it tends to move to
the more customary; for [the mind having, by chance or otherwise,
missed moving in the 'old' way] Custom now assumes the role of
Nature. Hence the rapidity with which we recollect what we frequently
think about. For as regular sequence of events is in accordance with
nature, so, too, regular sequence is observed in the actualization of
kineseis [in consciousness], and here frequency tends to produce
[the regularity of] nature. And since in the realm of nature
occurrences 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 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 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, 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 purpose 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 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
proportionate mental movement. For there are in the mind the like
figures and movements [i.e. '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 movement in AB, BE, he
constructs in thought [i.e. knows objectively] GD, since AG and GD
bear equal ratios respectively [to AB and BE], [so he who recollects
also proceeds]. Why then does he construct GD rather than ZH? Is it
not because as AG is to AB, so is O to I? These movements therefore
[sc. in AB, BE, and in O:I] he has simultaneously. But if he wishes to
construct to thought ZH, he has in mind BE in like manner as before
[when constructing GD], but now, instead of [the movements of the
ratio] O:I, he has in mind [those of the ratio] K:L; for K:L::ZA:BA.
(See diagram.)þ€arit694.cifþ€
  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
remember unconsciously. For remembering, as we have conceived 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; 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.
Persons are wont to say that they remember [something], but yet do not
know when [it occurred, as happens] whenever they do not know
determinately 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 recollecting. 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 infers 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 strenuous
application of thought, they have been unable to recollect, it [viz. the anamnesis = 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 temperament. 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 themselves 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 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, its formal definition, and the
manner and causes of its performance.
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                               THE END