Aristotle
384-322 B.C.E. - Wrote in Greek
On Memory and Reminiscence
Written 350 B.C.E
Translated by J. I. Beare
On Memory and Reminiscence
By Aristotle
Part 1
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 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.
Part 2
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 pralmata, 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 kinesis (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 (spacial) 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.)
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 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.
THE END
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