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Confessiones

Caput 15

Sed utrum per imagines an non, quis facile dixerit? nomino quippe lapidem, nomino solem, cum res ipsae non adsunt sensibus meis; in memoria sane mea praesto sunt imagines earum. nomino dolorem corporis, nec mihi adest, dum nihil dolet; nisi tamen adesset imago eius in memoria mea, nescirem, quid dicerem nec eum in disputando a voluptate discernerem. nomino salutem corporis, cum salvus sum corpore; adest mihi res ipsa; verum tamen nisi et imago eius esset in memoria mea, nullo modo recordarer, quid huius nominis significaret sonus; nec aegrotantes agnoscerent salute nominata, quid esset dictum, nisi eadem imago vi memoriae teneretur, quamvis ipsa res abesset a corpore. nomino numeros, quibus numeramus; en assunt in memoria mea non imagines eorum, sed ipsi. nomino imaginem solis, et haec adest in memoria mea; neque enim imaginem imaginis eius, sed ipsam recolo: ipsa mihi reminiscenti praesto est. nomino memoriam et agnosco quod nomino. et ubi agnosco nisi in ipsa memoria? num et ipsa per imaginem suam adest ac non per se ipsam?

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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter XV.--In Memory There are Also Images of Things Which are Absent.

23. But whether by images or no, who can well affirm? For I name a stone, I name the sun, and the things themselves are not present to my senses, but their images are near to my memory. I name some pain of the body, yet it is not present when there is no pain; yet if its image were not in my memory, I should be ignorant what to say concerning it, nor in arguing be able to distinguish it from pleasure. I name bodily health when sound in body; the thing itself is indeed present with me, but unless its image also were in my memory, I could by no means call to mind what the sound of this name signified. Nor would sick people know, when health was named, what was said, unless the same image were retained by the power of memory, although the thing itself were absent from the body. I name numbers whereby we enumerate; and not their images, but they themselves are in my memory. I name the image of the sun, and this, too, is in my memory. For I do not recall the image of that image, but itself, for the image itself is present when I remember it. I name memory, and I know what I name. But where do I know it, except in the memory itself? Is it also present to itself by its image, and not by itself?