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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter XIV.--Concerning the Manner in Which Joy and Sadness May Be Brought Back to the Mind and Memory.

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 without 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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Confessiones

Caput 14

Affectiones quoque animi mei eadem memoria continet non eo modo, quo eas habet ipse animus, cum patitur eas, sed alio multum diverso, sicut sese habet vis memoriae. nam et laetatum me fuisse reminiscor non laetus, et tristitiam meam praeteritam recordor non tristis, et me aliquando timuisse recolo sine timore, et pristinae cupiditatis sine cupiditate sum memor. aliquando et e contrario tristitiam meam transactam laetus reminiscor, et tristis laetitiam. quod mirandum non est de corpore: aliud enim animus, aliud corpus itaque si praeteritum dolorem corporis gaudens memini, non ita mirum est. hic vero, cum animus sit etiam ipsa memoria -- nam et cum mandamus aliquid, ut memoriter habeatur, dicimus: vide, ut illud in animo habeas, et cum obliviscimur, dicimus: non fuit in animo et elapsum est animo, ipsam memoriam vocantes animum -- cum ergo ita sit, quid est hoc, quod cum tristitiam meam praeteritam laetus memini, animus habet laetitiam et memoria tristitiam, laetusque est animus ex eo, quod inest ei laetitia, memoria vero ex eo, quod inest ei tristitia, tristis non est? num forte non pertinet ad animum? quis hoc dixerit? nimirum ergo memoria quasi venter est animi, laetitia vero atque tristitia quasi cibus dulcis et amarus: cum memoriae commendantur, quasi traiecta in ventrem recondi illic possunt, sapere non possunt. ridiculum est haec illis similia putare, nec tamen sunt omni modo dissimilia. Sed ecce de memoria profero, cum dico quattuor esse perturbationes animi, cupiditatem, laetitiam, metum, tristitiam, et quidquid de his disputare potuero dividendo singula per species sui cuiusque generis et difiniendo, ibi invenio quid dicam atque inde profero, nec tamen ulla earum perturbatione perturbor, cum eas reminiscendo commemoro; et antequam recolerentur a me et retractarentur, ibi erant; propterea inde per recordationem potuere depromi. forte ergo sicut de ventre cibus ruminando, sic ista de memoria recordando proferuntur. cur igitur in ore cogitationis non sentitur a disputante, hoc est a reminiscente, laetitiae dulcedo vel amaritudo maestitiae? an in hoc dissimile est, quod non undique simile est? quis enim talia volens loqueretur, si quotiens tristitiam metumve nominamus, totiens maerere vel timere cogeremur? et tamen non ea loqueremur, nisi in memoria nostra non tantum sonos nominum secundum imagines inpressas a sensibus corporis, sed etiam rerum ipsarum notiones inveniremus, quas nulla ianua carnis accepimus, sed eas ipse animus per experientiam passionum suarum sentiens, memoriae commendavit, aut ipsa sibi haec etiam non commendata retinuit.