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 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.