On Memory

​Often, however, one is at first unable to recollect, but is able to seek and finds. This occurs when one moves many things, until one moves such a motion as the thing will follow. For remembering is the potential presence of the moving cause; and this is, as has been said, in such a way as to be moved from oneself and from the motions one has. But one must seize a starting point. Wherefore they seem sometimes to recollect from places. And the cause is that they go quickly from one thing to another, for example, from milk to white, from white to air, and from this to fluid, from which one remembered autumn, seeking this season. Indeed, the middle of all things seems to be a starting point in general; for if not before, when one comes to this, one will remember, or no longer from anywhere else, as if one should think of the series A B G D E Z H Th; for if one does not remember at E, one remembered at E Th; for from there it is possible to be moved in both directions, both to D and to E. But if one is not seeking any of these, on coming to G one will remember, if one is seeking H or Z. But if not, on coming to A; and so always. And the cause of remembering sometimes and sometimes not from the same starting point is that it is possible to be moved to several things from the same starting point, as from G to Z or D. If, therefore, one is not moved through an old path, one is moved to the more customary; for habit is already like nature. Wherefore what we often think, we recollect quickly; for as by nature this is after that, so also in activity; and “often” produces nature. But since, just as it happens among things by nature, both contrary to nature and by chance occur, still more does this happen among things by habit, in which nature at least does not belong in the same way; so that one is moved sometimes both there and otherwise, especially when something pulls one away from there to somewhere else. For this reason also, when we need to remember a name, we slip into a similar one indeed, but commit a solecism with respect to that one. Recollection, then, happens in this way. But the most important thing is that one must recognize the time, either by a measure or indefinitely. And let there be something by which one judges the greater and the lesser; and it is reasonable to think of this as with magnitudes; for one thinks of great and distant things not by extending the intellect there, as some say of vision (for indeed one will think of them similarly when they are not present), but by a proportional motion; for there are in it similar shapes and motions. By what, then, will it differ when one thinks of larger things? Is it that one thinks of those, or of the smaller? For all things within are smaller, just as those outside are proportional. And perhaps, just as one can grasp another proportional thing in oneself for the forms, so also for the distances. Just as, therefore, if one is moved along A B B E, one produces A D; for A G and G D are proportional. Why, then, does one produce G D rather than Z H? Is it because as A G is to A B, so Th is to M? These, then, one moves simultaneously.