I can
remember past fears without fear, and former desires without
desire. Again, the contrary happens. Sometimes when I am joyous
I remember my past sadness, and when sad, remember past joy.
This is not to be marveled at as far as the body is
concerned; for the mind is one thing and the body another.[338]
If, therefore, when I am happy, I recall some past bodily pain, it
is not so strange. But even as this memory is experienced, it is
identical with the mind -- as when we tell someone to remember
something we say, "See that you bear this in mind"; and when we
forget a thing, we say, "It did not enter my mind" or "It slipped
my mind." Thus we call memory itself mind.
Since this is so, how does it happen that when I am joyful I
can still remember past sorrow? Thus the mind has joy, and the
memory has sorrow; and the mind is joyful from the joy that is in
it, yet the memory is not sad from the sadness that is in it. Is
it possible that the memory does not belong to the mind? Who will
say so? The memory doubtless is, so to say, the belly of the
mind: and joy and sadness are like sweet and bitter food, which
when they are committed to the memory are, so to say, passed into
the belly where they can be stored but no longer tasted.
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