It is
ridiculous to consider this an analogy; yet they are not utterly
unlike.
22. But look, it is from my memory that I produce it when I
say that there are four basic emotions of the mind: desire, joy,
fear, sadness. Whatever kind of analysis I may be able to make of
these, by dividing each into its particular species, and by
defining it, I still find what to say in my memory and it is from
my memory that I draw it out. Yet I am not moved by any of these
emotions when I call them to mind by remembering them. Moreover,
before I recalled them and thought about them, they were there in
the memory; and this is how they could be brought forth in
remembrance. Perhaps, therefore, just as food is brought up out
of the belly by rumination, so also these things are drawn up out
of the memory by recall. But why, then, does not the man who is
thinking about the emotions, and is thus recalling them, feel in
the mouth of his reflection the sweetness of joy or the bitterness
of sadness? Is the comparison unlike in this because it is not
complete at every point? For who would willingly speak on these
subjects, if as often as we used the term sadness or fear, we
should thereby be compelled to be sad or fearful? And yet we
could never speak of them if we did not find them in our memories,
not merely as the sounds of the names, as their images are
impressed on it by the physical senses, but also the notions of
the things themselves -- which we did not receive by any gate of
the flesh, but which the mind itself recognizes by the experience
of its own passions, and has entrusted to the memory; or else
which the memory itself has retained without their being entrusted
to it.
Pages:
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372