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CHAPTER 3 450A25–451A17 450a25 One might perhaps wonder why it is that when the affection is present and the thing is absent, what is not present is remembered. 450a27 For it is clear that one must understand some such to have been made by the senses within the soul and in the part of the body having it as a sort of picture, the having of which we say is memory; for the motion that has been made impresses, as it were, a figure of the sensible thing, like those who impress seals with their signet rings. 450a32 Hence, too, for those who are in great motion because of an affection or because of age, memory does not come into being, as motion and a signet-seal falling into flowing water. For others it does not come into being owing to their being cold, like the old parts of buildings, and the impression does not take because of the hardness of the recipient of the affection. For this reason, the extremely young and the extremely old are deficient in memory; for the young are in flux owing to their growth and the old owing to their deterioration. Similarly, again, neither the excessively quick nor the excessively slow seem to have memories. For the quick are moister than they ought to be, and the slow are harder. Thus, in the case of those who are too quick, the image does not remain in the soul; whereas it never touches the others. 450b11 But if such is the case with respect to memory, does one remember the affection or the thing from which it was generated? 450b13 For if we remember the affection, we could remember nothing of the things that are absent. 450b14 If, on the other hand, we remember that absent thing, how is it that while sensing this affection we remember what we are not sensing, which is absent ? 450b15 Also, if it is similar in the way that a figure or picture is in us, why would there be memory of another thing and not rather of this very impression? For the one acting by memory sees this affection and senses this affection. 450b18 How then does he remember what is not present? For he would be able both to see and to hear what is not present. 196 450b20 Or is it the case that this happens and occurs? For just as an animal inscribed on a tablet is both an animal and also a likeness, and one and the same thing is both, although the being is not the same for both, it is possible to consider it both as an animal and as a likeness. So too one must take the image that exists in us to be both itself something existing in its own right and also as an image of another. In its own right it is an object of speculation or an image, but inasmuch as it is of another, it exists as a likeness and an object that can be remembered. Hence, too, when the motion of that thing acts, there is a corresponding two-fold result. On the one hand, with regard to the motion taken in its own right, the soul will have sensed it in such a way that something intelligible or an image would seem to be present to it. On the other hand, insofar as it is of another and exists as in a picture, it considers it as a likeness, and he who does not see Coriscus considers it as Coriscus’s likeness; here it is another affection of this speculation. When one considers what has been drawn as an animal, then, on the one hand, in the soul this picture becomes an intelligible object only, and, on the other hand, as there, because it is a likeness, it becomes a memorable object.1 451a2 For this reason, when such motions are engendered in our soul by what we have previously sensed, we sometimes do not know whether this happens because of having sensed it; and we sometimes are in doubt whether there is memory or not. Understanding and recollecting sometimes happen since we have heard or seen something before; but this comes about when the one who is looking as though at it is changed and considers it as of the other. Sometimes, however , even the contrary comes into being, as occurs in the case of Antipheron of Oreita and others affected by...

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