-   THE  EXAMINED  LIFE   - The Confessions changes focus at this point and becomes more philosophical and theological. Here we begin to hear the self-examination of the Bishop of Hippo - Saint Augustine - and his interpretation of the nature of knowledge and of creation itself. - 

Page Two  - And all these things are preserved distinctly and under general heads, each having entered my memory by its own particular avenue: light and colours and forms of bodies, by the eyes; all sorts of sounds by the ears; all smells by the avenue of the nostrils; all tastes by the mouth; and by the sensation of the whole body, what is hard or soft, hot or cold, smooth or rugged, heavy or light - either external or internal to the body. All these things the great recesses, the hidden and unknown caverns of memory receive and store, to be retrieved and brought forth when needed, each entering by its own gate. Yet the things themselves do not enter, but only the images of the things perceived are there, ready to be recalled in thought. But how these images are formed, who can tell? It is plain, however, which sense brought each one in and stored it up. For even while I dwell in darkness and silence, I can produce colours in my memory if I choose, and I can discern between black and white. Sounds do not break in and alter the image brought in by my eyes which I am reviewing, though they also are there, too, and they immediately appear. And though my voice is still and my throat silent, I can sing as much as I will. Those images of colours do not intrude, even though they are there, when another memory is called for which came in by way of the ears. So it is with other things brought in and stored up by the other senses - I can recall them at my pleasure, Yes, I can tell the fragrance of lilies from violets, though I smell nothing; I prefer honey to sweet wine, smooth surfaces to rough ones - at the time neither tasting nor handling, but only remembering.

These things I do inside myself, in that vast hall of my memory. For present there with me are heaven, earth, sea and whatever I could think on them, in addition to what I have forgotten. There also I meet with myself, and recall myself - what, when and where I did a thing, and what my feelings were when I did it. All that I remember is there, either personal experiences or what I was told by others. Out of the same store I continually combine with the past, fresh images of things experienced, or what I have believed from what I have experienced. From these I can project future actions, events and hopes, and I can reflect on all these again in the present. I say to myself, in that great storehouse of my mind, filled with the images of so many and such great things, "I will do this or that, and this or that will follow." "Oh, would that this or that might be!" "May God prevent this or that!" This is the way I talk to myself, and when I speak, the images of all I speak about are present, out of the same treasury of memory. I could not say anything at all about them if their images were not there.

Great is this power of memory, exceedingly great, O my God: a large and boundless chamber! Who has ever sounded the depths of it? Yet this a power of mine, and belongs to my nature. But I do not myself comprehend all that I am. Therefore the mind is too narrow to contain itself. But where can that part be which it does not itself contain? Is it outside it and not inside? How then does it not comprehend itself? A great wonder arises in me; I am stunned with amazement at this. And men go outside themselves to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the width of the ocean and the circuits of the stars, passing by themselves. They do not wonder at the fact that when I spoke of all these things, I did not see them with my eyes, yet I could not have spoken of them unless I then inwardly saw with my memory the mountains, waves, rivers and stars which I have seen and that ocean which I believe to exist, and with the same vast spaces between them as if I saw them outside myself. Yet I did not actually draw them into myself by seeing them, when I beheld them with my eyes, but only their images. And I know which sense of the body impressed each of them on me.

Yet these are not all the immeasurable capacity of my memory retains. here also is all that I have learned of the liberal sciences and have not yet forgotten - removed as it were to some inner place, which is yet no place. In this case it is not the images which are retained, but rather, the things themselves. For whatever literature, whatever art of debating, however many kinds of questions I know, they exist in my memory as they are - I have not taken in their image and left out the thing itself. It is not as though it had sounded and passed away like a voice retained in the ear, which can be recalled as if it still sounded when it no longer sounded. Nor is it like an odour that evaporates into the air as it passed, affecting the sense of smell, and from it carries an image of itself into the memory which we renew when we recall it. Nor is it like food, which verily has no taste in the belly, but yet is still tasted in some way in the memory; nor as anything which the body feels by touch and which the memory still conceives when removed from us. For those things themselves are not transmitted into the memory, but their images are caught up and stored, with an admirable swiftness, as it were, in wonderful cabinets, and from wonderfully brought forth by the act of remembering.

But now when I hear that there are three kinds of questions - whether a thing is, what it is, of what kind it is - I do indeed hold the images of the sounds which make up these words, and I know that those sounds passed through the air with a noise and then ceased to be, But the questions themselves which are conveyed by these sounds, I never reached with any sense of my body, nor do I ever see them at all except by the mind. Yet I have not laid up their images in my memory, but these very questions themselves. How they entered into me, let them say if they van; for I have gone over all the avenues of my flesh, and cannot find how they entered. For the eyes say, "If those images were coloured, we reported about them." The ears say, "If they made a sound, we gave you knowledge of them." The nostrils say, "If they have any smell, they passed by us." The taste says, "Unless they have a flavour, do not ask me." The touch says, "if it has no size, I did not handle it, and if I did not handle it, I have no account of it."

Whence and how did these things enter my memory? I do not know. For when I learned them, I gave no credit to another man's mind, but recognized them in mine; and approving them as true, I commended them to my mind, laying them up as it were, where I could get at them again whenever I wished. There they were then [in my mind] before I stored them in my memory. Where then, or why, when they were spoken, did I acknowledge them and say, "So it is! It is true," unless they were already in the memory, but so thrown back and buried as it were in deeper recesses, that if the suggestion of another had not drawn them forth, I may have been unable to conceive of them? - Saint Augustine here is very near the Platonic teaching, that learning is remembering. In his Retractions (1,8:2) he gave up this opinion, saying rather that the mind has a natural affinity for the things of the intelligible world. - 

Thus we find that to learn those things whose images do not come to us by way of the senses, but which we know by themselves as they are, without images, is nothing more than taking the things the memory already has - scattered and unarranged. By marking and careful attention we gather them, as it were in that same memory where they lay unknown before scattered and ignored, so that they can readily occur to the mind now familiarized with them. And how many things of this kind does my memory hold which have already been discovered, and as I said, placed as it were handily, which we are said to have learned and come to know? And if I for some short space should cease to call them back to mind, they would again be so buried, and glide back, as it were, into the deeper recesses, that they would have to be drawn out again as if new from the same place. For there is no where else for them to go, but they must be drawn together again that they may be known. That is to say, they must be collected together from their scattering. From this the word to cogitate comes, For cogo [I collect] and agito [I do frequently], facio [I make] and facito [I make frequently]. But the mind has appropriated to itself this word, cogito, so that, not what is collected anywhere, but only what is recollected, that is, brought together in the mind, is properly said to be cogitated or through upon.

The memory also contains innumerable principles and laws of numbers and dimensions, none of which have been impressed upon it by bodily sense, since they have neither colour, sound, taste, smell nor touch. I have heard the sound of the words by which they are signified, but the sounds are other than the things themselves. For the sounds are different in Greek than in Latin, but the things are neither Greek or Latin, nor any other language. I have seen the lines of architects, the very finest, like a spider's thread; but the truths they express are not the images of those lines, which my physical eye saw, The architect knows them without any use whatsoever of a body, by recognizing them within himself. I have perceived, also, with all the senses of my body the numbers of the things which we count, but those numbers themselves by which we count are different. They are not the images of things we count, and therefore they simply are. Let him who does not see these truths laugh at me for saying them, While he derides me, I will pity him.

I hold all these things in my memory, and I remember how I learned them, I remembered, too, having heard many things erroneously offered against the truth of them, and though they are false, yet it is not false to have remembered them. I perceive that it is one thing to distinguish these things and another  to remember that I have often distinguished them when I thought upon them. I remember both that I have often understood these things in the past, and I am storing up in my memory what I now discern and understand about them, so that later on I can recall what I now understand. Therefore I remember that I have remembered, so that if later on I should call to mind that I was once able to remember these things, it will be by the power of memory that I shall recall it.

The same memory contains the feelings of my mind - not in the same way that my mind contains them when it feels them, but in quite a different way, according to a power peculiar to memory. For without rejoicing, I remember that I have rejoiced. Without sorrow, I recollect my past sorrow. And what I once feared, I review without fear; without desire, I call to mind past desire. Sometimes, on the other hand, I remember my past sorrow with joy, and my past joy with sorrow.

This is not to be wondered at as regards the body, for the mind is one thing, the body another. If therefore remember some past pain of the body with joy, it is not so strange. But this very memory itself is mind - foe when we want something remembered, we say "See that you keep this in mind." And when we forget, we say, "It did not come to my mind," or "It slipped my mind," calling the memory itself the mind.

Since this is so, how is it, that when I remember my past sorrow with sorrow with joy, the mind has joy while the memory has sorrow? The mind rejoices over the joyfulness which is in it, while the memory is not sad while retaining the sadness in it, Does the memory perchance not belong to the mind? Who will say so? The memory then is, as it were, the belly of the mind, and joy and sadness are like sweet and bitter food. When these are committed to the memory, they are, as it were, passed into the belly, where they may be stowed but not tasted. It is ridiculous to consider this comparison, but yet they are not totally unalike.

But, consider this. It is out of my memory that I say there are four basic emotions of the mind - Page Two -    

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -