And I come to the fields and spacious palaces of my memory, where
are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into it from things
of all sorts perceived by the senses. There is stored up, whatsoever
besides we think, either by enlarging or diminishing, or any other
way varying those things which the sense hath come to; and whatever
else hath been committed and laid up, which forgetfulness hath not
yet swallowed up and buried. When I enter there, I require what I
will to be brought forth, and something instantly comes; others
must be longer sought after, which are fetched, as it were, out of
some inner receptacle; others rush out in troops, and while one
thing is desired and required, they start forth, as who should say,
"Is it perchance I?" These I drive away with the hand of my heart,
from the face of my remembrance; until what I wish for be unveiled,
and appear in sight, out of its secret place. Other things come
up readily, in unbroken order, as they are called for; those in
front making way for the following; and as they make way, they are
hidden from sight, ready to come when I will. All which takes place
when I repeat a thing by heart.
-- St. Augustine. Confessions Book Ten.
These things do I within, in that vast court of my memory. For there
are present with me, heaven, earth, sea, and whatever I could think on
therein, besides what I have forgotten. There also meet I with myself,
and recall myself, and when, where, and what I have done, and under
what feelings. There be all which I remember, either on my own
experience, or other's credit. Out of the same store do I myself
with the past continually combine fresh and fresh likenesses of things
which I have experienced, or, from what I have experienced, have
believed: and thence again infer future actions, events and hopes, and
all these again I reflect on, as present. "I will do this or that,"
say I to myself, in that great receptacle of my mind, stored with
the images of things so many and so great, "and this or that will
follow." "O that this or that might be!" "God avert this or that!"
So speak I to myself: and when I speak, the images of all I speak of
are present, out of the same treasury of memory; nor would I speak
of any thereof, were the images wanting.
-- St. Augustine. Confessions Book XIII
Great is this force of memory, excessive great, O my God; a large
and boundless chamber! who ever sounded the bottom thereof? yet is
this a power of mine, and belongs unto my nature; nor do I myself
comprehend all that I am. Therefore is the mind too strait to
contain itself. And where should that be, which it containeth not of
itself? Is it without it, and not within? how then doth it not
comprehend itself? A wonderful admiration surprises me, amazement
seizes me upon this. And men go abroad to admire the heights of
mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers,
the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass
themselves by; nor wonder that when I spake of all these things, I did
not see them with mine eyes, yet could not have spoken of them, unless
I then actually saw the mountains, billows, rivers, stars which I
had seen, and that ocean which I believe to be, inwardly in my memory,
and that, with the same vast spaces between, as if I saw them
abroad. Yet did not I by seeing draw them into myself, when with
mine eyes I beheld them; nor are they themselves with me, but their
images only. And I know by what sense of the body each was impressed
upon me.
-- St. Augustine. Confessions Book XIII
Yet not these alone does the unmeasurable capacity of my memory
retain. Here also is all, learnt of the liberal sciences and as yet
unforgotten; removed as it were to some inner place, which is yet no
place: nor are they the images thereof, but the things themselves.
For, what is literature, what the art of disputing, how many kinds
of questions there be, whatsoever of these I know, in such manner
exists in my memory, as that I have not taken in the image, and left
out the thing, or that it should have sounded and passed away like a
voice fixed on the ear by that impress, whereby it might be
recalled, as if it sounded, when it no longer sounded; or as a smell
while it passes and evaporates into air affects the sense of smell,
whence it conveys into the memory an image of itself, which
remembering, we renew, or as meat, which verily in the belly hath
now no taste, and yet in the memory still in a manner tasteth; or as
any thing which the body by touch perceiveth, and which when removed
from us, the memory still conceives. For those things are not
transmitted into the memory, but their images only are with an
admirable swiftness caught up, and stored as it were in wondrous
cabinets, and thence wonderfully by the act of remembering, brought
forth.
-- St. Augustine. Confessions Book XIII
Thence entered I the recesses of my memory, those manifold and
spacious chambers, wonderfully furnished with innumerable stores;
and I considered, and stood aghast...
-- St. Augustine. Confessions Book XIII