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forgetting was a familiar phenomenon, indeed a necessary aspect of creat-
ing memories, but the solution for ensuring a measure of accuracy for one’s
semantic memories lay in frequent practice and testing oneself (XI. ii. 34).
The greater challenge was to secure a rich recollection of material through
one’s inventory schemes.
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Recollection as investigation
The first part of Aristotle’s De memoria defines the nature of the memorial
image and how such images are stamped upon the soul, like a signet ring in
wax. The second part of the treatise deals with the process of recollection. For
Aristotle, recollection is the active, intellectual process, distinct from the
passive, receiving nature of memory. Sorabji (p. 35) suggests that Aristotle
thought of it as distinct from memory in part because the Greek verb for ‘ to
recollect’ is passive, ‘ to be reminded of,’ and so the recollector must become
the conscious agent, who associates ideas with one another, ‘‘one thing
putting you in mind of something else.’ (In this psychology, spontaneous
recollection, though recognized, is not valued; it is too risky and irrational.)
When we recollect ‘‘starting in thought from a present incident, we
follow the trail in order, beginning from something similar, or contrary, or
closely connected.’’79 The important thing is to have a starting-point
(arche´), and to have the things to be remembered set in an order that can
readily be searched: ‘‘whatever has some order, as things in mathematics do,
is easily remembered.’’80 This is what remembering from places (apo topon)
also affords, for ‘‘people go quickly from one thing to another, e.g. from
milk to white, from white to air, and from this to fluid, from which one
remembers autumn, the season one is seeking.’’ The ‘‘places’’ Aristotle
appears to be talking about in this passage are instances of individual visual
or verbal associations. But another system of ‘‘places’’ discussed at greater
length in De memoria is more consciously systematic.
Sometimes it is best, Aristotle says, in recollecting a series of things, to
begin at a medial position because then one can remember either of the
two things to each side of it. Evidently, as Sorabji comments, Aristotle
is describing a mnemonic technique ‘‘done through some system of
images.’’81 The system Sorabji reconstructs is quite specific and elegant,
in the mathematical sense of that word. Images are ‘‘placed’’ in threes, each
triad containing (perhaps as its middle term) a numerical symbol (a similar
technique is recommended in Rhetorica ad Herennium). The images are
scanned when we need to recollect, but associating them in triads marked
by an individuating device such as a number allows one to scan more
quickly, by being able to skip over several sets until one arrives at a suitable
starting-place; it also allows one to ‘‘visit the images that are next door on
either side’’ (‘‘neighboring,’’ Sorabji’s translation of suneggus), instead of
going through a whole series one after another each time. Undoubtedly
such a procedure would be useful in remembering a composition of one’s
own (which is the task most ancient writers on rhetoric address, as do their
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modern commentators) but it is equally useful as a technique for recalling
the work of others, a summarized treatise, for example, or a set of ‘‘com-
mon places’’ (koinoi topoi) which one had read and stored in one’s memory
library and which one wished to refer to in composing one’s own work.
Aristotle highly recommended the systematic cultivation of memory to his
students in dialectic. According to Diogenes Laertius, he wrote a book on
mnemonics, and he refers several times (notably in De anima, 427b) to a
system of memory training, such as the familiar memorizing of places
(topoi). In the Topics, he says he wants students to memorize arguments,
definitions, and the topoi of argument as defined in Topics II–VII; further-
more the topoi should be memorized by number so they can be quickly
scanned during debate. 82
It is the spatial, somatic nature of memory-images that allows for secure
recollective associations to be formed, according to a variety of consciously
applied techniques, training, and diligent practice. Recollection is like
reasoning: Thomas Aquinas says that human being not only have memory
as animals do, as a spontaneous remembrance of things past, but they also
have it in a particularly human way, as reminiscence, ‘‘a quasi-syllogistic
search [quasi syllogistice inquirendo] among memories of things past in their
individuality.’’83 But because it is also a physiological process, recollection
is subject to training and habituation in the manner of all physical activity.
The most powerful associational connections are formed by habit, de
consuetudine, rather than by logic, de necessitate. Logical reconstruction is
universal to all human beings in all situations: six times seven is always
forty-two, and seven times seven is seven more, or forty-nine. But, while
‘‘white’’ may remind me of ‘‘milk,’’ it may remind you of ‘‘snow’’ and
someone else of ‘‘lilies,’’ and thus lead all three of us in different, unrelated
associative chains, none of which is inherently (de necessitate) truer or better
than another. Such chains are individually habitual, unlike six times seven.
All ancient mnemonic advice takes this fact into account by counselling
that any learned technique must be adapted to individual preferences and
quirks. One cannot use a ‘‘canned’’ system, nor will every system work
equally well for everyone. 84 The ability to recollect is natural to everyone,
but the procedure itself is formed by habitus, training, and practice.
Aristotle demonstrates the associational nature of memory by observing
that one sometimes can recollect something in one way and sometimes not.
Sometimes, if we want to remember C, we can get to it via B, but some-
times B doesn’t work, and we need to remember D in order to set up the
‘‘chain’’ that gets us to C. ‘‘The reason why one sometimes remembers and
sometimes not, starting from the same position, is that it is possible to
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move to more than one point from the same starting point’’ (452a 24), for
example from ‘‘white’’ to ‘‘milk’’ or ‘‘lilies.’’ A ‘‘chain of succession’’ is set up
in recollection, ‘‘for the impulses follow each other by custom, one after
another’’ (451b 22). ‘‘By custom’’ (Sorabji’s ‘‘by habit’’) translates the Greek
‘‘gar ethei,’’ literally ‘‘by repetition.’’85
Thomas Aquinas and the other scholastics elaborated Aristotle’s observa-
tions on the associational, ‘ habitual,’ nature of recollection. Commenting
on Augustine’s discussion of the trinitarian nature of the human soul
(memory, intellect, and will), Thomas Aquinas says that Augu
stine did not
think of them as distinct powers but ‘ by memory he understands the soul’s
habit of retention; by intelligence, the act of intellect; and by will, the act of
the will.’ Memory is a proclivity or disposition (habitus) of the soul rather
than a power or activity itself. ‘ As Augustine proves, we may be said to
understand, will, and to love certain things, both when we actually consider
them, and when we do not think of them. When they are not under our
actual consideration, they are objects of our memory only, which, in his
opinion, is nothing else than a habitual retention of knowledge and love.’ 86
The habit is a mediator between a power and its object, for ‘‘every power
which may be variously directed to act, needs a habit whereby it is well
disposed to its act.’’87 All virtues and vices are habits, good or bad (see II–I,
Q. 55). Defining memory as habitus makes it the key linking term between
knowledge and action, conceiving of good and doing it. Memory is an
essential treasure house for both the intellect and virtuous action.
Memory and the habits of virtue
In Aquinas’s theology the influence of Cicero is apparent in his discussion
of the four cardinal virtues, 88 whose names and attributes themselves are
taken from ‘‘Tullius’s First and Second Rhetoric’’ (i.e. De inventione and
Ad Herennium) though reference is also always made to Wisdom 8:7: ‘‘for
[wisdom] teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude,
which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in life.’’89
Prudence, the first of them, is also called by Cicero sapientia, a word he
used to translate the Greek sophia of his sources.90 Prudence, says the
Ad Herennium, ‘‘is intelligence capable, by a certain judicious method, of
distinguishing good and bad; likewise the knowledge of an art [scientia
cuiusdam artificie] is called Wisdom; and again, a well-furnished memory
and experience in diverse matters [rerum multarum memoria et usus con-
plurium negotiorum] is termed Wisdom.’’91 Cicero himself defines pru-
dence as:
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the knowledge of what is good, what is bad and what is neither good nor bad. Its
parts are memory, intelligence, and foresight. Memory is the faculty by which the
mind recalls what has happened. Intelligence is the faculty by which it ascertains
what is. Foresight is the faculty by which it is seen that something is going to occur
before it occurs. 92
As he adapts these texts in his own thought, Thomas Aquinas addresses
the three basic meanings of prudence given in Ad Herennium. Classical
rhetoric had defined as one aspect of prudence knowing the procedures and
intricacies of an art, or what we now might call craft ‘‘know-how.’’ In his
general discussion of the nature of virtue, Thomas considers the question of
whether art (artifice) can be considered as relevant to speculative knowl-
edge or only to mechanical knowledge. He responds that even purely
intellectual activities require art; for the construction of a sound syllogism,
or of an appropriate style, or the work of measuring or numbering all
involve something of artfulness, of craft. Art is here defined as knowing
how to make something well. 93 All craft is acquired through habit (repe-
tition), but it is an intellectual or ‘‘speculative’’ habit, not a moral one:
Since, therefore, habits of the speculative intellect do not perfect the appetitive part,
nor prompt it in any way, but affect only the intellective part directly, they may
indeed be called virtues inasmuch as they make us capable of a good activity . . . yet
they are not called virtues . . . as though they ensured the right use of a power or
habit. Because he possesses a habit of a theoretic science, a man is not set thereby to
make good use of it . . . That he makes use of it comes from a movement of his will.
Consequently a virtue which perfects the will, as charity or justice [or prudence],
ensures the right use of these speculative habits [such as any art].’’94
Next, Thomas Aquinas distinguishes ‘‘know-how’’ from the ethical
nature of prudence, thus departing from, or rather refining, as we shall
see, this part of the classical description in order to emphasize and isolate
clearly the essentially ethical character of prudence. As art is knowing how
to make things well, prudence is knowing how to do well: ‘‘prudence stands
in the same relation to . . . human acts, which lie in the effective application
of powers and habits, as art does to external productions.’’95 While the
definition of prudence is closely associated with that of art, in itself
prudence is a moral virtue, channeling the will and appetites, not perfect-
ing intellectual activities, although like all virtues it is under the control of
reason. Prudence is
a virtue of the utmost necessity for human life. To live well means acting well. In
order to perform an act well, it is not merely what a man does that matters, but also
how he does it, namely, that he acts from right choice and not merely from
impulse or passion . . . Man is directed indeed to his due end by a virtue which
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perfects the soul in the appetitive part, the object of which is a good and an end.
For a man to be rightly adapted to what fits his due end, however, he needs a habit
in his reason; because counsel and choice, which are about things ordained to
an end, are acts of reason. Consequently, an intellectual virtue is needed in his
reason to complement it and make it well adjusted to these things. This virtue
is prudence. And this, in consequence, is necessary for a good life . . . Art is
necessary, not that the artist may lead a good life, but so that he may produce a
good and lasting work of art. Prudence is necessary, not merely that a man may
become good, but so that he may lead a good life.96
Prudence involves both reason and will, an ‘‘intellectual virtue’’ which also
directs and ‘‘perfects’ the emotional, desiring will. It requires knowledge but
it acts to shape up our ethical life so that we may live well, and not merely be
good, in the way that a carving or a building can simply ‘‘be good.’’
Prudence as sapientia, ‘‘wisdom,’’ comprises the suitable use of all knowl-
edge, practical and speculative – including, let it be noted here, the making
of poems. It thus includes dialectic, rhetoric, and physics, or knowledge
arrived at by arguing from probable premises, knowledge arrived at by
persuading on the basis of conjectured truth, and knowledge arrived at
through demonstration.97 This classification of all human knowledge as a
part of prudence is also found in later medieval writers, such as Brunetto
Latini, who in his Treśor states that prudence (‘‘sapience’’) contains all sense
and all teaching, and it also knows all times (‘‘tens’’). Echoing De inven-
tione, although he says his immediate source is Seneca, Brunetto gives the
definition of prudence we have already noted: ‘‘c’est le tens ale´ par mem-
oire, de quoi Seneque dis
t, ki ne pense noient des choses aleés a sa vie
perdue; et du tens present par cognoissance; et du tens a venir por
porveance.’’98 Prudence comprehends not only all human knowledge but
also temporality. The definition of it given in De inventione makes this
clear: its parts are temporally related, memory being of what is past;
intelligence of what is; foresight of what is to come.
The temporal nature of prudence is stressed by Thomas Aquinas when
he comes to defining its exact nature; his first topic under the parts of
prudence is whether memory is one of them. He concludes that it is, for:
Tullius [De invent. ii.53] places memory among the parts of prudence . . . Prudence
regards contingent matters of action, as stated above [II–II, Q. 47, art. 5]. Now in
such like matters a man can be directed . . . by those [things] which occur in the
majority of cases . . . But we need experience to discover what is true in the
majority of cases: wherefore the Philosopher says [Nic. Ethics ii.1] that ‘‘intellectual
virtue is engendered and fostered by experience and time.’’ Now experience is the
result of many memories as stated in Metaphysics i.1, and therefore prudence
requires the memory of many things. Hence memory is a part of prudence.99
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By memory, Thomas clearly means here not just the natural power of the
sensitive soul described by Aristotle but trained memory, the memory
which is a treasury of many memories.
Thomas’s meaning is made apparent when one contrasts his quotation
of these words from the Metaphysics with that of his teacher, Albertus
Magnus. Albertus, citing the same Metaphysics passage in De bono, Q. II,
a.1, writes that the power of experience is perfected by ‘‘multae enim
memoriae eiusdem rei’’ – many memories of the same thing – which is
actually what Aristotle himself wrote. 100 When Thomas Aquinas, however,
cites the same passage, he writes that experience results ‘‘ex pluribus
memoriis,’’ from several different memories. The memorial experience
that founds prudence is not iterative but concatenative, ‘‘plural’’ in the
sense of the motto of the United States, those many memories contained in
the varied quantity of his sources. E. K. Rand has written eloquently of