A. Things Needing to be Noted Beforehand about Memory Properly Speaking

1. There Exists in us an Act of Knowing the Past as Past.

83. Now, presupposed to these two questions [n.82] is something certain common to both, namely that there is in us some act of knowing the past as past.

84. The fact is plain, because otherwise we would lack the first part of prudence, which according to Tully [On Invention 2 n.53] is memory of the past.

85. Second it would follow that the virtuous could not rightly know that they are to be justly rewarded, nor the vicious that they are to be justly punished, for reward and punishment are so carried out because of past good or bad; and, ex hypothesi, neither the former nor the latter have knowledge of the past within themselves; therefore justice neither in reward nor in punishment would be known. This conclusion destroys all political life [cf. Ethics 8.12.1160a31-36], because it destroys all agreement as to the just imposition of reward or punishment according to law.

86. Again, the past has more of truth than the future (the proof of which is that the truth of the future is contingent, of the past necessary - according to Ethics 6.2.1139b10-11: “God is deprived of this alone: to make undone what has been done”). But we can have some knowledge of the future as future (as we experience), otherwise we could not have foresight for ourselves and procure what is suitable for our life and avoid what is unsuitable. Therefore, much more can we have some knowledge, and so memory, of the past as it is past.

87. Taking this supposition as certain (that there can exist in us an act of knowing the ‘past as past’ as object of knowing), I add that the act called ‘remembering’ is not directly of just any past, but only of an act that was present in the one supposed to be remembering and that was in him a human act (to exclude acts of the vegetative power and casual acts or acts generally imperceptible); for I only remember the fact that you sat down because I remember that I saw or knew that you sat down. Hence, although I know I was born or that the world was created, yet I do not remember the one or the other, because I do not know any act of mine in the past being about the one or the other.

88. From this meaning of the term, then, ‘memory’ is knowledge of some past act, and of it insofar as it is past, by the very one who remembers.

89. And certain things follow from the fact that memory is said to be of the past, and some follow from the fact that it is memory of this sort of past object [sc. a past object as past].

2. Four Certainties Consequent to Memory, or to Knowledge of a Past Act

90. Now from the fact that memory is of the past, four things follow that are certain.

The first of these is this, that the remembering power acts after passage of time, otherwise it would not be of the past as past, and this is what the Philosopher says in On Memory 1.449b27-28. The fact that memory acts after passage of time must be understood per se, so that the act of remembering per se follows the remembered thing; and the Philosopher’s words are: “all memory happens after passage of time.”

91. The second is that the remembering power perceives the flow of time between the instant or time when the object remembered existed and the instant of present perception.

92. The third is that the object of memory, when it is the object of memory, is not in itself present, because then there would be no memory of it as past.

93. The fourth is that since the object must in some way be present to the act of memory, and it cannot be present in itself, it must be present through its species, and then the remembering power will be a power of conserving the species, and this in the sense of the total power required for memory. For whether there are two powers, one of which conserves the species and the other remembers, or a single one that performs both acts, I care not; at least there is required for remembering the conserving of the species of the object that can be remembered.

3. Three Certainties Consequent to Knowledge of this Sort of Past Act

94. Now from the idea of ‘this special object’, namely the past act of the very one remembering, three things follow that are certain:

The first is that memory will be of a double object: one as remote or ultimate object, namely the thing about which the one remembering at some point performed a human act; and the next as proximate object, namely the human and past act tending toward that other object.

95. The second thing is that, since the act of remembering must possess the species [of the object] (and by this meaning the whole complete species required for remembering), the species could not be impressed by the object when the object does not exist or is not present; but the proximate object is the past human act; therefore, while this act existed the necessary species was being impressed. Therefore, since the species of the past human act could not be impressed on any power save the power of which this act was the object, it follows that the act of knowing the past is the object of the remembering power.

96. The third is that no one can have a memory save of his own act, and this a human act, because only through the act as proximate object known is its object as remote object known - and consequently there cannot be memory of an act in another of the same idea as the act there is memory of in oneself.