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.