Now indeed, in that other trinity, more inward than the one that is in sensible things and in the senses, but nevertheless conceived from it—when now the gaze of the mind is formed not from the body by the sense of the body, but from memory, once the likeness of the body which we perceived outwardly has become fixed in the memory itself—we call that likeness which is in the memory the parent, as it were, of that which arises in the imagination of the one thinking. For it was in the memory even before it was thought of by us, just as the body was in its place even before it was perceived so that a vision might arise. But when it is thought of, from that likeness which the memory holds there is expressed in the gaze of the one thinking, and by recollecting there is formed that likeness which is, as it were, the offspring of that which the memory holds.
But neither is that a true parent, nor is this a true offspring. For the gaze of the mind which is formed from memory, when by recollecting we think of something, does not proceed from that likeness which we remember having seen, since we could not remember these things unless we had seen them; but the gaze of the mind which is formed by recollecting existed even before we saw the body which we remember—how much more before we committed it to memory. Therefore, although the form which arises in the gaze of the one recollecting arises from that which is in the memory, yet the gaze itself does not exist from that source, but existed before it. It follows, then, that if that is not a true parent, neither is this a true offspring.
But both that quasi-parent and this quasi-offspring intimate something whereby things more inward and more true may be seen with greater practice and greater certainty. It is now clearly more difficult to discern whether the will which couples the vision to the memory is not the parent or offspring of one of them; and this difficulty of distinction is caused by the parity and equality of the same nature and substance. For it cannot be done here as it was outwardly, where the formed sense was easily distinguished from the sensible body, and the will from both, on account of the diversity of nature which resides in all three with respect to one another, of which we have treated sufficiently above.
For although this trinity, about which we now inquire, was introduced into the soul from without, it is nevertheless carried on within, and there is nothing of it beyond the nature of the soul itself. In what manner, then, can it be demonstrated that the will is neither the parent nor the offspring, as it were—neither of the corporeal likeness which is contained in the memory, nor of that which is expressed from it when we recollect—when in the act of thinking it so couples both that they appear singularly as one, and cannot be distinguished except by reason? And this must first be seen: that there can be no will of recollecting unless we hold, in the innermost chambers of the memory, either the whole or some part of the thing we wish to recollect.
For that which we have wholly and in every part forgotten, no will of recollecting arises for it, since whatever we wish to recall we have already recalled to be, or to have been, in our memory. For example, if I wish to recall what I dined on yesterday, either I have already recalled that I dined, or, if not even this yet, I have certainly recalled something about that very time—if nothing else, at least yesterday itself, and that part of it in which one is accustomed to dine, and what dining is. For if I had recalled nothing of the sort, I could in no way recall what I dined on yesterday.
Hence it can be understood that the will of recollecting proceeds indeed from those things which are contained in the memory, together with those things which are expressed from it by perceiving through recollection—that is, from the coupling of some thing which we have recalled and of the vision which has arisen from it in the gaze of the one thinking when we recalled. That very will which couples both requires also something else which is, as it were, near and contiguous to the one recollecting. There are, then, as many trinities of this kind as there are recollections, since there is none of them in which these three are not present: that which is stored away in the memory even before it is thought of, that which arises in thought when it is perceived, and the will joining both and completing something as one out of both and itself as a third.
Or is it rather recognized in this way, that there is a certain single trinity in this kind—so that we may speak generally of some one thing, namely whatever of corporeal likenesses lies hidden in the memory, and again of some one thing, namely the general vision of the mind recollecting and thinking of such things, to the coupling of which two the third, the coupling will, is joined, so that this whole is some single thing out of a certain three? But since the gaze of the mind cannot behold in one view all the things that the memory holds at once, the trinities of thoughts alternate in turn, yielding and succeeding one another; and thus that trinity becomes innumerably manifold, yet not infinite, provided the number of things stored in the memory is not exceeded.
For from the time each one began to perceive bodies by whatever bodily sense, even if he could add those things which he has forgotten, there would assuredly be a fixed and determined number, though innumerable. For we call innumerable not only things that are infinite, but also those which are finite in such a way that they exceed the capacity of the one counting. But from this it can be observed somewhat more plainly that one thing is what the memory holds stored away, and another is what is expressed from it in the thought of the one recollecting—although, when the coupling of both takes place, it appears to be one and the same. For we cannot remember likenesses of bodies except as many as we perceived, and of such magnitude as we perceived, and as we perceived them (for the mind drinks them into the memory from the sense of the body);
yet those visions of the ones thinking, though from these things which are in the memory, are nevertheless multiplied and varied innumerably and wholly infinitely. For I remember one sun, because I saw one, since it is one; but if I wish, I think of two or three, or as many as I wish, yet from that same memory by which I remember one is formed the gaze of the one thinking of many. And I remember only as much as I saw; for if I remember it greater or smaller than I saw, I no longer remember what I saw, and therefore do not remember it. But because I do remember, I remember only as much as I saw. Yet I think of it greater or smaller according to my will. And I remember it as I saw it, but I think of it running as I will, and standing where I will, and coming from where I will and to where I will.
It is even easy for me to think of a square when I remember a round thing, and of any color, though I have never seen a green sun and therefore do not remember it—and as with the sun, so with the rest. But these forms of things, since they are corporeal and sensible, the mind indeed errs when it supposes them to exist outside in the manner in which it thinks of them within—either when they have already perished outside and are still retained in the memory, or when even what we remember is formed otherwise, not by the fidelity of recollecting but by the variety of thinking. And yet very often we believe even those who narrate true things which they themselves have perceived by their senses. When we think of these things in the very hearing, while they are being narrated, the gaze does not seem to be turned back to the memory so that the visions of the ones thinking may arise;
for we think of them not while we ourselves are recollecting, but while another is narrating. And that trinity does not seem to be completed here, which arises when the likeness lying hidden in the memory and the vision of the one recollecting are coupled by the will as a third. For it is not what lay hidden in my memory, but what I hear, that I think of when something is narrated to me. I do not mean the very voices of the one speaking, lest anyone suppose that I have gone off into that trinity which takes place outwardly in sensible things and in the senses; rather, I think of those likenesses of bodies which the narrator signifies by words and sounds, which indeed I think of not by remembering but by hearing. Yet if we consider more diligently, not even then is the measure of the memory exceeded.
For I could not even understand the narrator if I were then hearing for the first time the things he says, even if woven together, unless I had generally remembered each thing singly. For whoever narrates to me, say, some mountain stripped of forest and clothed with olive trees, narrates to one who remembers the likenesses of mountains and forests and olive trees. If I had forgotten these, I should not at all know what he was saying, and therefore could not think of that narration. So it comes about that everyone who thinks of corporeal things—whether he himself fashions something, or hears, or reads someone narrating the past or foretelling the future—has recourse to his own memory and there finds the limit and measure of all the forms which, in thinking, he beholds.
For no one can at all think of a color which he has never seen, nor a figure of a body, nor a sound which he has never heard, nor a flavor which he has never tasted, nor an odor which he has never smelled, nor any touch of a body which he has never felt. And if no one thinks of anything corporeal except what he has perceived, because no one remembers anything corporeal except what he has perceived, then as in bodies there is a measure of perceiving, so in the memory there is a measure of thinking. For the sense receives the form from that body which we perceive, and the memory from the sense, and the gaze of the one thinking from the memory. Moreover, the will, just as it joins the sense to the body, so joins the memory to the sense, and the gaze of the one thinking to the memory.
But that which reconciles and joins these things also disjoins and separates them—that is, the will. But by a movement of the body it separates the sense of the body from the bodies to be perceived, so that we may not perceive something, or may cease to perceive—as when we turn away or close our eyes from what we do not wish to see; so the ears from sounds, so the nostrils from odors. So too, either by closing the mouth or by spitting something out of the mouth, we turn away from flavors. In touch also, either we withdraw the body so as not to touch what we do not wish, or, if we were already touching it, we cast it off or repel it. Thus by a movement of the body the will acts so that the sense of the body may not be coupled to sensible things. And it does this as far as it can.
For when in this action, on account of the condition of servile mortality, it suffers difficulty, torment ensues, so that nothing is left to the will but endurance. But the will turns the memory away from the sense when, intent on something else, it does not allow it to cling to things present. This is easy to notice when, often, someone speaking in our presence—while we are thinking of something else—seems to us not to have been heard. Yet this is false; for we did hear, but we did not remember, since the voices, slipping away one after another through the sense of the ears, were let go by the will's assent turned aside—the assent by which they are wont to be fixed in the memory. More truly, therefore, when something of this kind happens, we should say 'We did not remember' than
'We did not hear' is more accurate. For it happens even to those reading—and very often to me—that when a page or a letter has been read through, I do not know what I have read, and I go over it again. For, with the assent of the will intent on something else, the memory was not applied to the sense of the body in the way that the sense itself was applied to the letters. So too those walking, with the will intent on something else, do not know by what route they passed. For if they had not seen, they would not have walked, or would have walked with greater attention by groping—especially if they were going through unknown places; but because they walked easily, they certainly did see. Yet because the memory was not joined to that sense in the same way the sense of the eyes ranged over the places wherever they were going, they could in no way remember even the most recent thing they saw.
Now further, to wish to turn the gaze of the mind away from that which is in the memory is nothing other than not to think of it from there. In this distribution, then, when we begin from the form of the body and arrive at the form which arises in the beholding of the one thinking, four forms are found, as it were successively born one from another—the second from the first, the third from the second, the fourth from the third. For from the form of the body which is perceived arises that which comes to be in the sense of the one perceiving, and from this that which comes to be in the memory, and from this that which comes to be in the gaze of the one thinking. Wherefore the will thrice couples the parent, as it were, with the offspring:
first the form of the body with that which it begets in the sense of the body; and this again with that which arises from it in the memory; and this too, thirdly, with that which is brought forth from it in the beholding of the one thinking. But the middle coupling, which is the second, though it is nearer, is not so like the first as to the third. For there are two visions, one of the one perceiving, the other of the one thinking. And in order that the vision of the one thinking may be possible, there arises in the memory, from the vision of the one perceiving, something like it, to which the gaze of the mind in thinking may so turn itself, just as the gaze of the eyes turns itself to the body in perceiving. For this reason I wished to commend two trinities in this kind: one when the vision of the one perceiving is formed from the body, another when the vision of the one thinking is formed from the memory.
But the middle one I did not wish to commend, because there it is not customary to speak of a vision when the form which arises in the sense of the one perceiving is committed to the memory. Everywhere, however, the will does not appear except as the coupler, as it were, of parent and offspring. And therefore, from wherever it proceeds, it can be called neither parent nor offspring.
But now, if we do not remember except what we have perceived, nor think except what we remember, why do we very often think false things, since the things we have perceived we surely do not falsely remember—unless because that will, which I have already taken care to demonstrate, as far as I could, to be the joiner and separator of things of this kind, leads the gaze of the one thinking, which is to be formed, through the things stored in the memory as it pleases, and, in order to think of things we do not remember, impels it to take from the things we do remember something from here, something from there? These, coming together into one vision, make something which is therefore called false because it either does not exist outside in the nature of corporeal things, or does not seem to be expressed from the memory, since we remember having perceived nothing of the kind. For who has seen a black swan?
And therefore no one remembers one. Yet who cannot think of one? For it is easy to suffuse that figure which we have come to know by seeing with the black color which nonetheless we have seen in other bodies; and because we have perceived both, we remember both. Nor do I remember a four-footed bird, because I have not seen one; but I very easily behold such a phantasm while I attach to some winged form, such as I have seen, two other feet, such as I have likewise seen. Wherefore, while we think joined together things which we remember as perceived singly, we seem to think not what we remember, though we are doing it under the governance of the memory, from which we take all the things which we compose in manifold and varied ways according to our will.
For not even the magnitudes of bodies which we have never seen do we think of without the aid of the memory. For as great a space as our gaze is wont to occupy across the magnitude of the world, to that extent we extend whatever masses of bodies when we think of them as very great. And reason indeed proceeds into things yet ampler, but the imagination does not follow. Reason follows even when it reports the infinity of number as well, which no vision of the one thinking of corporeal things grasps. The same reason teaches that even the most minute little bodies can be divided infinitely; yet when we have come to those thinnesses or minutenesses which we remember having seen, we can no longer behold slighter and more minute phantasms, although reason does not cease to pursue and divide.
Thus we think of no corporeal things except either those we remember or those made from the things we remember. But because things impressed on the memory singly can be thought of numerously, it appears that measure pertains to the memory, but number to the vision—since, although the multiplicity of such visions is innumerable, yet for each single thing an intransgressible limit is prescribed in the memory. Measure, therefore, appears in the memory, and number in the visions, just as in the visible bodies themselves there is a certain measure to which the sense of seeing is most numerously adapted, and from one visible thing the sight of many perceivers is formed—so that even one person, on account of the number of two eyes, very often sees one thing with a doubled appearance, as we taught above.
In these things, then, from which visions are expressed, there is a certain measure; but in the visions themselves there is number. But the will, which joins and orders these things and couples them by a certain unity, resting its appetite for perceiving or thinking only in those things from which visions are formed, is like weight. Wherefore I would set forth beforehand these three—measure, number, weight—as to be observed in all other things as well. But for now, in the meantime, I have demonstrated, in whatever way and by whatever means I was able, that the will, the coupler of the visible thing and the vision as of parent and offspring, whether in perceiving or in thinking, can be called neither parent nor offspring.
Hence the time admonishes us to seek this same trinity in the inner man, and to strive inward from that animal and carnal man—of whom I have spoken so long, and who is called the outer man—where we hope to be able to find, according to the trinity, the image of God, with the help of Him who has arranged all things in measure and number and weight, as the things themselves indicate and as Holy Scripture also testifies.