Lecture 2 — Memory as part of the soul

We have spoken, however, about imagination in the books on the soul, and said that understanding does not exist without an image.

For the same affection occurs in the case of the intellect as in the case of drawing: though using a triangle without determinate quantity we will still draw it quantitatively finite; and likewise even if one who understands something does not understand how big it is, nevertheless something of some size is put before his eyes, even though he understands it not according to how big it is.

Even if nature contained things of infinite size, nevertheless something of determinate size is put before him and he understands it only as being of some size or other.

Hence the reason why it is not possible to understand anything without a continuum nor to understand beings without the notion of time is another argument.

It is necessary, however, to know magnitude and motion, whereby time, too, is known. And the image is an affection of the common sense. Hence clearly knowledge of these belongs to the prime sensitive power. Memory, however, and that which is of the intelligibles, does not exist without an image. Hence it will belong to the intellective part of the soul only by accident, but to the first sensitive by itself.

Hence it also exists in certain other animals and not just in man and in those that partake of opinion and prudence. If, however, it were any of the intellective parts of the soul, it would not exist in many of the animals other than man, perhaps indeed in none of those that are mortal.

As it stands, it does not belong to all, because not all have the sense of time. For, as we have said before, whenever memory acts, it at the same time always senses that it has seen or heard or learned this thing before. The before and the after, however, are in time.

Hence it is clear to which part of the soul memory belongs, because in fact it is the same as that to which imagination belongs,

and there are some things that are memorable by themselves, namely, those of which there is imagination; and others are memorable by accident, namely, whatever do not exist without imagination.

311. We have spoken, however, about imagination (449b30). After the Philosopher shows what memory is, he goes on to show to what part of the soul it belongs. He does two things in this regard.

First, he presents what is needed for explaining what he has set out to do.

Second, he explains the thing he set out to do, where he says it is necessary, however, to know (450a9; [318]).

Concerning the first of these topics he does three things.

First, he sets out his intention.

Second, by using an example, he explains what he has said, where he says for the same affection occurs (450a1; [312]).

Third, he points out a related matter that must be considered elsewhere, where he says hence the reason why (450a7; [314]).

Accordingly, he first brings up what was said in On the Soul (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.3, 429a1–2; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 2, lect. 30, n. 668; see also bk. 2, lect. 4, n. 265; lect. 30, nn. 655–59, 666; bk. 3, lect. 7, n. 792.) about what the imagination is, namely that it is a motion brought about by an activated sense power. It was also said in the same book (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.6, 431a16–17; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 3, lect. 6, n. 772; lect. 7, nn. 791–92.) that it is not possible for a man to understand anything without an image. (We consistently render the Greek term phantasma, which is merely transliterated in the Latin version, as “image”; by way of contrast, in Chapter 3, the Greek introduces the term eikōn, which the Latin translates as imago and we render “likeness.” For a fuller rationale, see our note at 450b20 below. Our rendering “image” follows Aquinas’s strictly consistent employment of the Aristotelian technical term phantasma, which refers to a sort of psychic image existing in the sensitive part of the soul.)

312. Then, when he says for the same affection occurs (450a1), he explains what he has just stated.

For it might seem unreasonable to someone for a man to be unable to understand anything without an image, since an image is a likeness of a bodily thing, whereas understanding is of universals, which are abstracted from particulars. To explain this difficulty he introduces an example, saying that what occurs in the case of the intellect with reference to its needing an image is like what occurs in the drawings of geometrical figures. In the latter a triangle of some determinate quantity is indeed drawn even though in its demonstration geometry does not use any determinate quantity of triangle. Likewise, too, in the case of a man who wants to understand some things, namely, an image of a definite quantity, i.e., of a singular, is set before his eyes; for example, an image of a man two cubits tall might come to mind when one wants to understand man, but the intellect understands man inasmuch as he is man, not inasmuch as he has this quantity.

313. But since the intellect can understand the nature of quantity, he adds that if the things to be understood are, in their own nature, quantities, e.g., line, surface, or number, but are not finite (i.e., determined as singulars), an image of a definite size is nevertheless set before one’s eyes. In this way, an image of a line two feet long comes to mind in one who wants to understand line, but the intellect understands it only in its nature as a quantity and not its being two feet long.

314. Then, when he says hence the reason why (450a7), he shows what will be set aside for another consideration. He says that it is the task of another discussion to identify the cause of a man’s being unable to understand anything apart from the continuum and time.

This happens in fact insofar as man can understand nothing without an image; for an image is necessarily accompanied by the continuum and time, because an image is a likeness of a singular thing existing here and now. The reason why man cannot understand without an image can easily be identified in the case of his first acquisition of intelligible species, which, according to Aristotle’s teaching in the third book of On the Soul, (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.7, 431b12–17; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 3, lect. 6, nn. 765–86 (Leonine ed., pp. 229–34). See also Aristotle, On the Soul 3.8, 432a3–14; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 3, lect. 7, nn. 791–92 (Leonine ed., p. 236, lines 62–96).) are abstracted from images. But it is clear from experience that he who has already acquired intelligible knowledge through an intellectually understood species also cannot actually consider that of which he has his knowledge, unless some image comes to mind. This is why a man with a damaged organ of imagination is kept not only from knowing things for the first time, but also from considering the things he knew before, as is clear in the case of the insane. (Latin: in freneticis. Cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 3, lect. 7, n. 792 (Leonine ed., p. 236, lines 95–96).)

315. Now at this point someone (“Someone”: Avicenna, De anima 5.6 (ed. Van Riet, pp. 146–47, lines 6–15; ed. Rahman, p. 245, line 13 – p. 246, line 2): “Or shall we say that the intelligible forms themselves are things existing by themselves, each one of which is a species or a thing existing in itself, and the intellect sometimes looks at those forms and sometimes turns away, so when it does look at them they become a likeness in it, and when it turns away from them, they do not become a likeness? So the soul will be like a mirror, while are like external things so as sometimes to appear in it and sometimes not to do so. This comes about depending on the relations obtaining between the soul and or the agent principle will keep emanating form after form upon the soul in accordance with the soul’s seeking them out, and when the soul turns away from that principle will the emanation cease? And if that were so, would it not be necessary to be learning from the start all the time?” For a brief appreciation of the place of Avicenna’s psychology in Aquinas’s account, see the conclusion of A. C. Pegis, St. Thomas and the Problem of the Soul in the Thirteenth Century (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1934), pp. 188–202. See also how Aquinas deals with Avicenna’s position in the note below.) might wish to say that the intelligible species do not remain in the human possible intellect except while a man is actually understanding something; but after one ceases (Latin: desinit.) actually to understand, they vanish and the intelligible species cease (The word pereunt, “perish,” appears in the MSS right before cessant, “cease”; Gauthier judges that Aquinas corrected himself but forgot to delete the first word: Aquinas was already well aware of Avicenna, De anima 5.6 (ed. Van Riet, p. 146–47, lines 6–14); he summarized it at the beginning of his career In Sent. 4, d. 50, q. 1, a. 2 as follows: “And when ceases (desinit) to turn to the agent intellect, those forms cease to be in it, just as the visible form ceases to be in the eye when the eye ceases to turn to the thing that is seen.”—Gauthier notes that the species themselves, according to Avicenna, do not utterly “perish,” since the change is wholly on the part of the intellect, which turns away from them; hence he takes Aquinas’s second thought as the right one to follow here.) to be in the intellect, just as light ceases to be in the air in the absence of any illuminating body, (This is Avicenna’s doctrine (cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 3, lect. 2, n. 702 [Leonine edition, p. 209, line 36] and also lect. 7, n. 792 [Leonine edition, p. 236, lines 90–92]).) and hence if the intellect wishes to renew its understanding, it must turn again toward the images in order to acquire the intelligible species.

316. But this expressly contradicts the words of Aristotle in the third book of On the Soul, (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.4, 429b5–7; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 3, lect. 2, nn. 702–4 (Leonine ed., p. 209, lines 32–59): “. . . Avicenna’s opinion . . . about intelligible species is false and anti-Aristotelian. For Avicenna claims that intelligible species are not kept in the possible intellect and do not even exist in it except when one actually understands; according to him, whenever one actually understands, one must turn to a separate agent intelligence whence intelligible species flow into the possible intellect. Against this . . . Aristotle says that the intellect, even when actually specified with actual knowledge, is still an intellect in potency. For, when the intellect actually understands, the intelligible species are in it in a perfectly actual manner, but when it has habitual knowledge, the species are in the intellect somehow between pure act and pure potency. . . . nce an intellect is somehow actualized regarding the singular to which it was in potency, it can understand, but it was in no way in potency in regard to itself, some might believe that, even when actualized, it would not understand itself. So to exclude this possibility, he adds that an actualized intelligence can understand not only other things but ‘can understand itself’ even ‘then’.”) where he says that when the possible intellect becomes each of the intelligible things (which is accomplished through their species) at that point it is able to understand them in act. This position is also repugnant to reason, because the intelligible species are received in the possible intellect unchangeably, as is characteristic of an intellectual principle.

Now the way in which the possible intellect possesses the intelligible species, even when it is not actually understanding anything, is not the same as that in which the sensible species are possessed in the sensitive powers: in them, owing to the composition of the bodily organ, it is one thing to receive an impression, which makes for actual sensing, and another to retain it even when the things are not actually being sensed, as Avicenna objects. (Avicenna, De anima 5.6 (ed. Van Riet, pp. 147–48, lines 16–39; ed. Rahman, p. 246, line 3 – p. 247, line 2): “So we shall say that the last part of the division is true. For we cannot say that this form exists in the soul in perfect actuality nor that it is understood in perfect actuality; for ‘the soul understands the form’ means nothing except ‘the form exists in the soul’. Now it is impossible for the body to be the storehouse of the form; and it is impossible for the essence of the soul to be storehouse of the form, since its becoming the storehouse of the form would be tantamount to that form’s being understood and existing in the essence of the soul along with the consequent act of understanding. But this is not so for the memory and the formative power, because apprehending the form does not belong to the storehouse but only retaining it does. Its apprehension belongs only to some other power. That remembered or ‘beformed’ forms should exist in a thing is not the same as apprehension any more than the existence of sensed forms in a thing would be sensation: that is why bodies in which the forms of the sensibles exist are not characterized by apprehension. Apprehension requires something that can take on that form with an impression appropriate to an apprehensive power. The memory and the formative power, however, can be impressed with forms only inasmuch as they are instruments and have a body that keeps those forms near the bearer of the apprehensive power, which is estimation (wahm), so that it can consider them whenever it wants to in the same way as it keeps the sensible forms near the sense so that it can consider them whenever it wants to. This explanation is applicable to the memory and the formative power but not to the soul, because for an intelligible form to exist in the soul is the same as the soul to apprehend it. We shall also explain in first philosophy that this form does not subsist separately.”)

The possession of the intelligible species comes about rather because of the diverse levels of being of the intelligible forms: either according to pure potency, e.g., in discovering or learning; or according to pure act, as when one is actually understanding something; or else in a manner intermediate between potency and act, as in a habit. (Aristotle, On the Soul 2.1, 412a10–11, 22–23; 2.11, 417a22–30; 3.2, 429b5–10; cf. Physics 8.8, 255a33–b5; Metaphysics 9.5, 1048a30–35.)

Hence the human possible intellect needs an image not only to acquire intelligible species but it also in a way looks at them within the images. This is also what is said in the third book of On the Soul: the intellective power therefore understands the species in the images. (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.7, 431b2.)

317. The reason for this is that activity is proportionate to power and essence. But the intellective power of man does exist in the sensitive part of the soul, as is said in the second book of On the Soul. (“The intellective . . . in the sensitive”: Gauthier notes that Aristotle puts it the other way around at On the Soul 2.3, 414b28–32, according to Aquinas, Disputed Questions on the Soul, q. 2, arg. 8 (Leonine ed., vol. 24.1, lines 57–60): “The Philosopher in On the Soul 2 says that just as the triangle is in the tetragon and the tetragon is in the pentagon, so the nutritive is in the sensitive and the sensitive in the intellective” (Aquinas adds the expression in italics); Disputed Questions on Spiritual Creatures, a. 3 (Leonine ed., vol. 24.2, p. 44, lines 419–23): “Hence too in On the Soul 2 Aristotle says that the vegetative is in the sensitive and the sensitive in the intellective, just as the triangle is in the quadrilateral and the quadrilateral in the pentagon”; Aquinas more fully explains this view of Aristotle in On the Unity of the Intellect, 1, lines 811–44 (Leonine ed., vol. 43, pp. 300–301). Here however Aquinas seems to have had another notion of Aristotle in mind, namely that in human beings the intellect cannot be without the vegetative and the sensitive powers. See Aristotle, On the Soul 2.6, 415a1–14, with Aquinas’s comments. See also: Aristotle, On the Soul 3.4, 429b10–22; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 3, lect. 2, nn. 705–19.) Hence its proper operation is to understand intelligible things in images, just as the activity of the intellect of a separate substance is to understand things known in themselves.

This is why the cause of this must be assigned by the metaphysician, to whom the task of considering the various levels of the intelligences belongs.

318. Then, when he says it is necessary, however (450a9), he shows to what part of the soul the memory belongs.

He does so first by an argument;

second through signs, where he says hence it also exists (450a15; [323]).

Third, he draws the intended conclusion, where he says hence it is clear (450a22; [326]).

Accordingly, he says first that it is necessary that magnitude and the motion by which time too is known should be known by the same part of the soul. For these three follow each other both in division and in being finite and infinite, as is proven in the sixth book of the Physics. (Aristotle, Physics 6.1–2, 232a18–233a21, especially 233a10–21; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Physics, bk. 6, lect. 1–3, nn. 750–76 (Leonine ed., vol. 2, pp. 267–76).)

319. Now magnitude is known by the sense power, since it is one of the common sensibles; (Cf. Aristotle, On Sense and What is Sensed 1.1, 437a8–9; On the Soul 2.6, 418a17–18; 3.1, 425a13–16.) and likewise motion, too, especially local motion, is known inasmuch as the distance of a magnitude (Aristotle, Physics 4.2, 209b6–7.) is known; and time is known inasmuch as a before and an after in motion is known. (Aristotle, Physics 4.11, 219b1–2.) Hence these three can be perceived by the sense power. Now there are two ways in which something is perceived by the sense power. In one way, it can be perceived through the very changing of the sense power effected by the sensible object; both the proper and also the common sensibles are known in this way both by their proper senses as well as by the common sense. In the other way, something is known by a sort of secondary motion that is left over from the first change of the sense power by the sensible object; this movement sometimes remains even after the disappearance of the sensible objects and pertains to the imagination, as is held in On the Soul. (Aristotle, On the Soul 2.3, 428b10–429a2; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 2, lect. 30, nn. 665, 669 (Leonine ed., pp. 197–200).) Moreover, the image that appears through such a secondary change is an affection of the common sense: for it is consequent upon the whole change of the sense power. Such a change begins with the proper senses and ends at the common sense. Hence clearly these three, viz. magnitude, motion, and time, are known through the common sense, since they are grasped in an image.

320. Memory, however—not only the memory of sensibles, as when one remembers that he has sensed something, but also of intelligibles, as when one remembers that he has understood something—does not exist without an image: for after the sensibles are gone, they are not perceived by the sense power unless they exist in an image. There is also no act of understanding without an image, as was held above. (See above, Leonine ed., p. 107, lines 15–17, citing Aristotle, On the Soul 3.6, 431a16–17.) Hence he concludes that memory belongs to the intellective part of the soul by accident, but by itself it belongs to the first sensitive, i.e., the common sense. For it was said above (450a4–6) that a certain determinate size is put before the intellect although the intellect by itself considers the thing absolutely; but it does pertain to the memory to apprehend time with respect to a certain determinateness, namely a distance in the past from this present moment. Hence memory by itself pertains to the preparation of an image, but by accident it pertains to the judgment of the intellect.

321. From what is being said here one might think that imagination and memory are not powers distinct from the common sense but are affections of it.

But Avicenna shows, using the method of reason, (Latin: rationabiliter; cf. Thomas Aquinas, Expositio super librum Boethii De Trinitate, ed. Bruno Decker (Leiden: Brill, 1955; corrected reprint, 1959), q. 6, a. 1, trans. Armand Maurer under the title The Division and Methods of the Sciences (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 4th ed. rev., 1986), pp. 65–66. The new Leonine critical edition of the Super libros Boethii De Trinitate and the De hebdomadibus appeared in 1992.) that they are different powers. (Avicenna, On the Soul 1.5 (ed. Van Riet, pp. 87–88, lines 10–29; ed. Rahman, p. 44, lines 3–11): “Of the interior apprehensive vital powers, the first is fantasy (banṭāsiyā) which is the common sense (al-ḥiss al-mus̲h̲tarika); it is a power situated in the first cavity of the brain, receiving through itself all the forms impressed upon the five senses leading back to it. Then there is the imagination (al-k̲h̲ayâl) and the forming power (al-muṣawwirah), which is also a power situated at the end of the anterior cavity of the brain, a power that retains what the common sense received from the five particular senses and remains in it after the disappearance of the sensible objects. Know that reception (qubûl) belongs to a power other than that by which there is retention (ḥifẓ). Thus, consider this bit of water: it has the power to receive engraving, marking, and, in general, shape; yet it does not have the power to retain it.” Again, Avicenna, On the Soul 4.1 (ed. Van Riet, pp. 5–6, lines 56–72; ed. Rahman, p. 165, lines 6–18): “This power is what is called the common sense and is the center of the senses; from it they branch out and to it they return. It in truth is what does the sensing. But to hold what this power apprehends belongs to the power which is called imagination (k̲h̲ayâl), as well as formative (musawwira) and imaginative (mutak̲h̲ayyila). There may be a conventional distinction between the imagination and the imaginative, and we are among those who draw it. The common sense and the imagination are, as it were, one power and not, so to speak, diversified in subject but rather in form. For receiving is not the same as preserving. For the power that is called the formal and the imagination preserves the form of the sensible object without exerting judgment upon it in any way but only preservation. The common sense and the exterior senses, however, somehow judge or distinguish. For says that this mobile object is black or that this red thing is sour. One does not judge anything of a being through this conserving feature except what exists in it in the sense that it contains a form of this sort.” Corresponding to the exterior sensory judgment there seems also to be a synthesis by the inner sense, according to Avicenna, On the Soul 4.1 (ed. Van Riet, p. 6, lines 73–78; ed. Rahman, p. 165, line 19 – p. 166, line 4): “Then we know with certainty that within our nature we compose some sensible objects with others and that we distinguish some of them from others—not in accordance with the form that we find outside and not with the belief that any of them exists or does not exist. So there must be a power by which we do this, and this is called cogitative (mufakkira) when the intellect uses it and is called imaginative (mutak̲h̲ayyila) when an animal power uses it.” The distinction between a sensed “form” or ṣūrah and a non-sensed “intention” or maᶜnà (which we shall render into English by the word “interest”) is also derived by way of Avicenna, On the Soul 4.1 (ed. Van Riet, pp. 6–7, lines 79–94; ed. Rahman, p. 166, lines 5–16): “Then we may make judgments about the sensibles in terms of interests (plur.: Arabic maᶜāni; Latin intentiones) that we do not sense, either in that their natures are not sensed in any way or in that they are sensible but we do not sense them at the time of judgment. As for the notions that are non-sensible in their very natures, they are things like the enmity and malice and disagreeability that a sheep apprehends in the form of a wolf, and in general the interest (sing.: al-maᶜnà) which scares away from it; and the agreeability that it apprehends in its fellow and in general the interest that leads it to get along with it. These are things that the animal soul apprehends without the sense indicating anything about them. Hence the power through which these are grasped is a distinct power and is called the estimative (al-wahm). As for the sensibles, we see something yellow, for example, and so we judge that it is honey or sweet, even though this is not yet known by the sense. It is in the class of sensibles although the judgment itself is not at all a sensible object; but it does not apprehend it in the present. Nevertheless it is a judgment that perhaps contains an error; it also belongs to that power. Now in man the estimation has proper judgments on the basis of which the soul makes it deny the existence of things that are not imagined or are not inscribed within and which is not willing to believe in. There is no doubt that this power exists in us and is the sovereign chief in the animal, judging not with a division, in the manner of an intellectual judgment, but with an imaginative judgment joined to particularity and the sensible form, and from this most of the animal activities emerge. It is customary to call what is apprehended by the sense a form (Arabic ṣūrah; Latin forma) and to call what is apprehended by the estimation an interest (Arabic maᶜnà; Latin intentio).” Cf. Leonine ed. lines 171–79 and 179–86 with annotations ad loc. There is an analogous contrast between what Avicenna calls “form” and what he calls “intention” in David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1888), Book 1, section 7, p. 20: “. . . to form the idea of an object, and to form an idea simply is the same thing; the reference of the idea to an object being an extraneous denomination, of which in itself it bears no mark or character.” Hume’s term “reference” would seem to answer to Avicenna’s “intention.” For a survey of “grammatical texts of the first four Muslim centuries” attempting to answer the question “what things are maᶜnàs?” see R. M. Frank,“Meanings Are Spoken of in Many Ways: The Earlier Arab Grammarians,” Le Muséon: Revue d’études orientales 94 (1981): 259–319.) For since the sensitive powers are acts of bodily organs, the reception of sensible forms, which belongs to the sense power, and the conservation of those forms, which belongs to the imagination, must pertain to diverse powers, just as in the case of bodily things we see that reception and conservation belong to distinct principles: for wet things are good receivers, while dry and hard things are good conservers. (Cf. above, 2.1 (Leonine ed., p. 104, lines 68–71, with the notes), as well as Avicenna, On the Soul 4.1 (ed. Van Riet, pp. 5–6, lines 56–66): “and this power is what is called the common sense . . . and it is truly what senses. But to retain the things that it apprehends belongs to the power that is called imagination . . . this is because what receives is not what retains.”) Likewise, too, it pertains to a distinct principle to receive a form and to conserve the form received through a sense as well as some meaning (Latin: intentio.) not apprehended through a sense. This meaning or interest is something that the estimative power, even in animals other than man, perceives, but the memorative power retains it; it does not belong to the memorative power to remember a thing absolutely but rather to do so inasmuch as the thing has been apprehended in the past by the intellect. (Avicenna, On the Soul 1.5 (ed. Van Riet, p. 86.93–06; p. 89–90.44–60); 4.1 (p. 6.79–80; p. 7.87–88; p. 8.2–5; p. 9.8–12): “Then we sometime judge sensible things through intentions that we do not sense . . . hence the power by which they are apprehended is another power