The Book of Memory

by Mary Carruthers

  tional habits rather than from anything necessitated by the nature of its object.

  See my further discussion in Chapter 2.

  22. Plato, Theaetetus, 191D–E; cf. 194–195; translated by Cornford (Collected

  Dialogues, 897). Cf. the notes on this passage and on sects. 194–195 by

  McDowell, Theaetetus. See also the discussion of Cornford, Plato’s Theory of

  Knowledge, 21–22 and 124, who particularly notes that non-sensory objects

  like thoughts are also said by Plato to be ‘‘stamped’’ upon (or ‘‘modelled in’’)

  the memory.

  23. Liddell and Scott, s.v. ekmageion.

  24. See the discussion and plate in Roberts and Skeat, Birth of the Codex, 111 and

  Plate I. The tabulae they show measure 9.1 5.7 cm, or about 3.5 2.3 inches.

  Needless to say, one could not get a great deal of fully formed writing onto one

  at one time.

  25. The text is that of H. N. Fowler (LCL). Liddell and Scott, s.v. sZme-, also

  note the word was used to gloss Latin clavis, and with the adjective graue to

  mean ‘‘written characters.’’

  Notes to pp. 26–28

  375

  26. Cicero, De oratore, I I . 86–87. Quotations in this paragraph are all from this

  passage.

  27. Fodor, 191; see also Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby-Horse, 1–11, and Ellis,

  Theory of Literature, esp. 36–45. Richardson’s discussion of the philosophical

  problem is in Mental Imagery, 25–42. An important discussion of the ancient

  meaning of ‘‘representation’’ is McKeon, ‘‘Literary Criticism and the Concept

  of Imitation,’’ especially 155–157 in which McKeon distinguishes, vitally for

  the subject, between ‘‘copy’’ and ‘‘phantasm.’’ More recent and complete is the

  discussion of imitation and representation by Trimpi, Muses of One Mind,

  especially Part Two.

  28. Norman, Learning and Memory, 61.

  29. Commenting on Aristotle’s characterization of the memory ‘‘image’’ in itself,

  Nussbaum, De motu animalium, writes that his calling it both a th¯eor¯ema and

  a phantasma suggests that he thought its ‘‘pictorial’’ nature to be somewhat

  metaphorical, for a theorema ‘‘is most unlikely to be pictorial’’ (250). Thomas

  of Moerbeke translates the Greek text (450b 20) as follows: ‘‘Secundum

  quidem se ipsum, speculamen aut fantasma est, in quantum uero alterius,

  ut ymago et memorabile’’ (Aquinas, Sentencia libri . . . De memoria, cap. III.

  112). Thomas Aquinas comments on this that an ‘‘image’’ can be something

  seen or thought of either in itself (‘‘aliquid in se’’) or as an image of some-

  thing else (‘ fantasma alterius’’). Insofar as it is of some other thing (‘‘alter-

  ius’’) which we have experienced in the past, it is considered as an image

  which leads-to (or discovers, heuristically) something other than itself and a

  starting-point for recollection (‘‘sic consideratur ut ymago in aliud ducens et

  principium memorandi’’; quoted from 115. 184–192). Aristotle himself seems

  to have believed, as did Plato, that the eikones had to be reasonably similar to

  the original, though the limits of this criterion are decidedly unclear when

  Plato can write, in the Timaeus, that time is an eiko¯n of eternity. Sorabji, 4,

  note 1, has a valuable discussion of the philosophical uses of the Greek word

  eiko¯n.

  30. In this context, it may be helpful to consider Augustine’s remark that, when

  we speak of things past or of anything not immediately in our presence, ‘‘we

  do not speak of the things themselves, but of images impressed from them on

  the mind and committed to memory.’’ He claims here that our knowledge of

  anything, except when we recognize an object immediately before us, is not

  direct but is only of our memory of it. What we ‘‘know,’’ therefore, is a

  mnemonic likeness (as signs are functional reminders), not the object itself.

  Remarks like this one should, I think, be considered in discussions of

  Augustine’s much-vexed ‘‘Neoplatonism,’’ because they do qualify what

  might appear from other parts of his work to be an unqualified belief in the

  Neoplatonic ‘‘realism’’ of memory and all signs. This comment is in De

  magistro; see Matthews, ‘‘Augustine on Speaking from Memory.’’

  31. Among the basic ancient discussions are Aristotle, Rhetoric, and Cicero’s

  Orator, a work better known to the later Middle Ages than any of Plato’s

  several dialogues which comment on the matter. The changing ancient

  376

  Notes to pp. 28–29

  perception of the relationship of rhetoric and philosophy forms a continuing

  theme in Trimpi’s fine study, Muses of One Mind. Bruns, in a discussion of

  Descartes (Inventions, 63–64 esp.), observes that the modern era is character-

  istically epistemological, ‘‘wherein everything is thought to be determined or

  made intelligible by the workings of the [individual] mind’’; ordinary speech is

  too error-prone and equivocal, too conditioned by the history of its usage to be

  of use to knowledge, and instead one seeks ‘‘a mathematical or systematized

  speech,’’ which is pure precisely because history, time, and occasion have been

  purged from it. Such language would also be purged of memory, and recol-

  lection rendered useless in favor of a ‘‘purified’’ method.

  32. For the development of this definition, see TLL, [s.v.] adaequatio.

  33. Aristotle makes this clear especially in Nicomachean Ethics, 2. 6; the ‘‘mean’’

  is not an arithmetically or statisically determined quantity but rather the

  principles of healthful diet or of virtue adapted to individual physiology and

  circumstances: ‘ By the mean which is relative to ourselves I denote that

  which is neither too much nor too little, and this is not one and the same for

  everybody . . . an expert in any field avoids excess and deficiency, and seeks

  and chooses the mean – that is, not the objective mean but the mean

  relatively to ourselves’’ (trans. Wheelwright). The passage is cogently dis-

  cussed by Trimpi, esp. 267–270. See also Tracy on the physiological foun-

  dations of ancient ethical ideas about the ‘‘mean’ and ‘‘decorum.’’ Unlike

  Trimpi, Tracy does not discuss their applicability to works of art and to the

  use of words.

  34. See TLL and the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, s.v.

  adaequatio, adaequate, and, for classical usage, Lewis and Short, s.v. adaequo,

  adaeque, aequatio, aequalis, and the form from which these concepts seem

  ultimately to derive, aequus, and the adverb aeque. The earliest surviving

  occurrence of adaequatio seems to be in Tertullian. The classical Latin adverb

  adaeque, ‘‘in like manner,’’ glosses the Greek prepositional phrase ‘‘pros to

  ison,’’ ‘‘towards the same.’’ The development of the word in medieval philos-

  ophy towards an idea of greater and greater formal (logical) identity can

  perhaps be seen in the following citations given under adaequatio in TLL:

  (1) Grosseteste: ‘‘veritas propositionis est adaequatio sermonis et rei’’; (2) Duns

  Scotus: ‘‘omnis propria racio intelligendi aliquid objectum per adaequatio-

  nem re
presentat illud objectum’’; (3) Wyclif: ‘‘relatio adaequationis signi ad

  suum signatum, que relacio est ‘ipsum esse verum,’ cum sit adaequatio vel

  correspondencia ejus ad suum significatum.’’ Wyclif uses the adverb to mean

  ‘‘fully’’ in this citation: ‘‘sic enim Deus uult, intelligit vel intendit rem esse, sic

  res est adaequate.’’ One should note that relationship and thus ‘‘adjustment’’ is

  basic in all these uses, even when it is God who does the ‘‘adjusting’’ (God’s

  ‘‘adjustment’’ results in perfection or completion of being, however). Even a

  perfectly adjusted ‘‘relationship’’ is not, it seems to me, the same thing as

  ‘‘objectivity’’ in knowledge, for the latter seeks to exclude from consideration

  anything but the-thing-in-itself, whereas the former always acknowledges the

  role of the knower in knowing the object.

  Notes to pp. 29–32

  377

  35. The action of recollection is characterized as interruptus and diversificatus:

  Albertus Magnus, Commentary on Aristotle’s De memoria, tract. II, cap. 1 (ed.

  Borgnet, vol. 9, 107–108).

  36. This discussion owes a great deal to Markus, ‘‘Augustine on Signs,’’ and Bruns,

  Inventions. See also Markus, ‘‘Signs, Communication, and Communities,’’

  which clarifies his earlier interpretation of what Augustine said in De doctrina

  christiana.

  37. See especially Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society; Colish, The Mirror of

  Language; Markus, ‘‘Augustine on Signs’’; Kenny, ‘‘Intellect and

  Imagination in Aquinas’’ and Aquinas on Mind.

  38. Kenny, ‘‘Intellect and Imagination in Aquinas.’’ See also Markus, esp. 76–82.

  39. Augustine, De trinitate; see Markus, ‘‘Augustine on Signs.’ Augustine’s use

  of ‘‘word’’ to refer both to the words humans use and to truth interiorized

  through grace, Christ the Word, has created a lot of confusion. Discussing

  the idea of the verbum qui intus lucet, Markus has noted that Augustine never

  did explain how this was related to human language. His analysis amounts,

  in fact, to ‘‘two theories of language,’’ for the ‘‘inner word’’ is not a sign, as

  speech is, but is ‘ essentially meaningful, and presents to the mind what it

  means . . . [It is] the place of the mind’s encounter with the object of its

  experience’’ (‘‘res quam videndo intus dicimus,’ ‘ the thing which by seeing

  inwardly we speak’’); 78, quoting from De trinitate 14, 24. See also Markus,

  ‘ Signs, Communication, and Communities.’’ The inner verbum in

  Augustine seems to have more in common with the res spoken of in classical

  rhetoric and thus in rhetorical discussions of memoria; decorum and adae-

  quatio are concepts which apply to it, as to all res when spoken in human

  discourse. This Augustinian ‘‘inner word’’ should probably be thought of as

  having a phantom capital letter: the Verbum of St. John’s gospel; see Nash,

  The Light of the Mind.

  40. Bruns, Inventions, is very good on this matter, esp. 17–43. It will be clear that

  Neoplatonism, especially in its most rationalist variety, differs markedly from

  this ‘‘practical’’ analysis. For a clear and most interesting account of how

  Neoplatonic rationalism exacerbated the ‘‘quarrel’’ between philosophy and

  rhetoric, see Trimpi, 200–240, and Bundy, Imagination, esp. 131–145.

  41. Nussbaum, De motu animalium, esp. 241–255.

  42. Regula Benedicti, Prol.

  43. Aristotle, De memoria, 452b; see Sorabji’s discussion, Aristotle on Memory,

  18–21. The passage was commented on extensively in the scholastic Middle

  Ages. Augustine discusses also how the memory perceives time-lapses by a

  measuring mechanism located in memory-images (see especially his De musica,

  V I . 7–8; cf. Conf., X I , 27). On the sharp differences between Aristotle and

  Augustine concerning the existence of time as a phenomenon also external to

  memory, see Janet Coleman, ‘‘Late Scholastic Memoria et Reminiscentia,’’ esp.

  23–30 and her Ancient and Medieval Memories.

  44. Cicero, De oratore, I I , 86. 354: ‘‘atque ut locis pro cera, simulacris pro litteris

  uteremur.’’

  378

  Notes to pp. 32–33

  45. Translated and discussed by Yates, Art of Memory, 29–31; another English

  translation is that of Sprague. On the date of the work see Burnyeat, ‘‘Dissoi

  logoi,’’ who underscores the lack of precise evidence for placing it. The text is

  in H. Diels and W. Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, #90, vol. II, 416

  (section 9 of Dialexeis). H. Blum discusses the possible mnemonic usefulness

  of Roman architectural design and ornamentation, 3–12.

  46. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, I , 13. 24–26: ‘‘Litterae autem id est figurae

  primo uocum indices sunt, deinde rerum quas animae per oculorum fenestras

  opponunt, et frequenter absentium dicta sine uoce loquuntur.’’ This defini-

  tion is an adaptation of Isidore of Seville, Etym. I, 3, 1, but Isidore says letters

  are themselves ‘‘indices rerum’’; Clanchy suggests the change is due to John of

  Salisbury’s care in the nominalist–realist controversy (202, note 1).

  47. Cicero, De oratore, I I , 87. 360: ‘‘tanquam litteris in cera sic se aiebat imag-

  inibus in eis locis quos haberet quae meminisse vellet perscribere.’’

  48. Ad Her. I I I , 17: ‘‘item qui mnemonica didicerunt possunt quod audierunt in

  locis conlocare et ex his memoriter pronuntiare. Nam loci cerae aut chartae

  simillimi sunt, imagines litteris, dispositio et conlocatio imaginum scripturae,

  pronuntiatio lectioni.’’ See Caplan’s note (208–209 in LCL edition), and his

  essay, ‘‘Memoria,’’ which contains a good list of occurences of this metaphor

  in both classical and later writing. Renaissance use of the metaphor is dis-

  cussed in Camden, ‘‘Memory: The Warder of the Brain.’’ On the Ad Her. and

  other ancient systems, see Yates, The Art of Memory, and, more recently,

  Small, Waxed Tablets of the Mind.

  49. Martianus Capella, De nuptiis, trans. Stahl and Johnson, vol. 2, 204. Ed. Dick,

  p. 269, lines 537–538 (V, 538): ‘‘sic quod memoriae mandatur, in locis tanquam

  in cera paginaque signatur.’’ For an additional possible meaning of the phrase

  in pagina, see Chapter 3 below.

  50. ‘‘Misericordia et veritas te non deserant; circumda eas gutteri tuo, et describe

  in tabulis cordis tui.’’ Cf. Jeremiah 17:1: ‘‘The sin of Judah is written with a pen

  of iron, and with the point of a diamond; it is graven upon the table of their

  heart, and upon the horns of your altars.’’

  51. On the close conceptual relationship of the ‘‘topics’’ of rhetoric, logic, and

  mnemonics in antiquity, see G. R. Evans, ‘‘Two Aspects of Memoria,’’ and

  Sorabji, Aristotle on Memory, 26–34. The matter of memorial organization

  and design has received a great deal of attention from cognitive psychologists

  recently, particularly those involved in ‘‘cognitive science.’’ Norman, Learning

  and Memory, is concerned with ‘‘the design of a memory,’’ and notes that

  artificial memory systems (computers) are designed according to a ‘‘locus
/>
  system,’’ in which one first stores and then retrieves information by an

  addressing (heuristic) system. Bower (‘‘A Selective Review,’’ 1972), who has

  done some work on human retrieval schemes, notes that ‘‘pegword’ systems

  are ‘‘powerful retrieval systems,’’ the pegword acting as a ‘‘hook’’ for informa-

  tion. He has also noted success with various others of the schemes in use since

  antiquity – architectural locations, alphabetical orders, and hierarchical sys-

  tems, in which a subset of categories is organized into a supercategory, and

  Notes to pp. 33–36

  379

  those into still others; this is an efficient way to retrieve large numbers of items.

  On the success of such grouping or chunking systems, see also G. A. Miller,

  ‘‘Information and Memory.’’ See also Feigenbaum, ‘‘Information Processing,’’

  and Reitman, ‘‘What Does It Take to Remember?’’ Versions of all these

  heuristics were also part of ancient and medieval memory design. What

  I find most interesting about the similarities between ancient and modern

  memory design is not that the ancients anticipated modern artificial memories

  (for they did not) but that human beings, faced with the problem of designing

  a memory (whether their own or a machine’s), should repeat many of the same

  solutions.

  52. Cicero, Topica, I , 5: ‘‘Therefore, since I had no books with me, I wrote up what

  I could remember on the voyage and sent it to you.’’ This convention

  remained an authorial trope even in the late Middle Ages, suggesting its

  continued relevance to compositional technique; see the discussion of

  William of Ockham’s Dialogus in Chapter 5 below. On the composition of

  Cicero’s work, see Reinhardt’s edition.

  53. Cicero, Topica, I , 7–8: ‘‘Ut igitur earum rerum quae absconditae sunt dem-

  onstrato et notato loco facilis inventio est, sic, cum pervestigare argumentum

  aliquod volumus, locos nosse debemus; sic enim appellatae ab Aristotele sunt

  eae quasi sedes, e quibus argumenta promuntur. Itaque licet definire locum

  esse argumenti sedem, argumentum autem rationum quae rei dubiae faciat

  fidem.’’ The Topica, along with a work by Boethius of similar title, was

  influential in the teaching of dialectic during most of the Middle Ages. See