It (may be objected) that nothing hinders Intelligence from knowing
the changes of other beings, such as, for instance, the periodical
revolutions of the world, without itself undergoing any change. But
then it would have to follow the changes of the moving object, as
it would think first of one thing, and then of another. Besides,
thought is something else than memory, and we must not apply to
self-consciousness the name of memory. Indeed, intelligence does not
busy itself with retaining its thoughts, and with hindering them
from escaping; otherwise it might also fear lest it lose its own
nature ("Being"). For the soul herself, remembering is not the same
as recalling innate notions. When the soul has descended here below,
she may possess these notions without thinking of them, especially if
it be only recently that she entered into the body.[141] The ancient
philosophers seem to have applied the terms memory and reminiscence
to the actualization by which the soul thinks of the entities she
possesses; that (however) is a quite special kind of memory, entirely
independent of time.[142]
DEFINITION OF MEMORY DEPENDS ON WHETHER IT BELONGS TO THE SOUL OR
ORGANISM.
But perhaps our solution seems superficial, and appears to rest on an
insufficient analysis. It might indeed be asked whether memory and
reminiscence, instead of belonging to the rational soul, might not
characterize the lower soul, or the composite of soul and body that
we call the organism? If indeed they belong to the lower soul, from
where does the latter derive them, and how does she possess them?
The same question may further be asked in the case of the organism.
To answer all this, we shall, as said above, have to study our own
interior principle to which memory belongs. If it be the soul that
possesses memory, we shall have to ask what faculty or part thereof
is constituted by memory. If, as has been urged by some, it be the
organism to which memory belongs, and considering the organism as the
sentient principle, how could this faculty operate within it? Besides,
what is it that we should call the organism? Further, is it the same
power that perceives sense-objects, and intelligible entities, or are
there two distinct powers?