{"id":"01KJR8Q6EN4BRBFKSMRB9F4ADW","cid":"bafkreieasfox4ihxku6cr72pxkvihhllk6enpjawknexbzpdj54g6fv6la","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":371128,"char_start":363133,"chunk_index":51,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1999,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"bodies by the eyes; by the ears all sorts of sounds; all smells by the\r\navenue of the nostrils; all tastes by the mouth; and by the sensation of\r\nthe whole body, what is hard or soft; hot or cold; or rugged; heavy or\r\nlight; either outwardly or inwardly to the body. All these doth that\r\ngreat harbour of the memory receive in her numberless secret and\r\ninexpressible windings, to be forthcoming, and brought out at need; each\r\nentering in by his own gate, and there laid up. Nor yet do the things\r\nthemselves enter in; only the images of the things perceived are there\r\nin readiness, for thought to recall. Which images, how they are formed,\r\nwho can tell, though it doth plainly appear by which sense each hath\r\nbeen brought in and stored up? For even while I dwell in darkness and\r\nsilence, in my memory I can produce colours, if I will, and discern\r\nbetwixt black and white, and what others I will: nor yet do sounds break\r\nin and disturb the image drawn in by my eyes, which I am reviewing,\r\nthough they also are there, lying dormant, and laid up, as it were,\r\napart. For these too I call for, and forthwith they appear. And though\r\nmy tongue be still, and my throat mute, so can I sing as much as I will;\r\nnor do those images of colours, which notwithstanding be there, intrude\r\nthemselves and interrupt, when another store is called for, which\r\nflowed in by the ears. So the other things, piled in and up by the other\r\nsenses, I recall at my pleasure. Yea, I discern the breath of lilies\r\nfrom violets, though smelling nothing; and I prefer honey to sweet wine,\r\nsmooth before rugged, at the time neither tasting nor handling, but\r\nremembering only.\r\n\r\nThese things do I within, in that vast court of my memory. For there\r\nare present with me, heaven, earth, sea, and whatever I could think on\r\ntherein, besides what I have forgotten. There also meet I with myself,\r\nand recall myself, and when, where, and what I have done, and under what\r\nfeelings. There be all which I remember, either on my own experience,\r\nor other's credit. Out of the same store do I myself with the past\r\ncontinually combine fresh and fresh likenesses of things which I have\r\nexperienced, or, from what I have experienced, have believed: and thence\r\nagain infer future actions, events and hopes, and all these again I\r\nreflect on, as present. \"I will do this or that,\" say I to myself, in\r\nthat great receptacle of my mind, stored with the images of things so\r\nmany and so great, \"and this or that will follow.\" \"O that this or that\r\nmight be!\" \"God avert this or that!\" So speak I to myself: and when\r\nI speak, the images of all I speak of are present, out of the same\r\ntreasury of memory; nor would I speak of any thereof, were the images\r\nwanting.\r\n\r\nGreat is this force of memory, excessive great, O my God; a large and\r\nboundless chamber! who ever sounded the bottom thereof? yet is this a\r\npower of mine, and belongs unto my nature; nor do I myself comprehend\r\nall that I am. Therefore is the mind too strait to contain itself. And\r\nwhere should that be, which it containeth not of itself? Is it without\r\nit, and not within? how then doth it not comprehend itself? A wonderful\r\nadmiration surprises me, amazement seizes me upon this. And men go\r\nabroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the\r\nsea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the\r\ncircuits of the stars, and pass themselves by; nor wonder that when I\r\nspake of all these things, I did not see them with mine eyes, yet could\r\nnot have spoken of them, unless I then actually saw the mountains,\r\nbillows, rivers, stars which I had seen, and that ocean which I believe\r\nto be, inwardly in my memory, and that, with the same vast spaces\r\nbetween, as if I saw them abroad. Yet did not I by seeing draw them into\r\nmyself, when with mine eyes I beheld them; nor are they themselves with\r\nme, but their images only. And I know by what sense of the body each was\r\nimpressed upon me.\r\n\r\nYet not these alone does the unmeasurable capacity of my memory retain.\r\nHere also is all, learnt of the liberal sciences and as yet unforgotten;\r\nremoved as it were to some inner place, which is yet no place: nor\r\nare they the images thereof, but the things themselves. For, what is\r\nliterature, what the art of disputing, how many kinds of questions there\r\nbe, whatsoever of these I know, in such manner exists in my memory, as\r\nthat I have not taken in the image, and left out the thing, or that it\r\nshould have sounded and passed away like a voice fixed on the ear by\r\nthat impress, whereby it might be recalled, as if it sounded, when it\r\nno longer sounded; or as a smell while it passes and evaporates into air\r\naffects the sense of smell, whence it conveys into the memory an image\r\nof itself, which remembering, we renew, or as meat, which verily in\r\nthe belly hath now no taste, and yet in the memory still in a manner\r\ntasteth; or as any thing which the body by touch perceiveth, and which\r\nwhen removed from us, the memory still conceives. For those things\r\nare not transmitted into the memory, but their images only are with\r\nan admirable swiftness caught up, and stored as it were in wondrous\r\ncabinets, and thence wonderfully by the act of remembering, brought\r\nforth.\r\n\r\nBut now when I hear that there be three kinds of questions, \"Whether the\r\nthing be? what it is? of what kind it is?\" I do indeed hold the images\r\nof the sounds of which those words be composed, and that those sounds,\r\nwith a noise passed through the air, and now are not. But the things\r\nthemselves which are signified by those sounds, I never reached with any\r\nsense of my body, nor ever discerned them otherwise than in my mind; yet\r\nin my memory have I laid up not their images, but themselves. Which how\r\nthey entered into me, let them say if they can; for I have gone over all\r\nthe avenues of my flesh, but cannot find by which they entered. For the\r\neyes say, \"If those images were coloured, we reported of them.\" The ears\r\nsay, \"If they sound, we gave knowledge of them.\" The nostrils say, \"If\r\nthey smell, they passed by us.\" The taste says, \"Unless they have a\r\nsavour, ask me not.\" The touch says, \"If it have not size, I handled\r\nit not; if I handled it not, I gave no notice of it.\" Whence and how\r\nentered these things into my memory? I know not how. For when I learned\r\nthem, I gave not credit to another man's mind, but recognised them in\r\nmine; and approving them for true, I commended them to it, laying them\r\nup as it were, whence I might bring them forth when I willed. In my\r\nheart then they were, even before I learned them, but in my memory\r\nthey were not. Where then? or wherefore, when they were spoken, did I\r\nacknowledge them, and said, \"So is it, it is true,\" unless that they\r\nwere already in the memory, but so thrown back and buried as it were in\r\ndeeper recesses, that had not the suggestion of another drawn them forth\r\nI had perchance been unable to conceive of them?\r\n\r\nWherefore we find, that to learn these things whereof we imbibe not the\r\nimages by our senses, but perceive within by themselves, without images,\r\nas they are, is nothing else, but by conception, to receive, and by\r\nmarking to take heed that those things which the memory did before\r\ncontain at random and unarranged, be laid up at hand as it were in that\r\nsame memory where before they lay unknown, scattered and neglected, and\r\nso readily occur to the mind familiarised to them. And how many things\r\nof this kind does my memory bear which have been already found out, and\r\nas I said, placed as it were at hand, which we are said to have learned\r\nand come to know which were I for some short space of time to cease to\r\ncall to mind, they are again so buried, and glide back, as it were, into\r\nthe deeper recesses, that they must again, as if new, be thought out\r\nthence, for other abode they have none: but they must be drawn together\r\nagain, that they may be known; that is to say, they must as it were be\r\ncollected together from their "},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJR8NK5DAD726FMQ6JCHGZ5R","peer_label":"confessions","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJR8M0JHPZXCPKJ34HTYXSWW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJR8RFMM5VH589N8HRFJ5K6W","peer_label":"memory","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"cognitive_faculty","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RNJBHF28NTCYHTRB4EMK","peer_label":"senses","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biological_system","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RNQCBZ7NV67RS8CAQFWP","peer_label":"images of things perceived","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"mental_construct","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RNV8X8YPBE82PH1K6VZK","peer_label":"liberal sciences","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"field_of_knowledge","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RNS3JYHSPY4QP9EB1A7M","peer_label":"mind","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"cognitive_faculty","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RNT9Q1ZP2Z24E0TF27G0","peer_label":"abstract concepts","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"mental_construct","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RNPBTPRCBJYAXDP9T4JW","peer_label":"nature of the individual","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"philosophical_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RP6VE2635A83GKEKFKDF","peer_label":"conception","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"cognitive_process","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPDA7P62RPERXPD4JHW0","peer_label":"marking cognitive process","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"cognitive_process","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPFPCRQCSF3M8DRE1MEK","peer_label":"heart metaphorical","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"metaphorical_location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPFKVNWTJ2ZAQ57WFGJ4","peer_label":"deeper recesses of memory","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"memory_structure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:16.472Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T21:54:24.853Z","ts":"2026-03-02T21:55:17.370Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}