[I 1] No one doubts that, just as the inner man is endowed with understanding, so the outer man is endowed with bodily sense. Let us therefore strive, if we can, to trace out in this outer man too some vestige, however faint, of the Trinity—not because he too is in the same way the image of God. For the apostolic sentence is manifest, which declares that the inner man is renewed unto the knowledge of God according to the image of Him who created him, while in another place it also says: And though our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner is renewed day by day. In this outer man, then, who is being corrupted, let us seek as best we can some figure of the Trinity—and if not one more expressive, yet perhaps one easier to discern.
For not without reason is this too called man, save that there is in him some likeness of the inner man; and by that very order of our condition, whereby we have been made mortal and carnal, we more easily and, as it were, more familiarly deal with visible than with intelligible things—since the former are without, the latter within; and we perceive the former by bodily sense, the latter we understand by the mind; and we ourselves, being souls, are not sensible, that is, are not bodies, but intelligible, since we are life;
nevertheless, as I said, so great a habituation to bodies has arisen, and our attention in this marvelous manner so slips outward and casts itself abroad, that when it has been withdrawn from the uncertainty of bodies—so that in the spirit it might be fixed by a far more certain and stable knowledge—it flees back to those bodily things and there seeks rest in the very source from which it drew its weakness. To this sickness of ours accommodation must be made, so that whenever we try to distinguish inner spiritual things more suitably and to introduce them more easily, we may take examples of likeness from outward corporeal things. The outer man, then, endowed with bodily sense, perceives bodies; and this sense, as is easily observed, is fivefold: in seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.
But it is both too much and unnecessary to interrogate all these five senses concerning what we seek; for what one of them reports to us holds good in the rest as well. Let us therefore use, above all, the testimony of the eyes; for that bodily sense most excels and is nearer, by reason of its kind's diversity, to the vision of the mind. [II 2] When, then, we see some body, these three things—which is very easy—are to be considered and distinguished. First, the thing itself which we see, whether a stone or some flame or anything else that can be seen by the eyes, which of course could exist even before it was seen. Then the vision, which was not there before we perceived the thing presented to the sense.
Third, that which, in the thing that is seen, holds the sense of the eyes fixed upon it so long as it is seen—that is, the mind's attention. In these three, then, there is not only a manifest distinction but also a distinct nature. For first, that visible body is of a nature far other than the sense of the eyes, upon whose meeting with it vision comes to be; and vision itself—what does it appear to be but the sense informed by that thing which is perceived? Yet although, the visible thing being removed, there is no such vision, nor can any such vision at all exist unless there be a body that can be seen, still in no way is the body of the same substance—by which the sense of the eyes is formed when that body is seen—as the very form which is imprinted from it upon the sense, which is called vision.
For the body is separable in its own nature from the act of seeing; but the sense, which was already in the living creature even before it saw what it could see, when it should meet with something visible—or the vision which arises in the sense from the visible body once it is joined to it and is seen—the sense, then, or the vision, that is, the sense not informed from without or the sense informed from without, belongs to a nature of the living creature altogether other than is that body which we perceive by seeing, by which the sense is formed not so as to be sense but so as to be vision. For unless the sense existed in us even before the object of a sensible thing, we should not differ from the blind while we see nothing, whether in darkness or with eyes closed.
But in this we differ: that there is in us, even when we do not see, that by which we are able to see, which is called sense; but in them it is not present, nor for any other reason are they called blind than that they lack it. Likewise, that attention of the mind which holds the sense fixed upon the thing we see and joins the two together, differs in nature not only from that visible thing—since this is mind, that is body—but also from the very sense and vision, since this attention belongs to the mind alone. But the sense of the eyes is called a bodily sense for no other reason than that the eyes themselves are members of the body; and although a lifeless body does not perceive, yet the soul, mingled with the body, perceives through a bodily instrument, and that same instrument is called sense.
This sense, too, when anyone is blinded by some bodily affliction, is cut off and extinguished, while the same mind remains; and its attention, the eyes being lost, has indeed no bodily sense which, by seeing, it may join to a body without and by which it may fix its gaze upon the thing seen—yet by the very effort it shows that, the bodily sense being taken away, it could neither perish nor be diminished; for there remains a certain intact appetite for seeing, whether this can come about or cannot. These three things, then—the body that is seen, the vision itself, and the attention that joins the two—are manifest for distinguishing, not only on account of the properties of each, but also on account of the difference of their natures.
And in these, although the sense proceeds not from that body which is seen but from the body of the sentient living creature, to which the soul is in its own marvelous manner tempered together, nevertheless from the body that is seen vision is begotten—that is, the sense itself is formed—so that now there is not only sense, which can remain intact even in darkness so long as the eyes are sound, but also an informed sense, which is called vision. Vision, then, is begotten from the visible thing; but not from it alone, unless there be present also the seer. Wherefore vision is begotten from the visible and the seer, in such wise indeed that from the seer come the sense of the eyes and the attention of the one looking and gazing; yet that informing of the sense which is called vision is imprinted by the body alone that is seen, that is, by some visible thing.
When this is withdrawn, no form remains that was in the sense while that which was seen was present; yet the sense itself remains, which existed even before anything was perceived—as, in water, a trace persists so long as the very body which is imprinted upon it is present, but when that is removed there will be no trace, though the water remains which existed even before it received that form of the body. And so we cannot indeed say that the visible thing begets the sense; yet it begets a form, as it were its own likeness, which comes to be in the sense when by seeing we perceive something. But the form of the body which we see, and the form which is made from it in the sense of the one seeing, we do not distinguish by that same sense, since the conjunction is so great that there is no room for distinguishing.
But by reason we conclude that we could by no means have perceived unless some likeness of the beheld body came to be in our sense. For when a ring is imprinted upon wax, it is not therefore the case that no image is made, merely because it is not distinguished until it has been separated. But because, after the wax is separated, that which was made remains so that it can be seen, on that account it is easily granted that the form imprinted from the ring was already in the wax even before it was separated from it. If, however, the ring were applied to a liquid fluid, then, upon its being withdrawn, no image would appear.
Yet not on that account ought reason to fail to discern that, in that fluid before it was withdrawn, the form of the ring made from the ring was there—a form to be distinguished from that form which is in the ring, from which this one was made, and which, when the ring is withdrawn, will not exist, although that form remains in the ring from which this one was made. So the sense of the eyes does not therefore lack an image of the body which is seen, so long as it is seen, merely because, when the body is withdrawn, it does not remain. And on this account it can only with the greatest difficulty be persuaded to slower minds that an image of the visible thing is formed in our sense when we see it, and that this same form is the vision. But those who have perhaps noticed what I shall now mention will not labor so hard in this inquiry.
Very often, when we have gazed for some little while at any bright lights and then have closed our eyes, there seem to hover before our sight certain luminous colors, variously shifting and shining less and less until they cease altogether—which must be understood to be relics of that form which was made in the sense when the luminous body was seen, and which fade little by little and, as it were, by degrees, and so are varied. For if perchance we were gazing at the lattices of latticed windows, they too often appeared among those colors, so that it is manifest that this affection was imprinted upon our sense from the thing that was being seen.
It was there, then, even while we were seeing, and it was clearer and more distinct, but so closely joined with the appearance of the thing that was being beheld that it could not be distinguished at all; and it itself was the vision. Nay more, when the little flame of a lamp is, as it were, doubled by a certain divarication of the rays of the eyes, two visions come to be, though the thing that is seen is one. For those same rays, each darting from its own eye, are severally affected, so long as they are not allowed to run together, jointly and conjointly, upon that body to be beheld, so that from both there might come one gaze; and therefore, if we close one eye, we shall see not a double flame but, as it is, a single one.
But why, when the left eye is closed, that appearance ceases to be seen which was toward the right, and in turn, when the right is closed, that dies away which was toward the left—this it would be both long, and unnecessary to the present matter, now to inquire into and discuss. For what suffices for the question undertaken is this: unless there came to be in our sense a certain image most like to that thing which we behold, the appearance of the flame would not be doubled according to the number of the eyes, when a certain manner of beholding has been employed which is able to separate the meeting of the rays. For from one eye, however it be drawn aside or pressed or turned, if the other is closed, there is no way at all that something which is one can be seen doubly.
Since these things are so, let us bear in mind how these three—though diverse in nature—are tempered together into a certain unity: that is, the appearance of the body which is seen, and its image imprinted upon the sense, which is the vision or the sense informed, and the will of the mind which applies the sense to the sensible thing and holds the vision itself upon it. Of these, the first, that is, the visible thing itself, does not belong to the nature of the living creature, except when we behold our own body. The second, however, so belongs that it both comes to be in the body and, through the body, in the soul; for it comes to be in the sense, which is neither without body nor without soul. But the third belongs to the soul alone, because it is will.
Although, therefore, the substances of these three are so diverse, yet they come together into so great a unity that the first two can scarcely be distinguished, even with reason interposed as judge: namely, the appearance of the body which is seen, and its image which comes to be in the sense, that is, the vision. But the will has so great a power of coupling these two that it both applies the sense to be formed to that thing which is beheld, and holds it, when formed, upon it. And if it is so violent that it can be called love, or desire, or lust, it also vehemently affects the rest of the body of the living creature; and where a more sluggish and harder matter does not resist, it changes it into a like appearance and color. One may see the little body of the chameleon varied with the utmost ease of change to the colors which it sees.
But of other animals, since their bodily bulk is not readily susceptible of change, the offspring for the most part betray the lusts of their mothers—whatever they have gazed upon with great delight. For the more tender and, so to speak, more formable are the beginnings of the seeds, the more effectually and receptively do they follow the intention of the mother's soul and the phantasy that has been formed in it through the body which she eagerly gazed upon. There are examples which could be recounted in abundance; but one suffices, from the most faithful books: what Jacob did, that the sheep and goats might bring forth young of varied colors, by placing before them variegated rods in the water-channels, which the ewes and does might gaze upon as they drank, at the time when they conceived.
But the rational soul lives in a deformed manner when it lives according to the trinity of the outer man—that is, when to those things which from without form the bodily sense, it applies not a praiseworthy will, by which it might refer them to some useful end, but a base desire, by which it clings to them. [III] Because, even when the appearance of the body which was perceived corporeally is withdrawn, there remains in the memory a likeness of it, to which the will again turns the gaze, that it may be formed from within, just as the sense was formed from without from the sensible body presented. And thus there comes to be that trinity out of memory, and inner vision, and the will which couples the two—which three, when they are gathered into one, are from that very gathering called thought.
Nor is there now, in these three, a diverse substance. For neither is that sensible body there, which is altogether distinct from the nature of the living creature; nor is the bodily sense there formed so as to become vision; nor does the will itself act to apply the sense, to be formed, to the sensible body, and hold it, when formed, upon it.
But in place of that appearance of the body which was perceived from without, there succeeds memory, retaining that appearance which the soul drank in through the bodily sense; and in place of that vision which was outside, when the sense was formed from the sensible body, there succeeds within a like vision, when from that which the memory holds the mind's gaze is formed, and absent bodies are thought of; and the will itself, just as outside it applied the sense to be formed to the body presented, and joined it when formed, so it turns the gaze of the recollecting mind to the memory, that from what the memory has retained the gaze may be formed, and there comes to be in thought a like vision.
But just as, by reason, the visible appearance by which the bodily sense was formed used to be distinguished from its likeness which came to be in the formed sense so as to be vision (otherwise they were so joined that they were thought to be altogether one and the same), so that phantasy—when the mind thinks of the appearance of a body it has seen, since it is composed of the likeness of the body which the memory holds and of that which is thence formed in the gaze of the recollecting mind—yet so appears as one and single, that the two are not found to be anything unless reason judge, whereby we understand that one thing is that which remains in the memory even when we are thinking of something else, and another comes to be when we recollect, that is, return to the memory, and there find the same appearance.
For if it were now no longer there, we should say that we had so forgotten as to be quite unable to recall it. But if the gaze of the one recollecting were not formed from that thing which was in the memory, in no way would the vision of the one thinking come to be. But the conjunction of both—that is, of that which the memory holds and of that which is thence expressed so that the gaze of the recollecting one may be formed—since they are most alike, makes them appear, as it were, as one. But when the gaze of the one thinking has been turned away from thence, and has ceased to behold that which was discerned in the memory, nothing of the form which had been imprinted upon that gaze will remain, and it will be formed thence whither it shall again be turned, that another thought may come to be.
Yet there remains that which it left in the memory, to which it may again be turned when we recollect it, and, being turned, may be formed, and become one with that from which it is formed. [IV 7] But that will, which carries and recarries the gaze hither and thither to be formed, and joins it when formed—if it has flowed together wholly to the inner phantasy, and has turned the mind's gaze altogether away from the presence of the bodies which lie about the senses, and from the bodily senses themselves, and has utterly converted it to that image which is discerned within—so great a likeness of the corporeal appearance, expressed from the memory, is poured over it, that not even reason itself is suffered to distinguish whether the body itself is being seen without, or whether some such thing is being thought of within.
For sometimes men, by an excessive thinking of visible things, either allured or terrified, have even suddenly uttered such cries as if they were really in the midst of such actions or sufferings. And I remember hearing from a certain man that he was wont, in thinking, to behold so expressive and, as it were, so solid an appearance of a female body that, feeling as though he were united with it, he would even have an emission from his genitals. So great a power has the soul over its own body, and so much can it do toward turning and changing the quality of its garment, according as he who is clothed—and who cleaves to his garment—is affected. Of the same kind of affection is also that whereby in dreams we are mocked by images.
But it makes a very great difference whether—the bodily senses being lulled to sleep, as in those who slumber, or disturbed from their inner frame, as in the frenzied, or in some other way alienated, as in those who divine or prophesy—the mind's attention, by a certain necessity, runs upon those images which present themselves, whether from the memory or by some other hidden power, through certain spiritual mixtures of a likewise spiritual substance; or whether, as sometimes befalls the sound and the waking, it happens that, the will being occupied with thought, it turns itself away from the senses and so forms the mind's gaze with various images of sensible things, as though the sensible things themselves were being perceived.
But these impressions of images come to be not only when the will is directed toward such things by desiring, but also when, for the sake of avoiding and guarding against them, the mind is snatched into contemplating those things which it would flee. Whence not only by desiring but also by fearing is there brought upon the very senses, from the sensible things, or upon the mind's gaze, a forming by the images of sensible things. And so, the more vehement the fear or the desire has been, the more expressively is the gaze formed—whether of the one perceiving, from the body that lies in place, or of the one thinking, from the image of the body which is contained in the memory. What, then, some body in a place is to the bodily sense, that a likeness of the body in the memory is to the mind's gaze;
and what the vision of the one beholding is to that appearance of the body from which the sense is formed, that the vision of the one thinking is to the image of the body established in the memory from which the mind's gaze is formed; and what the intention of the will is toward coupling the body seen and the vision, so that there may be a certain unity of the three there, although their nature is diverse, that same intention of the will is toward coupling the image of the body which is in the memory and the vision of the one thinking—that is, the form which the mind's gaze has taken as it returns to the memory—so that here too there may be a certain unity out of three, no longer distinct by diversity of nature but of one and the same substance, because this whole is within, and the whole is one mind.
But just as, when the form and appearance of the body has perished, the will cannot recall the sense of the beholder to it, so, when the image which the memory bears has been deleted by forgetfulness, there will be nothing whither the will may, by recollecting, turn back the mind's gaze to be formed. [V] But because the mind prevails to fashion, not only things forgotten but also things never perceived nor experienced, by augmenting, diminishing, changing, and composing at its own pleasure things that have not dropped away, it often imagines as though something were so which it either knows is not so, or does not know is so. In which kind of thing care must be taken, lest it either lie so as to deceive, or hold an opinion so as to be deceived.
When these two evils are avoided, imagined phantasms do it no harm, just as experienced sensible things retained in memory do no harm, if they are neither eagerly sought when they please, nor basely fled when they offend. But when the will, leaving better things, is greedily rolled about among these, it becomes unclean; and thus they are thought of both perniciously when they are present, and more perniciously when they are absent. Ill, therefore, and deformedly does one live according to the trinity of the outer man, because even that trinity—which, though it imagines within, yet imagines outward things—the soul has begotten for the sake of sensible and corporeal things to be used.
For no one could use them, even well, unless the images of sensed things were held in the memory, and unless the greatest part of the will dwelt in higher and inner things, and unless that very will which is applied—whether without to bodies, or within to their images—unless whatever it takes in them it referred to a better and truer life, and rested in that end, with a view to which it judges these things are to be done. What else are we doing but what the apostle forbids us to do when he says: Be not conformed to this world? Wherefore this trinity is not the image of God. For it is made from the lowest, that is, from the corporeal creature, above which the soul is, within the soul itself, through the bodily sense. Yet it is not in every way dissimilar.
For what is there that does not, according to its own kind and its own measure, have a likeness of God, seeing that God made all things very good for no other reason than that He Himself is supremely good? In so far, then, as anything is good, in so far, of course, does it have—though a far-distant one—yet some likeness of the supreme good; and if a natural likeness, then assuredly a right and ordered one; but if a vicious likeness, then assuredly a base and perverse one. For even souls in their very sins pursue nothing but a certain likeness of God, by a proud and preposterous and, so to speak, slavish liberty. Thus not even to our first parents could sin have been persuaded, unless it had been said: Ye shall be as gods.
Not everything among created things that is in some way like God is therefore to be called His image, but only that by which He alone is above it. For that thing is expressed directly from Him between which and Himself no nature is interposed. Of that vision, therefore—that is, of the form which arises in the sense of the one perceiving—the form of the body from which it arises is, as it were, the parent. Yet that parent is not a true one, and hence neither is this a true offspring; for it is not begotten wholly from that source, since something else is brought to bear upon the body so that it may be formed from it, namely the sense of the one seeing. For this reason, to love that thing is to be estranged. And so the will, which joins both, as it were parent and as it were offspring, is more spiritual than either of them.
For that body which is perceived is not spiritual at all; but the vision which arises in the sense has something spiritual mingled in it, since it cannot come to be without a soul—yet not wholly so, since it is the sense of the body that is being formed. The will, therefore, which joins both, is, as I have said, recognized as more spiritual, and thus it begins to intimate, as it were, the person of the Spirit in that trinity. But it pertains more to the formed sense than to that body from which the sense is formed. For sense and will belong to the soul of a living creature, not to a stone or any body that is seen. It does not, then, proceed from that body as from a parent, nor yet from this—the vision and form which is in the sense—as from an offspring.
For before the vision came to be, there was already the will, which by perceiving applied to the body the sense that was to be formed; but there was not yet a thing pleasing. For how could that please which had not yet been seen? Now the will at rest is the thing pleasing. And so we cannot call the will the offspring of vision, as it were, because it existed before the vision, nor its parent, as it were, because it was formed and expressed not from the will but from the seen body. Perhaps we may rightly call vision the end and rest of the will, but only in this one respect; for it is not the case that the will shall will nothing else because it sees something that it was willing.
It is not, then, the will of man taken as a whole—of which the end is nothing but blessedness—but for this one purpose, meanwhile, the will of seeing has no end but the vision, whether it refers it to something else or does not refer it. For if it does not refer the vision to anything else but willed only to see, there is no need to argue how it may be shown that the end of the will is the vision; for it is manifest. But if it refers it to something else, then it certainly wills something else, and it will no longer be the will of seeing, or, if of seeing, not of seeing this. As if someone should will to see a scar in order thereby to teach that there had been a wound, or should will to see a window in order to see through the window those passing by;
all these and other such wills have their own proper ends, which are referred to the end of that will by which we will to live blessedly and to attain to that life which is not referred to anything else but suffices in itself for the one who loves it. The will of seeing an end, then, has vision as its end; and the will of seeing this particular thing has as its end the vision of this thing. So the will of seeing a scar seeks its own end, that is, the vision of the scar, and does not extend beyond it; for the will of proving that there was a wound is another will, though bound to the former, and its end likewise is the proof of the wound. And the will of seeing a window has the vision of the window as its end;
for there is another will, linked from this one, of seeing through the window those passing by, whose end likewise is the vision of those passing by. Now the wills are right, and all bound to one another, if that to which they all are referred is good; but if it is depraved, they are all depraved. And so the connection of right wills is a certain path of those ascending to blessedness, traversed as it were by fixed steps; but the entanglement of depraved and distorted wills is a chain by which he shall be bound who acts thus, so that he may be cast into the outer darkness. Blessed, therefore, are those who by their deeds and their manners sing the Song of Ascents; and woe to those who draw sins like a long rope.
Now the rest of the will which we call an end is of such a kind, if it is still referred to something else, as we might say the rest of the foot is in walking, when it is set down from where the other foot may take its support as one advances step by step. But if something so pleases that the will comes to rest in it with a certain delight, that is nevertheless not yet the thing toward which one is tending; but this too is referred to something else. Let it be reckoned not as the homeland to a citizen, but as the refreshment or even the lodging of a traveler.
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.