Boswell, James (1740-1795)

The Hypochondriack, No. 67

April, 1783

"When we talk of a storehouse of our ideas, we are only forming an imagination of something similar to an enclosed portion of space in which material objects are reposited. But who ever actually saw this storehouse, or can have any clear perception of it when he endeavours by thinking closely to get a distinct view, of it?"

But still we art left quite in the dark as to the essential nature of the faculty of Memory, and the manner in which its operations are performed. When we talk of a storehouse of our ideas, we are only forming an imagination of something similar to an enclosed portion of space in which material objects are reposited. But who ever actually saw this storehouse, or can have any clear perception of it when he endeavours by thinking closely to get a distinct view, of it? It is "the fabrick of a vision," and every candid man who has fairly tried to get at it will confess that he can have no confidence that it exists. I had the honour to have a conversation with Voltaire on this subject. I asked him, if he could give me any notion of the situation of our ideas which we have totally forgotten at the time, yet shall afterwards recollect. He paused, meditated a little, and acknowledged his ignorance in the spirit of a philosophical poet, by repeating as a very happy allusion a passage from Thomson's Seasons--Aye, said he, "Where sleep the winds when it is calm?"
(pp. 156-7 in London Magazine)

Architecture::Storehouse Container::Repository

Reading

The Hypochondriack, No. 67 (April, 1783). See also The London Magazine, or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer <Link to Google Books>

See also James Boswell, The Hypochondriack, ed. Margery Bailey, 2 vols. (Stanford UP, 1928).

07/09/2013