"This explains why, in those who are strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no memory is formed; just as no impression would be formed if the movement of the seal were to impinge on running water; while there are others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being frayed, as happens to old walls, or owing to the hardness of the receiving surface, the requisite impression is not implanted at all."
— Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Author
Work Title
Date
w. 350 B.C.
Metaphor
"This explains why, in those who are strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no memory is formed; just as no impression would be formed if the movement of the seal were to impinge on running water; while there are others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being frayed, as happens to old walls, or owing to the hardness of the receiving surface, the requisite impression is not implanted at all."
Metaphor in Context
One might ask how it is possible that though the affection is present, and the fact absent, the latter--that which is not present--is remembered. It is clear that we must conceive that which is generated through sense-perception in the soul, and in the part of the body which is its seat,--viz. that affection the state whereof we call memory--to be some such thing as a picture. The process of movement stamps in, as it were, a sort of impression of the percept, just as persons do who make an impression with a seal. This explains why, in those who are strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no memory is formed; just as no impression would be formed if the movement of the seal were to impinge on running water; while there are others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being frayed, as happens to old walls, or owing to the hardness of the receiving surface, the requisite impression is not implanted at all. Hence both very young and very old persons are defective in memory; they are in a state of flux, the former because of their growth, the latter, owing to their decay. Similarly, both those who are too quick and those who are too slow have bad memories. The former are too moist, the latter too hard, so that in the case of the former the image does not remain in the soul, while on the latter it is not imprinted at all.
(450a26-450b10 p. 715 in Oxford Translation)
(450a26-450b10 p. 715 in Oxford Translation)
Provenance
Reading; found again in Margreta de Grazia’s "Imprints: Shakespeare, Gutenberg, and Descartes," in Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005): 29-58, p. 30.
Citation
Some text from The Complete Works of Aristotle, The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton UP,1984).
Reading in Aristotle, Introduction to Aristotle, trans. R. McKeon. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1973).
Reading in Aristotle, Introduction to Aristotle, trans. R. McKeon. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1973).
Date of Entry
10/07/2013
