Tratado 27 (IV, 3, 28) – MEMORY DOES NOT BELONG TO APPETITE (Guthrie)

MEMORY DOES NOT BELONG TO APPETITE, BECAUSE IT MAY BE REDUCED TO SENSATION.

28. Does memory belong to the powers by which we feel and know? Is it by appetite that we remember the things that excite our desires, and by anger that we remember the things that irritate us ? Some will think so. It is indeed the same faculty which feels pleasure, and retains remembrance thereof. Thus when, for instance, appetite meets an object which has already made it experience pleasure, it remembers this pleasure on seeing this object. Why indeed should appetite not be similarly moved by some other object? Why is it not moved in some manner by the same object ? Why should we not thus attribute to it the sensation of things of this kind? Further, why should appetite itself not be reduced to the power of sensation, and not do likewise for everything, naming each thing, by what predominates therein?

WHAT APPETITE KEEPS IS AN AFFECTION, BUT NOT A MEMORY.

Must we attribute sensation to each power, but in a different manner? In this case, for instance, it will be sight, and not appetite, which will perceive sense-objects; but appetite will be later wakened by sensation which will be “relayed,” (as the Stoics would say); and though it does not judge of sensation, it will unconsciously feel the characteristic affection. The same state of affairs will obtain with anger. It will be sight which will show us an injustice, but it will be anger which will resent it. Just so, when a shepherd notices a wolf near his flock, the dog, though he have not yet observed anything, will be excited by the smell or noise of the wolf. It certainly is appetite which experiences pleasure, and which keeps a trace of it; but this trace constitutes an affection or disposition, and not a memory. It is another power which observes the enjoyment of pleasure, and which remembers what occurred. This is proved by the fact that memory is often ignorant of the things in which appetite has participated, though appetite still preserve traces thereof.