OF PLOTINFS
v]
we should
47
outward objects of vision, but images so that what we see would be other than the things themselves (euo-re dWa%bev elvat, avra rd Trpdy/jiaTa, aXXa Se rd rjfilv opcifieva). In hearing as in sight, see not the
and shadows of them;
perceptions are energies, not impressions nor yet passive states
(fir]
Tuiroi, /irjSe TreiVet?).
lated stroke in the air, on which
The impression it is
is
an
articu-
as if letters were written
by that which makes the sound. The power of the soul as it were reads those impressions. In the case of taste and smell, the passive affections
{trddr}) are
one thing; the perceptions
and judgments of them are another. Memory of things is produced by exercise of the soul, either generally or in relation to a special class of them. Children remember better because they have fewer things to attend to. Mere multitude of impressions retained, if memory were simply an affair of retaining impressions, would not cause them to be less remembered. Nor should we need to. consider in order to remind ourselves nor forget things and afterwards recall them to mind. The persistence of passive impressions in the soul, if real, would be a mark rather of weakness than of strength, for that which is most fixedly impressed is so by giving way {to yap ivTvirmrarov t(u eiKeiv ea-rl toiovtov). But where there is really weakness, as in the old, both memory and per;
ception are worse.
The
activity of perception,
though
itself
mental, has direct!
physical conditions. That of memory has not.
what goes on
in the composite
Memory itself!
may take its start from being. What the soul directly
belongs wholly to the soul, though
it
memory of, is its own movements, not those of body. Pressure and reaction of bodies can furnish no explanation of a storing-up of mental "impressions" {rvTroi), which are not magnitudes. That the body, through being in flux, is really a hindrance to memory, is illustrated by the fact that often additions to the store cause forgetfulness, whereas preserves the
memory emerges when
there is abstraction and purification J. Something from the past that was retained but is latent may ^
Enn.
IV. 3,
26:
TrpotrTiBe/xii'iiii'
tivuv
"K^Bt),
iv
S'
i^aipiaei Kal KaSdpirei,