Vives (1538) on memory and recall

VIVES (1538) ON MEMORY AND RECALL

D. J. MURRAYQueen's University

HELEN E. ROSSUniversity of Stirling

ABSTRACTHistories of associationism and early psychology frequently refer to thewritings of Vives (1492-1540) on memory and the flow of ideas. The presentarticle includes a translation of the chapter on memory from Vives' DeAnimaet Vita. The introduction preceding the translation places the chapter in itshistorical context, showing that much of it is based on a framework datingfrom the early Middle Ages. The introduction also points out some of theways in which Vives was original and anticipated problems which stillconcern modem researchers on memory.

From Aristotle to Descartes, the history ofpsychology is largely encapsulated in worksthat either comment on Artistotle's De Animaor are themselves entitled De Anima. For ex-ample a widely read text of the Middle Ageswas the De Anima of Pedro Hispano(12157-1277). Many of these works were high-ly derivative and even Aquinas' Summa Theo-logica owed a great deal to the writings ofAristotle and of the Arabic scholar Avicenna.When we come to the 16th century we find yetmore works with the title De Anima, but themost comprehensive and innovative was theDe Anima et Vita (1538) of Juan Luis Vives(1492-1540). Vives was one of the great hu-manists and educators of the Renaissance.Born in Spain, of Jewish ancestry, he studiedat the University of Paris and became an inde-pendent scholar specialising in theologicalcommentary and works on law and pedagogy.He spent most of his later life in Belgium andin Britain, where he was a close friend ofHenry VIH's first wife, Catherine of Aragon,as well as of Sir Thomas More and of Erasmus.After Henry's divorce, Vives became personanon grata in England and retired to Bruges

This article was prepared with the assistance of a CanadaCouncil Leave Fellowship and National Research Coun-cil of Canada Grant A0 126 to the first author. We areparticularly grateful to Saley Lawton for producing a firstdraft of the translation, and to Oscar Estevez for as-sistance with many points through the consultation of aSpanish translation of the original Latin. Requests forreprints should be sent to D. J. Murray, Department ofPsychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L3N6.

where he wrote his program of education en-titled De Disciplinis, and the book that con-cerns us here, De Anima et Vita. Norena(1970) remarks of this work that "in spite of itsconservative title and occasional traditionaltechnicism, this book of Vives inaugurated inEuropean thought the study of man based onreflection and observation without any meta-physical scheme" (p. 117). Foster Watson(1915), particularly on the strength of the chap-ter entitled "On memory", called Vives "thefather of modern psychology". Clements(1967), in evaluating the book as a whole,remarks "his originality lay in his willingnessto accept the best in classical, scholastic andcontemporary medical thought and incorpo-rate its findings in a systematic program forsocial reform". De Anima et Vita is a longwork which moves from the analysis of theconcept of the soul through the study of cogni-tive functioning to a highly detailed expositionof the operations of the emotions. Historians ofassociationism in particular refer to the chap-ter "On memory" as a key link between Aris-totle and Hobbes.

Although the translation of the whole of DeAnima et Vita would be a worthwhile under-taking, we feel that the chapter "On memory"should be made immediately available to En-glish readers because it is so often referred to.It turned out, however, to be more difficult totranslate than was expected because Vives re-lied heavily on the use of Latin words referringto mental functions whose meaning wouldhave been quite precise to his learned friends,but whose meaning is less apparent to themodern reader. We have therefore adopted a

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Vives on Memory and Recall 23

compromise: a translation into English isgiven here, but in most instances where Vivesrefers to mental functioning the original Latinwords are shown. Moreover, in order that thereader may better appreciate the content ofVives' remarks, we shall also now give a briefaccount of some of the terms Vives uses. After-wards we shall consider in what ways Vivesanticipated modern memory research.

The Background to Vives' Chapter

Vives begins his chapter with a reference to"external" and "internal" senses. AlthoughAristotle did not use these precise words, thegerm of their meaning is to be found in hisworks. By the time of St. Augustine, the terms"external" and "internal" senses had becomeestablished. By the "external senses" weremeant the five senses of vision, audition,olfaction, gustation, and the tactile sense. Bythe "internal senses" were meant various"faculties" whose function was to operate onthe content presented by the external senseswith the aims both of determining the subjects'reactions to the stimuli and of later storing theinformation in memory. In fact "memory"occurs consistently as one of the "internal"senses. The list of "internal senses" and theorder in which they are supposed to operatevaried from author to author: a full accountwill be found in Wolfson (1935). Many authorsplaced the "common sense" — an Aristo-telean concept — as the first internal sense. Itwas supposed to integrate information fromthe five senses into a unified form which couldthen be thought about with a view to reactingto it and perhaps storing it in memory. Often an"imaginative" sense was presumed to holdthis information in a temporary fashion so thatother higher order internal senses could oper-ate on it. Both the common sense and theimaginative sense were commonly localized inthe anterior ventricles. It was often also arguedthat any stimulus led to an immediate knowl-edge of its value to the subject, its "goodness"or "badness". In fact, even animals were pre-sumed to have innate knowledge of this kind,e.g. the sheep innately fears the wolf. In manthis internal sense was sometimes given thename cogitativa; in animals it was called the"estimative" sense. Both were localized in themiddle ventricle. The final internal sense wasmemory, localized in the posterior ventricle.Although each author differs in the number

and naming of the internal senses, variations ofthe scheme are to found in Galen, Avicenna (aparticularly influential writer), and Aquinas.Vives adopted the general scheme and refersparticularly to the "common sense" and the"imaginative" sense in his chapter.

There is another word used by Vives whichneeds some explanation. This is the word "in-telligence" . He used it in such a way as to leadus to believe that he conceived the "intel-ligence" as what we might now call a "super-visor' ': it is an entity, one of whose functions isto direct the flow of attention to various stim-uli. Aquinas defined the intelligence as theoperations of the "intellect", a term fraughtwith difficulty in scholastic psychology. Aris-totle had suggested that knowledge could beabstracted and made actual by a special pro-cess and later commentators named the sourceof the processing the "intellect". As with theinternal senses, individual commentators haddifferent views of the "intellect", often sub-dividing it into several kinds of intellect. Themost common image referring to the intellectwas that it was like a light shining on thecontents of the internal senses, clarifyingthem, and in turn preparing them so that theircontents could in turn form part of the reperto-ry of the intellect itself. Vives does not ex-plicitly discuss the intellect but it must berecognized that he may have intended by theword "intelligence" a more precisely definedcognitive structure, as we would now say, thanis perhaps apparent from the text. At one pointhe distinguishes between two acts of the intel-ligence, an initial act in which a presented itemis thought about with a view to its memoriza-tion, and a second act in which a stored item isthought about with a view to its retrieval. Thisdistinction can be traced back to Aquinas(Castonguay, 1963, p. 197). Readers who de-sire a more extensive introduction to the oftenprolix details of classical and mediaeval ana-lyses of cognitive processes are referred toWolfson's article on the internal senses, themonograph of Harvey (1975) on mediaevalpsychology, and Castonguay's book on thedevelopment of memory theory up to and in-cluding Aquinas.

The above remarks were necessary if thereader is to grasp the beginning and ending ofthe chapter. But most of the rest of the chapteris quite comprehensible without a knowledgeof mediaeval psychology. Some of it is deriva-

24 Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne 1982 23:1

tive: the metaphor of memory as being like animage stamped by a seal on a substance thatmay be too fluid to receive it properly is fromAristotle (De Memoria, 450b). Vives relies onthe humoral theory of personality bequeathedessentially by Galen, and accepts Galen'sphysiology, according to which various kindsof pneuma or spirit were responsible for bodilyfunctioning. He was acquainted with varioussystems of mnemonics (see Yates, 1966), nota-bly the method of loci: Vives observed that thesuccess of mnemonics might be due to the factthat if the imaginative internal sense has seizedtwo things at a time, such as a place associatedwith some event, then the place can serve as aretrieval cue for that event. Vives was familiarwith the writings on memory of Quintilian(circa 35-95 A.D.), who in the course of hisInstitutes of oratory, had said much on theimportance of organizing and structuring thematerial if memorization was to be successful,and also with the Roman text Ad Herennium,in which the relative memorability of pictures,events and words had been discussed. Vives'indebtedness to classical writings on rhetoricis elaborated by Swift and Block (1974).

Vives' Chapter in Light ofLater Developments

Vives' account of memory is remarkablycomprehensive, including as it does mentionof such diverse topics as means of learning,individual differences, retrieval difficulty, andvarieties of forgetting. But it is also ratherdiffuse and does not follow a coherent outlinebased on some previously expounded organi-zational scheme. Despite the rather ramblingnature of his discussion, however, Vives can beseen to have been aware of many of the prob-lems which preoccupy contemporary memorytheorists. We may briefly work through themain topics discussed in the chapter.

Following Aristotle, Vives begins by notingthat man as contrasted with the animals has theparticular ability to retrieve information fol-lowing a search procedure. He does nothowever discuss the possibility that this comesabout because so much of the information westore is in the form of language. Differences inthe ability to retain are related to one's phys-iological constitution and the slow degradationof memory ability with age is ascribed to acondensation of the bodily spirits. Vives notes

here that there may be in memory informationof which we are not aware. This is an early hintof the existence of unconscious memories. Themodern discussion of the unconscious is usu-ally held to originate with Leibniz; but clas-sical scholars (e.g. Schwyzer, 1960) claim thatPlotinus was the first of ancient writers toacknowledge that we could possess informa-tion of which we were not consciously aware.Vives does not elaborate on this issue,however. Instead, he goes on to point out thateven though we can fail to recall a datum, wecan nevertheless recognize it if it is presentedto us. The distinction between recognition andrecall was not, so far as we know, discussed inany other major writing in antiquity and to thisextent Vives anticipated the modern interest inthat topic (Brown, 1976).

Vives then returns to the problem of bodilyconstitution as it relates to memory. It wouldbe easy to dismiss these passages as of anti-quarian interest only were it not for the fact thatVives seems absorbed with the notion that inorder for information to be well established inmemory, it must be the subject of a certainamount of attention or processing: if there istoo much mental activity (of any kind) goingon, the stimulus fails to make contact, so tospeak, with any other thought with which itcan finally associate. This is very close tovarious modern notions, according to whichthe probability of storage is related to the de-gree of "activation" the item receives (Tall-and, 1965) or the " leve l" of processing(Cermak & Craik, 1979). For other writers ofthe 16th century, such as Huarte (1575/1959) orGratariolus (1562/1971), the implication of thistheory, however, was that good memory de-pended upon the possession of a physiologicalstate in which the mind moved steadily fromtopic to topic, allowing new incoming infor-mation to be firmly integrated with older infor-mation; to be avoided were physiologicalstates which the mind was over-active andpassed sweepingly from one half-thought-outitem to another. So these later works concen-trated on suggestions for diet and regimenwhich would improve memory ability. Vivesobserves that one means of ensuring fixation ofcertain important information is to associate itwith a strong emotional experience such aspunishment — his anecdote concerning thebeating of children as an aid to helping themremember territorial boundaries is an early


example of a conditioned emotional response.In the Middle Ages it was well known thatlearning was facilitated by contingencies ofreward or punishment, as shown, for example,in the ways in which falcons were taught tohunt prey and return to their master (Mountjoy,Bos, Duncan & Verplank, 1969).

Vives then goes on to note that memory canbe improved with practice, a point which hasbeen controversial ever since William Jamesfailed to find any benefit from extensive prac-tise at memorizing poetry. Then, abruptly, heoffers an analysis of the forgetting process. Itis not clear from what source he may havederived this: we know no equivalent in Aristo-tle, Quintilian, Avicenna or Aquinas, so it maybe original. Forgetting can result from destruc-tion or blurring of the memory, clear equiv-alents of the modern concept of decay; or frombeing hidden or concealed from the searcher,the equivalent of the modern concept of "inter-ference" . When the memory is blurred or elu-sive, Vives suggests that a search procedurebased on the association of ideas might revealthe answer.

In so doing, he lists a variety of types ofassociations including cause and effect andpart-whole. Aristotle had listed contiguity,similarity, and opposites as modes of associa-tion. Vives' list greatly extends this and is ofhistorical interest because his cause-effect as-sociation foreshadows Hume's emphasis oncausality as a form of association and his part-whole association, while in part anticipated bySt. Augustine, foreshadows Wolff (1732),who elevated it to a major principle, latercalled "redintegration". Among the first per-sons to stress this principle and to appreciateVives' contribution to associationism was SirWilliam Hamilton. In 1852, in an appendix tohis edition of the works of the philosopherReid, Hamilton presented a scholarly outlineof the development of various notions of asso-ciations, with Vives being one of the majorfigures after Aristotle.

Vives' next remarks are to the effect that thestronger the associative bonds between suc-cessive elements of to-be-learned items, thebetter the learning of them: thus verse is easierto learn than haphazard prose. The art of mem-ory (mnemonics) hinges on the inculcation oforganizational principles based on strong pair-wise associations. Usually a minor thoughtleads to one of greater consequence: a friend's

house reminds him of the friend in question, acherry reminds him of a disease he once had.At the same time the fact that one thing canremind the observer of a similar thing can leadto memory confusions. This passage is per-haps the most often quoted portion of Vives'chapter.

There is then an explicit acknowledgementof the problem of retrieval failure; and there isa tantalizing hint, anticipating the work ofLoftus and Zanni (1975), that memory can beinfluenced by how a question is asked: a mis-leading question can bias apparent recall.

Vives then argues that the apparent tenacityof childhood memories results from the factthat the child's mind is less cluttered withworries and extraneous thoughts than is that ofthe adult. The excessive preoccupations thatcome with experience make it harder for oldpersons to retain new information; and, asmentioned earlier, they have less adequateconstitutional equipment for memorizing. Inthis final passage Vives tackles, with mixedsuccess, the problems of divided attention andthe phenomenon that, while retrieval may beunsuccessful at a given time, the sought forsolution may occur to us spontaneously muchlater. What is remarkable here is that he makessuch a clear distinction between memory dys-function originating at the time of storage andmemory dysfunction originating at the time ofretrieval, a distinction preserved in most of themodern literature on memory dysfunction.

Vives' analysis of memory did not providethe spark for any intensive study of memory inthe period immediately following 1538. None-theless, it was an invaluable link between theancient and mediaeval writings on the onehand and the associationist tradition of the 19thcentury on the other; and it was the latter whichdirectly preceded the experimental revolutionbrought about by Wundt. Perhaps the mostfitting evaluation of Vives' contribution is thatit epitomised the thought of the time, an eval-uation Vives himself would probably appreci-ate. It is to be hoped however, that the modernreader previously unfamiliar with this workwill come to realize that memory has been achallenge to thinkers from the beginning oftime and that many of the theoretical con-structs so familiar to us in modern memorytheory have their roots in a past measured incenturies and not just decades.


De Anima Et Vita: Book Two, Chapter TwoOn Memory (Memoria) and Recall (Recordatio)

Memory is that faculty of the soul wherebyone keeps in mind (mens) what has been ac-quired by way of some external or internalsense. As a result its entire functioning takesplace internally, for memory is like a paintedpicture. In the same way that a picture viewedwith the eyes, brings about an act of "know-ing" (notitia), so the memory brings about thesame understanding or knowing when it isexamined by the soul. This process of know-ing (notitia) is not a simple operation, for itinvolves consideration (consideratio) duringthe processes of searching and detecting andthen of recall (recordatio) when the requireditem has been found. Moreover the process ofrecall (recordatio) also involves the pullingtogether of various materials (recultus): thisoccurs in those cases where the soul focuses onthe stored representation of some one particu-lar thing and mulls it over with a great deal ofdeliberation. This process is termed "recall"(recolere). Recall (recordatio) is broughtabout by a simple process whereby the soulsurveys the memory: this is a process that wehave in common with animals. However an-other process, whereby the soul proceeds byspecific steps and discourse (discursus) fromthings that are clear to it, to things that hadpreviously escaped it, is peculiar to man. Healone makes use of discourse (discursus). Thisprocess has been called reminiscence (remi-nisci) by philosophers. In this matter, ourusage of the word is not in line with popularusage, for Virgil said of a knight1, "On thepoint of death, he thought on dear Argos"(Dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos). But forthe convenience of our present discussion, letus retain the vocabulary that scholars havebrought into common use and define reminis-centia as meaning to us what the Greeks called"a bringing back to the point of recall", thatis, a kind of recall of recollection (quasiquerecordationis recordatio).

We possess therefore memory, recall (rec-ordatio) and reminiscence (reminiscentia).

'In the original, Vives mistakenly refers to a horse (equus)instead of referring to a knight (eques). The reference is toVirgil's Aeneid, Book X, V. 785 which describes thedeath of the hero Antores.

The seat of memory, as if it were the workshop,has most wisely been located by Nature in theback part of the head where it can view thepast. It is as if we had a small eye in thatlocation, but a keener one than if a "cor-poreal" type of eye, like those in the forehead,had been affixed there, as in the legend ofJanus. The powers of the memory, just like thepowers of the hands, are two-fold: namely, tograsp (apprehendere) and to retain (retinere).People who possess a moist brain grasp thingseasily, but while every brain is moist to someextent it should be understood that this canoccur to an extraordinary degree. Just as theimprint of a seal is quickly impressed on afluid but does not remain for long unless therealso be dry matter, so persons of bilioushumour are better equipped to retain what theyhave once grasped. Their constitution, more-over, is suited to both functions. This constitu-tion, as Quintilian remarked, is also possessedby children, who have a superiority in quick-wittedness (ingenium). One's wits are aided byone's memory in such a way that one can easilyperceive what one wants and bring it backquickly and accurately when necessary. Thesetwo characteristics, speed and accuracy, be-long to the process that I have termed "retain-ing" (retinere). There are however certainpeople who retain things to some extent butwho, as they are bringing them back from storeas it were, are either slow and struggle for along time searching for them, or else bringthem back inaccurately: the material is in-complete, or is confused and jumbled. Suchpersons have wits (ingenia) that are disturbed(inversa) and unfruitful. Children have bettermemories than old persons, because of theirbody heat and purity of body moisture. Senecasaid that "the first thing that age attacks ismemory"; and there is no surer sign of advanc-ing age than a hesitant memory, for the bodyheat cools with age and the bodily spirits be-come condensed. But in place of memory,God substitutes in old people other qualities ofgreat worth, namely wisdom accrued throughexperiences in life and a more acute and effec-tive capacity for judgment. Not everyone has asimilar memory for everything: there are thosewho remember words more easily; others findit easier to remember facts. Themistocles, for


example, is said to have a strong memory forfacts, Hortensius for words. These examplesmay be extended to include all kinds of menand facts. Some people are better at recallingstraightforward and uncomplicated facts.Some recall public facts, others private facts;some recall historical facts, others recall re-cent facts; some recall facts relating to them-selves, others recall facts pertaining to otherpeople; some persons recall faults, others vir-tues. What a man recalls depends on the in-clination of his wits and on what he attends tomost readily; for attention strengthens thememory, as I shall shortly state. We neither seenor notice everything represented in a picture,nor does everything for which we are search-ing appear in it. In the same manner, thereexists in our memory much of which we areunaware; and we possess material that we be-lieve to be absent, and vice versa. Then againthere is material that we are sure we possess,but even after much searching, hunting, anddelving, it fails to appear; yet if someone of-fers us this material, we recognise (ag-noscimus) it immediately. The same occurs inconnection with speech. Most people under-stand languages when they hear them, yet donot know how to speak them; for when speak-ing we must search for the words, whereaswhen listening, the words are offered and werecognise them.

Memory is most benefited by that kind oftemperament (contemperatio) with which,one presumes, those men were endowedwhose prodigious memory has been made fa-mous by literary monuments — men such asThemistocles, Cyrus, Cyneas and Hortensius.Memory is sustained by an entire regimen ofnourishment, food, drink, exercise, relaxa-tion, sleep, moderation, and things suitable forthe improvement of this faculty. There aresome things that particularly benefit the mem-ory, while others, which have been carefullyand attentively observed by physicians andrecorded in books, impede it. Just as the im-pression of a ring cannot be imprinted on flow-ing water, so things that have been perceivedby a brain in a strongly agitated conditioncannot be imprinted on the memory. This con-dition is found in very young children and isrelated to the constant growth of their smallbodies. It is also found in drunkards and in thesick, when the strong force of fever snatchesthe spirits away with it and sets them in turmoil

(convolvit). People who have cold moisture inthe posterior part of the brain also have diffi-culty in receiving things, as do those whosenature is impervious to the reception of im-pressions, such as the old, the slow and thetorpid. Persons who are in good health andhave all their faculties, but whose spirits arealso in rapid motion, do indeed grasp thingsreadily but do not store them to the sameextent: in this class are bilious persons."Slow-witted persons excel both in the ac-curacy of their recollection (recordatio) and inthe clarity of their reminiscence (reminiscen-tia)", said Aristotle. Memory is more tena-cious in a slow man in the same way that animage remains longer on rock or iron. Nev-ertheless quick people find recollection (rec-ordatio) easier. Things that have been care-fully and attentively perceived from the outsetdescend deeply into memory. Because of this itoften comes about that the most quick-wittedmen (ingeniossimi), and those owning and en-dowed with a good memory, may not recall(recordentur) as much as those not similarlygifted if they are inattentive in much of theirviewing, reading and hearing. If an arousedstate of mind is combined with the initial mem-ory of any thing, recall (recordatio) is after-wards easier, quicker, and longer-lasting —just as the memory of events that entered thesoul with great joy or sorrow is very enduring.It is for this reason that it is the custom ofcertain peoples to beat Fiercely the childrenwho are present when they are fixing theboundaries of their territory, in order that thechildren may have a stronger and longer-last-ing memory (recordentur) of those bound-aries.

Memory is greatly strengthened by exerciseand frequent meditation: in this way it be-comes ready to receive many more things, andfitter to grasp them, and stores them moretenaciously. There is no function (functio) inthe entire soul that needs the cultivation ofitself to such an extent. The abilities of the wits(ingenium) do not deteriorate with relaxationand inactivity: indeed they are often refreshedand acquire more vitality if they have beenprepared in this way. Memory, however, growsdull without exercise, becoming slower day byday and more sluggish through inactivity andrelaxation. We are said to forget in four dif-ferent ways: (1) when the image that is paintedon the memory is entirely obliterated and de-


stroyed; (2) when the image is blurred andbroken up; (3) when the image eludes thesearcher; and (4) when the image is coveredand concealed as if by a veil — as happensduring the course of a disease or when one'sstate of mind is agitated (affectu concitatu).The first way is more properly called forgetful-ness (oblivio); the second, uncertainty or blur-ring; and the third and fourth, concealment(occultatio). These ways can be understood asa tablet on which one of the images is de-stroyed, another is blurred or damaged, an-other eludes us, and another is concealed or inthe process of disappearing. It is said that wecan even forget facts received from natureherself, for we can have doubts concerningthose primary natural concepts that are held tobe the most self-evident and certain truths:indeed the same thing can occur if we havelearned them at some time from nature's owntutelage. The first form of forgetting requiresan entire process of learning afresh; the fourthrequires a process of unveiling, much as if thebody or mind were being restored to health.The other two forms require a process of re-newal, as when we reach our goal by a gradualsearch: for example, from a ring in a gold-smith's workshop I may be led in thought tothe necklace of a queen, from that to a warwaged by the queen's husband, from the war togenerals, from the generals to their ancestorsor children, and from these to the subjects theystudied. In this chain there is no one point atwhich to stop. The steps range widely over allkinds of subject matter, from cause to effect,from effect to the means, from a part to thewhole, from the whole to a place, from a placeto a person, from a person to both his earlierand later deeds, and to opposites and to similarevents. There is no limit to this discourse.Moreover there can be very broad transitions,or rather, leaps. For example I move fromthinking about Scipio to thinking about Turk-ish power because he won a victory in Asiawhere Antiochus ruled. From the name ofCicero there springs to mind Lactantius,whose style was modelled on that of Cicero;and from Lactantius I move to the subject ofchalcography, for his book is said to have beenthe first, or among the first, to be printed withcharacters engraved on copper.

Reminiscence {reminiscentia) is either anatural process, when thought passes of itsown accord from one thing to another; or it is a

voluntary or commanded process, when thesoul is trying to attain recall (recordatio) ofsome item. Things that have been noted andwritten down systematically are easier to recall(recordatio). Mathematical instructions are aprime example of this category. Verse toolends itself to accuracy in memory, because ithas an orderly composition and structure thatdoes not wander about in a random and hap-hazard manner, but is confined within spec-ified boundaries. As a result, verse does notallow the soul to wander from a route that isprotected and bounded on both sides as thoughby specific restraints. On the other hand, it isdifficult to grasp and hold items that have beenrandomly imparted or carelessly compiled. Itis for these reasons that persons who wish torecall (recordari) something pay careful andattentive heed to the ordering of the facts theyare committing to memory. Teachers of thisskill indicate to their pupils certain places to bememorized; for when things have beengrasped at the same time by the imagination(phantasia), then, should one thing presentitself, the other usually occurs with it. This isthe basis for the art of memory, since from thesight of a place there comes to mind what weknow happened there or was situated there.When some happy event befalls us and is ac-companied by some sound or voice, we aredelighted when we hear the same sound again.If it is a sad event, we feel sad. This phe-nomenon can also be observed in animals. Ifthey are summoned by a sound and receivesomething pleasing, they come running read-ily and willingly again at the same sound. Ifhowever, they are beaten, they dread the samesound thereafter because of their recollection(recordatio) of the blows. In this kind of pair-wise recall (recordatio gemina), what usuallyhappens is that most often we are led from athought of minor importance to a thought of agreater importance rather than vice versa —where by "greater" we mean better, moreprominent, more unusual, more valuable,more dear, and, finally, what we value most.For example, whenever I see a house that issituated within sight of the palace at Brussels, Ithink of Idiaqueus, whose home it was. Thatwas where, when his business allowed him,we often held lengthy conversations on sub-jects from which we both derived a great dealof pleasure. Yet I do not think of that houseevery time Idiaqueus comes to mind. Ob-


viously my recollection (recordatio) of Idia-queus is more salient in my soul than is that ofhis house.

It is the same with sounds, taste, and smell.When I was a boy in Valencia, and sufferingfrom a fever, I ate some cherries while my tastewas spoiled. Many years later, whenever Itasted that fruit, not only did I remember thefever, but it seemed to me that I actually had it.For this reason those areas that are responsiblefor undertaking memory must be kept empty;otherwise, if they should contain somethingremarkable or outstanding from our point ofview, they will overwhelm what has been en-trusted to them. Similarly, the recall process(recordatio) seizes on something significantand, being occupied with that, it forgets every-thing else: it is much like the stomach which,when many sorts of food are available, con-centrates on the sort that suits it best andneglects the other sorts. Moreover, since re-semblance reduces many things almost to thesame thing, it is easy and common to make anerror not only in memory but also in thinking,when one goes from one thing to another simi-lar to it. We take 'Georgius' for 'Gregorius','problema' for 'enthymema', or 'Pindarus' in-stead of 'Pandarus'. In words, the similarityoccurs in the middle, at the beginning, or at theend. In subjects, the similarity arises from thepart of them that the attention considers. Forexample we may take Xenocrates instead ofAristotle in the area of philosophy and Platonicteaching, Scipio instead of Quintus Fabius inthe context of the Punic Wars, Irus instead ofCodrus for poverty, Demosthenes instead ofCicero for oratorical skill, Narcissus instead ofAdonis for handsome appearance, garlic in-stead of onion for smell. The same holds forplace, time, actions or conditions; examples ofthese are widespread. Similarity confusesmemory, just as it confuses the body's eyes. Itprevents the memory from making a correctjudgment on something that has been pre-sented to it in a jumbled manner. The fault canbe caused in one of several ways. It may becaused in the act of 'initial attention' (primaattentio) because the intelligence (intelligen-tia) does not pay sufficient attention to what isbeing presented to it to be able to commit itcompletely and distinctly to memory. In thiscategory can be included cases where peopleare preoccupied in doing something else. Oralternatively the fault can lie in the memory

itself if it has not stored the material withsufficient fidelity. Or it may lie in the "secondreflection" (secunda consideratio) stage, thatis, the attention stage, when material that hasbeen fully stored in the memory is incorrectlyretrieved. Sometimes this last can happenthrough carelessness or a certain laziness; atother times it occurs because the soul is in anagitated state, as for example, in drunkards,the angry, the fearful, lovers, the envious, theoverjoyed and so on. So when material is re-trieved that is not identical with that committedto and deposited in memory, the fault is eitherin the receiving of the material, or in its stor-age, or in the process of bringing it back.Similarly, the process of reflection becomesconfused when, in order to search for or re-trieve certain things, different or irrelevantthings are interjected from an external source.Yesterday Peter of Toledo greeted me in theforum. I did not pay much attention to him anddo not particularly remember (memini) theevent. If anyone should then ask me "Whogreeted you in the forum yesterday?", myreply would be most easily forthcoming if headded nothing else than if he should ask "Wasit Jo? Manricus or Lod? Abylensis?" If thequestion "Who was the father of Socrates?"were to be posed, the answer would comemore easily to memory than if the question"Surely it was not Democritus?" were added.The process of reflection (consideratio) iseven further disrupted when the fault lies insimilarity. The reason is that while the processof reflection is searching for something, itseizes one task at a time and attends to thatalone. If, however, some other task is pre-sented, it has the additional job of rejectingthat. The work involved is therefore twofold:firstly, rejecting what does not fit, and sec-ondly, substituting what does fit.

The distinguishing of time is an importantfeature in retrieval (reminiscentia); without itimages would become confused as if, in apicture, some images had been painted overothers without any gaps. Things that are re-ceived by the soul in a state of clarity andtranquility adhere more readily in the mind(mens), and leave their imprint for a longerperiod and more distinctly, if only we applythe soul attentively. It is for this reason thatwhat is seen and heard at an early age is stored(recordari) for a longer duration and morefully: for at that time the mind is free of worries


and thoughts. Moreover this is a period inwhich we pay special attention, since at thatage we regard everything with wonder as if itwere novel. We observe carefully those thingsthat inspire wonder in us: they descend deepinto the soul, and for this reason are paintedmore distinctly on the memory. Thus they areeasily recalled (recordatio) and clearly re-trieved. Old people have difficulty in graspingand retaining things on account of their age(for their spirits become condensed and do notreceive images easily); in addition to this diffi-culty, they become inwardly confused becausethey are busy and trying to attend to a varietyof subjects. As a result, nothing can be found.Moreover, images that have been engraved onthe memory can be rubbed off, making recall{recordatio) appear defective: it seems alwaysto be missing something because details ofplace, of time and of people have disappeared.This is the first defect of a memory that iswavering through age. It is the reflective pro-cess (consideratio) that searches for the con-tents of the memory. Images of thingspreserved by the memory are imprinted inclear spirit (spiritus) which, since it is warmand active, is never at rest. The power of thereflection (consideratio) (i.e., the spirit serv-ing it) attends only to that part of the image

with which it comes into contact. For thisreason we do not recall (recordatio) every-thing even when our will dictates that we doso. Often we search for things we cannot find,but which afterwards present themselves oftheir own accord. This happens even duringrest. For instance certain individuals, search-ing for the answer to some question, or thename of something, have stayed wide awakefor a long time: then they discover the answerin their sleep. There are certain things that arereceived by the primary simple intelligence(intelligentia): they are things that come infrom external sources by way of the two sensesof hearing and seeing. Although these thingsgo unheeded, they are passed immediately tothe memory. Nevertheless the attention (atten-tio), as if reinvigorated, inspects them in thememory, occasionally understanding them im-mediately afterwards, but quite often after along interval. It is as if a person were to bearoused from sleep, or returned to his sensesafter a loss of reason. These are the peoplewho are slow-witted or wandering in mind(animus), or who are concentrating intently onsome other object of their vision or hearing,whose common sense (sensus communis) canbe occupied with other matters just as has beendescribed above.

RESUME

Les etudes historiques portant sur I'associationismc et la psychologie an-cienne se referent souvent aux oeuvres de Vives (1492-1540) sur la memoireet le deroulement des idees. Le present article contient une traduction d'unchapitre sur la memoire tire de l'ouvrage de Vives intitule "De Anima etVita". L'introduction precedant la traduction permet de situer le chapitredans son contexte historique, et de demontrer qu'une bonne part de soncontenu est fondee sur des conceptions datant du debut du Moyen Age.L'introduction permet aussi de souligncr combien Vives s'est avere originalet jusqu'a quel point il a anticipe les problemes qui preoccupent encoreaujourd'hui les chercheurs dans le domaine de la memoire.

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Vives (1538) on memory and recall