======================================================================== CONFESSIONS - BOOK X - CHAPTER XIX by St. Augustine ======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 28. But what happens when the memory itself loses something, as when we forget anything and try to recall it? Where, finally, do we search, but in the memory itself? And there, if by chance one thing is offered for another, we refuse it until we meet with what we are looking for; and when we do, we recognize that this is it. But we could not do this unless we recognized it, nor could we have recognized it unless we remembered it. Yet we had indeed forgotten it. Perhaps the whole of it had not slipped out of our memory; but a part was retained by which the other lost part was sought for, because the memory realized that it was not operating as smoothly as usual and was being held up by the crippling of its habitual working; hence, it demanded the restoration of what was lacking. For example, if we see or think of some man we know, and, having forgotten his name, try to recall it--if some other thing presents itself, we cannot tie it into the effort to remember, because it was not habitually thought of in association with him. It is consequently rejected, until something comes into the mind on which our knowledge can rightly rest as the familiar and sought-for object. And where does this name come back from, save from the memory itself? For even when we recognize it by another\\ ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/st-augustine/confessions-book-x-chapter-xix/ ========================================================================