Chapter 9 [VII.]—Our Ignorance of Ourselves Illustrated by the Remarkable Memory of One Simplicius.

Observe now, while we are, while we live, while we know that we live, while we are certain that we possess memory, understanding, and will; who boast of ourselves as having a great knowledge of our own nature;—observe, I say, how entirely ignorant we are of what avail to us is our memory, or our understanding, or our will. A certain man who from his youth has been a friend of mine, named Simplicius, is a person of accurate and astonishing memory. I once asked him to tell me what were the last lines but one of all the books of Virgil; he immediately answered my question without the least hesitation, and with perfect accuracy. I then asked him to repeat the preceding lines; he did so. And I really believe that he could have repeated Virgil line after line backward. For wherever I wished, I made trial whether he could do it, and he did it. Similarly in prose, from any of Cicero’s orations, which he had learnt by heart, he would perform a similar feat at our request, by reciting backwards as far as we wished. Upon our expressing astonishment, he called God to witness that he had no idea of this ability of his previous to that trial. So far, therefore, as memory is concerned, his mind only then learnt its own power; and such discovery would at no time be possible except by trial and experiment. Moreover, he was of course the very same man before he tried his powers; how was it, then, that he was ignorant of himself?

CAPUT VII.

9. Ecce modo, modo dum sumus , dum vivimus, dum nos vivere scimus, dum meminisse nos, et intelligere, et velle certissimi sumus , qui nos naturae nostrae magnos cognitores esse jactamus, quid valeat memoria nostra, vel intelligentia, vel voluntas, omnino nescimus. Amicus quidam meus jam inde ab adolescentia, Simplicius nomine, homo excellentis mirabilisque memoriae, cum interrogatus esset a nobis, quos versus Virgilius in omnibus libris supra ultimos dixerit; continuo, celeriter, memoriterque respondit. Quaesivimus etiam superiores ut diceret, dixit. Et credidimus eum posse retrorsum recitare Virgilium. De quocumque loco voluimus, petivimus ut faceret, fecit. De prosa etiam de quacumque oratione Ciceronis, quam memoriae commendaverat, id eum facere voluimus; quantum voluimus sursum versus secutus est. Cum admiraremur, testatus est Deum , nescisse se hoc posse ante illud experimentum: ita, quantum ad memoriam attinet, tunc se ejus animus didicit; et quandocumque discere, nisi tentando et experiendo non posset. Et utique antequam tentaret, idem ipse erat: cur se igitur nesciebat?