A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is, by pregnant texts of Scripture vindicated from false glosses / by Anthony Burgess.

SECT. VI.

Of the Nature of it.

ANd as for the Nature of memory, though Aristotle and others after him, have undertaken to say much about it, yet Austin doth much bewail the ignorance and weaknesse of a man in this thing, (l. 10. conf.) calling it, the unsearch∣able recesses and vast concavities of the memory, saying,

It is in vain for a man to think to understand the nature of the Heavens, when he cannot know what his memory is:

Under this difficulty (he saith) he did labour and toil, and yet could not come to any sure knowledge. This is certain, that the things we remember are not in our souls themselves; when we remember such a tree or stone, the tree or stone is not really in us: Hence (saith Austin) we may Dolo∣ris laeti reminisci, and Laetitiae dolentes reminisci, Remember with joy former sorrow, or with sorrow former joy: Yea (he saith) we may Oblivionis remi∣nisci, we may remember our forgetfulnesse; Now if these things were really in us, it could not be but that sorrow remembred would make us sorrowfull, or forgetfulnesse remembred make us forgetfull. The objects then remembred are in us by way of Species or Images, the Phantasmata are there conserved, and when by them we come to remember, then they are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; Hence (they say) that sometimes a man thinketh he remembreth, when he doth not, yea he cannot tell whether he remembreth such a thing or no, because (say they) the Phantasma is thus absolutely presented, and not as 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; Even as a man may look upon a picture, either absolutely, as having such lineaments and colour, or relatively, as an Image, whereby we come to remember such an one. But these Philosophical notions about Phantasmata and Species are so obscure, that it is better with Austin, to acknowledge our ignorance of this noble and admirable power in the soul, whereby it doth remember things; whatsoever it be, though given us as an admirable and usefull gift, yet now it is grosly polluted, and is the conserver of all evil and vanity.