But this was lost to the eyes, but retained in the memory.
But what when the memory itself loses any thing, as falls out when
we forget and seek that we may recollect? Where in the end do we
search, but in the memory itself? and there, if one thing be perchance
offered instead of another, we reject it, until what we seek meets us;
and when it doth, we say, "This is it"; which we should not unless
we recognised it, nor recognise it unless we remembered it.
Certainly then we had forgotten it. Or, had not the whole escaped
us, but by the part whereof we had hold, was the lost part sought for;
in that the memory felt that it did not carry on together all which it
was wont, and maimed, as it were, by the curtailment of its ancient
habit, demanded the restoration of what it missed? For instance, if we
see or think of some one known to us, and having forgotten his name,
try to recover it; whatever else occurs, connects itself not
therewith; because it was not wont to be thought upon together with
him, and therefore is rejected, until that present itself, whereon the
knowledge reposes equably as its wonted object.
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