We can now understand why it is that sometimes, when we have such
processes, based on some former act of perception, occurring in the
soul, we do not know whether this really implies our having had
perceptions corresponding to them, and we doubt whether the case is or
is not one of memory. But occasionally it happens that (while thus
doubting) we get a sudden idea and recollect that we heard or saw
something formerly. This (occurrence of the 'sudden idea') happens
whenever, from contemplating a mental object as absolute, one
changes his point of view, and regards it as relative to something
else.
The opposite (sc. to the case of those who at first do not recognize
their phantasms as mnemonic) also occurs, as happened in the cases
of Antipheron of Oreus and others suffering from mental derangement;
for they were accustomed to speak of their mere phantasms as facts
of their past experience, and as if remembering them. This takes place
whenever one contemplates what is not a likeness as if it were a
likeness.
Mnemonic exercises aim at preserving one's memory of something by
repeatedly reminding him of it; which implies nothing else (on the
learner's part) than the frequent contemplation of something (viz. the
'mnemonic', whatever it may be) as a likeness, and not as out of
relation.
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