This explains why we
hunt up the series (of kineseis) having started in thought either from
a present intuition or some other, and from something either
similar, or contrary, to what we seek, or else from that which is
contiguous with it. Such is the empirical ground of the process of
recollection; for the mnemonic movements involved in these
starting-points are in some cases identical, in others, again,
simultaneous, with those of the idea we seek, while in others they
comprise a portion of them, so that the remnant which one
experienced after that portion (and which still requires to be excited
in memory) is comparatively small.
Thus, then, it is that persons seek to recollect, and thus, too,
it is that they recollect even without the effort of seeking to do so,
viz. when the movement implied in recollection has supervened on
some other which is its condition. For, as a rule, it is when
antecedent movements of the classes here described have first been
excited, that the particular movement implied in recollection follows.
We need not examine a series of which the beginning and end lie far
apart, in order to see how (by recollection) we remember; one in which
they lie near one another will serve equally well. For it is clear
that the method is in each case the same, that is, one hunts up the
objective series, without any previous search or previous
recollection.


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