This he succeeds in doing by setting up many movements,
until finally he excites one of a kind which will have for its
sequel the fact he wishes to recollect. For remembering (which is
the condicio sine qua non of recollecting) is the existence,
potentially, in the mind of a movement capable of stimulating it to
the desired movement, and this, as has been said, in such a way that
the person should be moved (prompted to recollection) from within
himself, i.e. in consequence of movements wholly contained within
himself.
But one must get hold of a starting-point. This explains why it is
that persons are supposed to recollect sometimes by starting from
mnemonic loci. The cause is that they pass swiftly in thought from one
point to another, e.g. from milk to white, from white to mist, and
thence to moist, from which one remembers Autumn (the 'season of
mists'), if this be the season he is trying to recollect.
It seems true in general that the middle point also among all things
is a good mnemonic starting-point from which to reach any of them. For
if one does not recollect before, he will do so when he has come to
this, or, if not, nothing can help him; as, e.g. if one were to have
in mind the numerical series denoted by the symbols A, B, G, D, E,
Z, I, H, O. For, if he does not remember what he wants at E, then at E
he remembers O; because from E movement in either direction is
possible, to D or to Z.
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