Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 108

84

LANGUAGE

§ 40.

§ 40.

man

If a single

moment

[Div. II

Language

could perform this gigantic task in one

if there Avere no difficulties to encounter, immediate and complete knowledge would be conceivable without memory and without spoken language. But since this

of time,

and

intellectual task laps across the ages,

is

divided

among many-

thousands of thinkers, and amid all sorts of difficulties can make but very slow progress science is not conceivable withWith the flight of time neither out memory and language.

—

by representation nor science by conception can be we have some means by which to retain these representations and conceptions. Whether this retention is accomplished immediately by what we call memory, or mediately by signs, pictures, or writing, which recall to us at any moment like representations and science

retained with any permanency, unless

conceptions,

is

immaterial as far as the result

fact that representations

is

concerned.

human mind. The

In either case the action goes out from our

and conceptions are recognized from

mind has maintained its relation to them, although in a different way from common "remembrance." If we had become estranged from them, we would not recognize what had been chronicled. Although then our mind is more active in what we call "memory," and more passive in the recognition of what has been recorded, it is in both cases the action of the same faculty of our mind which,

the page shows that our

either with or without the help of means, retains the represen-

tation or conception

and holds

it

permanently as accumulated

capital.

Observe, however, that in our present state at

least, this

stored treasure

the

is

memory without aids fact that we find it

by the

than a conception greatest

;

difficulties

sure to corrode

for

when kept

This

retention.

is

in

shown

easier to retain a representation

and that our memory encounters the retaining names and signs, which

in

give neither a complete representation nor a complete conception, but less

which

in relation to each are

arbitrarily chosen.

Finally, as

to

always more or

the

record of the

contents of our consciousness outside of us, representations

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