Single Idea 22980

[catalogued under 12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory]

Full Idea

The memory contains the innumerable principles and laws of numbers and dimensions. None of these can have been conveyed to me by the bodily senses.

Gist of Idea

Memory contains innumerable principles of maths, as well as past sense experiences

Source

Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.12)

Book Reference

Augustine: 'Confessions', ed/tr. Pine-Coffin,R.S. [Penguin 1961], p.219


A Reaction

Even if you have a fairly empirical view of the sources of mathematics (a view with which I sympathise), it must by admitted that our endless extrapolations from the sources also reside in memory. So we remember thoughts as well as experiences.