The Book of Memory Read online

  over a long period of time. The first is by Leopold Infeld, a physicist who

  worked with Einstein at Princeton:

  I was very much impressed by the ingenuity of Einstein’s most recent paper. It was

  an intricate, most skillfully arranged chain of reasoning, leading to the conclusion

  that gravitational waves do not exist. If true, the result would be of great impor-

  tance to relativity theory . . .

  The greatness of Einstein lies in his tremendous imagination, in the unbeliev-

  able obstinacy with which he pursues his problems. Originality is the most

  essential factor in important scientific work. It is intuition which leads to unex-

  plored regions, intuition as difficult to explain rationally as that by which the oil

  diviner locates the wealth hidden in the earth.

  There is no great scientific achievement without wandering through the dark-

  ness of error. The more the imagination is restricted, the more a piece of work

  moves along a definite track – a process made up rather of additions than

  essentially new ideas – the safer the ground and the smaller the probability of

  error. There are no great achievements without error and no great man was always

  correct. This is well known to every scientist. Einstein’s paper might be wrong and

  Einstein still be the greatest scientist of our generation . . .

  The most amazing thing about Einstein was his tremendous vital force directed

  toward one and only one channel: that of original thinking, of doing research.

  Slowly I came to realize that in exactly this was his greatness. Nothing is as

  important as physics. No human relations, no personal life, are as essential as

  thought and the comprehension of how ‘‘God created the world.’’ . . . one feels

  behind [his] external activity the calm, watchful contemplation of scientific

  problems, that the mechanism of his brain works without interruption. It is a

  Introduction

  3

  constant motion which nothing can stop . . . The clue to the understanding of

  Einstein’s role in science lies in his loneliness and aloofness. In this respect he differs

  from all other scientists . . . He had never studied physics at a famous university, he

  was not attached to any school; he worked as a clerk in a patent office . . . For him

  the isolation was a blessing since it prevented his thought from wandering into

  conventional channels. This aloofness, this independent thought on problems

  which Einstein formulated for himself, not marching with the crowd but looking

  for his own lonely pathways, is the most essential feature of his creation. It is not only

  originality, it is not only imagination, it is something more. 2

  The following descriptions are excerpted from a life of St. Thomas

  Aquinas, written shortly after his death by Bernardo Gui, and from

  testimony taken at Thomas’s canonization hearings from his close con-

  temporary, Thomas of Celano, who also knew Reginald, Thomas’s socius,

  or friar-companion.

  Of the subtlety and brilliance of his intellect and the soundness of his judgment,

  sufficient proof is his vast literary output, his many original discoveries, his deep

  understanding of the Scriptures. His memory was extremely rich and retentive:

  whatever he had once read and grasped he never forgot; it was as if knowledge were

  ever increasing in his soul as page is added to page in the writing of a book.

  Consider, for example, that admirable compilation of Patristic texts on the four

  Gospels which he made for Pope Urban [the Catena aurea or ‘‘Golden Chain’’]

  and which, for the most part, he seems to have put together from texts that he had

  read and committed to memory from time to time while staying in various

  religious houses. Still stronger is the testimony of Reginald his socius and of his

  pupils and of those who wrote to his dictation, who all declare that he used to

  dictate in his cell to three secretaries, and even occasionally to four, on different

  subjects at the same time . . . No one could dictate simultaneously so much various

  material without a special grace. Nor did he seem to be searching for things as yet

  unknown to him; he seemed simply to let his memory pour out its treasures . . .

  He never set himself to study or argue a point, or lecture or write or dictate

  without first having recourse inwardly – but with tears – to prayer for the under-

  standing and the words required by the subject. When perplexed by a difficulty he

  would kneel and pray and then, on returning to his writing or dictation, he was

  accustomed to find that his thought had become so clear that it seemed to show

  him inwardly, as in a book, the words he needed . . .

  Even at meal-times his recollection continued; dishes would be placed before

  him and taken away without his noticing; and when the brethren tried to get him

  into the garden for recreation, he would draw back swiftly and retire to his cell

  alone with his thoughts. 3

  It might be useful to isolate the qualities of genius enumerated in each of

  the above descriptions. Of Einstein: ingenuity, intricate reasoning, origi-

  nality, imagination, essentially new ideas coupled with the notion that to

  4

  The Book of Memory

  achieve truth one must err of necessity, deep devotion to and understand-

  ing of physics, obstinacy, vital force, single-minded concentration, soli-

  tude. Of Thomas Aquinas: subtlety and brilliance of intellect, original

  discoveries coupled with deep understanding of Scripture, memory, noth-

  ing forgotten and knowledge ever-increasing, special grace, inward

  recourse, single-minded concentration, intense recollection, solitude.

  As I compare these two lists I am struck first by the extent to which the

  qualities ascribed to each man’s working habits are the same. In both, one

  gets a vivid sense of extraordinary concentration on problems to the exclu-

  sion of most daily routine. Infeld speaks of tremendous vital force, Bernardo

  of intense inner prayer, but both are describing a concentrated continuous

  energy that expresses itself in a profound singlemindedness, a remarkable

  solitude and aloofness. Each also praises the intricacy and brilliance of the

  reasoning, and its prolific character, its originality. It is important to

  appreciate that Bernardo values originality in Thomas’s work – he praises

  its creativeness just as Infeld praises that in Einstein’s.

  What we have, in short, is a recognizable likeness between these two

  extraordinary intellects, in terms of what they needed for their composi-

  tional activity (the activity of thought), the social isolation required by each

  individual, and what is perceived to be the remarkable subtlety, originality,

  and understanding of the product of such reasoning. What is strikingly

  different is that in the one case this process and product are ascribed to

  intuition and imagination unfettered by ‘‘definite’’ tracks, in the other to a

  ‘‘rich and retentive memory,’’ which never forgot anything and in which

  knowledge increased ‘‘as page is added to page in the writing of a book.’’

  My point in setting these two descriptions up in this way is simply this:

  the nature of creative activity itself – what the brain
does, and the social and

  psychic conditions needed for its nurture – has remained essentially the

  same between Thomas’s time and our own. Human beings did not

  suddenly acquire imagination and intuition with Coleridge, having pre-

  viously been poor clods. The difference is that whereas now geniuses are

  said to have creative imagination which they express in intricate reasoning

  and original discovery, in earlier times they were said to have richly

  retentive memories, which they expressed in intricate reasoning and orig-

  inal discovery.

  We know a good deal about the actual procedures that Thomas Aquinas

  followed in composing his works, thanks in part to the full accounts we

  have from the hearings held for his canonization,4 and in part to the

  remarkable survival of several pages of autograph drafts of certain of his

  early works. Both sources of material have received a thorough analysis

  Introduction

  5

  from the paleographic scholar, Antoine Dondaine. 5 Dondaine’s work con-

  firmed the existence, alluded to many times in the contemporary accounts,

  of a group of three or four secretaries who took down Thomas’s composi-

  tions in a fair hand from his own dictation. The autographs are written in

  littera inintelligibilis, a kind of shorthand that fully lives up to its name

  (Dondaine says that the great nineteenth-century editor, Uccelli, lost his

  eyesight scrutinizing these drafts) for it was not designed to be read by

  anyone other than the author himself. As Dondaine has reconstructed the

  process of composing the Summa contra Gentiles, an early work for which a

  number of autograph leaves exist, Thomas wrote first in littera inintelligibilis

  and then summoned one of his secretaries to take down the text in a legible

  hand while Thomas read his own autograph aloud. When one scribe tired,

  another took over.

  But no autographs are found of the later major works. Dondaine

  remarks this fact as curious, because one would expect these autographs

  to have been treasured at least as carefully as those of earlier works. He

  suggests that their nonexistence is due not to loss but to there having been

  none in the first place to save. ‘‘Le fait qu’il n’y ait plus d’autographes des

  ouvrages posteŕieurs invite a´ penser que saint Thomas ne les a pas ećrits,

  sinon peut-eˆtre sous forme de brouillons, et qu’il les a dicteś en les

  composant.’’6 Dondaine points out the tedium and waste of time involved

  for Thomas in writing out a complete text, even in shorthand, and then

  reading it aloud for it to be written again, this time in a fair hand.

  There is good evidence in the remembrance of his peers that, certainly

  later in life, Thomas was not accustomed to writing his thoughts down

  himself, even in inintelligibilis. Two incidents in particular suggest this

  habit. There is the famous story of Thomas at dinner with Louis XI, Saint

  Louis. Though seated next to the king, Thomas was still preoccupied by an

  argument he was composing against the Manichees. Suddenly he struck the

  table, crying, ‘‘That settles the Manichees!’’ and called out to Reginald, his

  socius, ‘‘as though he were still at study in his cell . . . ‘Reginald, get up and

  write!’’’7 This incident must have occurred between the springs of 1269 and

  1270; the work in progress was the Second Part of the Summa theologica.8

  The second incident occurred in conjunction with the writing of his

  commentary on Isaiah, a work for which an autograph of five chapters

  exists (Vatican lat. 9850).9 Thomas became puzzled for days over the

  interpretation of a text:

  At last, one night when he had stayed up to pray, his socius overheard him

  speaking, as it seemed, with other persons in the room; though what was being

  said the socius could not make out, nor did he recognize the other voices. Then

  6

  The Book of Memory

  these fell silent and he heard Thomas’s voice calling: ‘‘Reginald, my son, get up

  and bring a light and the commentary on Isaiah; I want you to write for me.’’ So

  Reginald rose and began to take down the dictation, which ran so clearly that it

  was as if the master were reading aloud from a book under his eyes. 10

  Pressed by Reginald for the names of his mysterious companions, Thomas

  finally replied that Peter and Paul had been sent to him, ‘‘and told me all

  I desired to know.’’ This tale, among other things, suggests that some of

  Thomas’s work was composed in a mixture of some parts written out in

  shorthand and then read to a secretary and some mentally composed and

  dictated. The contemporary sources suggest strongly that the entire Summa

  theologica was composed mentally and dictated from memory, with the aid

  at most of a few written notes, and there is no reason to disbelieve them.

  Around 1263, Thomas wrote a compilation of patristic texts on the

  Gospels, the Catena aurea, which Gui describes, in the passage I just

  quoted, as ‘‘put together from texts that [Thomas] had read and committed

  to memory from time to time while staying in various religious houses.’’11

  Chenu accurately describes it as a ‘‘concatenation of patristic texts cleverly

  coordinated into a running commentary’’; it includes a number of Greek

  authorities as well, which Thomas had had translated into Latin in order to

  add these extracts, ‘‘being careful to place the names of the authors before

  their testimonies’’ in the proper quotational style, whose purpose, as we will

  see in Chapter 3, was certainly to aid memorial retention. 12 The catena or chain is a very old medieval genre of scholarly commentary, used widely by

  the monastic scholars as part of lectio divina. 13 The authorities are chained,

  or hooked, together by a particular Biblical phrase. Thus the commentary

  entirely follows the sequence of the main text, each chapter division of the

  Gospel book forming a division of the Catena, and each verse (actually its

  unnumbered phrases and clauses) quoted separately with a string of rele-

  vant comments following it.

  The written organization of the catena simply reproduces its memorial

  organization, as each bit of Biblical text calls up the authorities attached to

  it. For example, on Mt. 2:9, Thomas Aquinas first gives us a bit of

  Chrysostom on Matthew, then Augustine from two sources, then the

  ordinary gloss, then Ambrose on Luke, then Remigius, and then the

  gloss again. It is important to note that in writing this work Thomas did

  not look up each quotation in a manuscript tome as he composed; the

  accounts are specific on this point. The texts were already filed in his

  memory, in an ordered form that is one of the basics of mnemonic

  technique. And of course, once the texts were in his memory they stayed

  there for use on other occasions.

  Introduction

  7

  I am not suggesting that Thomas never made reference to manuscripts –

  on the contrary, we know that he did. We also know that one task of his

  secretaries was to copy manuscripts for his use. 14 But the picture we are

  often given of Thomas pausing while dictating in order to check a reference

&nbs
p; in a manuscript seems to me contrary to the evidence. For we are told over

  and over again that Thomas’s flow to his secretaries was unceasing: it ‘‘ran

  so clearly that it was as if the master were reading aloud from a book under

  his eyes.’’ He dictated ‘‘as if a great torrent of truth were pouring into him

  from God. Nor did he seem to be searching for things as yet unknown to

  him; he seemed simply to let his memory pour out its treasures.’’ And

  again, ‘‘When perplexed by a difficulty he would kneel and pray and then,

  on returning to his writing or dictation, he was accustomed to find that his

  thought had become so clear that it seemed to show him inwardly, as in a

  book, the words he needed.’’15

  That unceasing torrent, that clarity as though reading from a book

  before his eyes, that quality of retaining whatever he had read and

  grasped, can be understood if we are willing to give his trained memory

  its due. Thomas himself stresses the importance of concentration in

  memory, and we are told many times of his remarkable power of deep

  concentration, often approaching a trance-like state in which he did not

  feel physical pain. Thomas communed with his memory constantly,

  certainly before he dictated, and only when he clearly had ‘ the under-

  standing and the words required ’ (my emphasis) would he lecture or write

  or dictate.16 (This, of course, is not to suggest that his works were dictated

  always in the absolutely final form in which we have them today;

  Dondaine gives much evidence of revision and reworking in the auto-

  graphs and between the autographs and the fair texts. For some works, he

  left notes which were to be worked up later; the Supplement to the Summa

  is an example of such a practice.) I am even inclined to take somewhat

  seriously his comment to Reginald that Peter and Paul spoke with him

  and instructed him in his difficulties with the text of Isaiah. Their words

  were certainly intimately in his mind, among the many voices in his

  memory, intimate colleagues to his own thoughts. Moreover, subvocali-

  zation, a murmur, was a persistent and apparently necessary feature of

  memory work. One of his secretaries, a Breton called Evan, told how

  Thomas would sometimes sit down to rest from the work of dictating

  and, falling asleep, would continue to dictate in his sleep, Evan continu-