Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/261

 ledge which can be entitled ours, that is innate; none but what has been obtained from experience, or derived in some way from our senses; all knowledge, at all events, is examined by these, approved by them, and finally presents itself to us firmly grounded upon some pre-existing knowledge which we possessed: because without memory there is no experience, which is nothing else than reiterated memory; in like manner memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been.

The supreme dictator in philosophy again and elsewhere expresses himself very elegantly in the same direction: "All men desire by nature to know; the evidence of this is the pleasure they take in using their senses, among which the sight is that which is particularly preferred, because this especially serves us to acquire knowledge, and informs us of the greatest number of differences. Nature, therefore, endowed animals with sense; some of them, however, have no memory from the operations of their senses; others, again, have memory; and this is the reason wherefore some are more intelligent, and some more capable of receiving instruction than others, those, namely, that want recollection. Some show discretion independently of tuition: inasmuch as there are many that do not hear, such as bees and others of the same kind. But all animals which along with memory have the faculty of hearing are susceptible of education. Other creatures, again, live possessed of fancy and memory, but they have little store of experience; the human kind, however, have both art and reasoning. Now experience comes to man through memory; for many memories of the same thing have the force of a single experience: so that experience appears to be almost identical with certain kinds of art and science; and, indeed, men acquire both art and science by experience: for experience, as Polus rightly remarks, begets art, inexperience is waited on by accident."