ON THE SHADOWS OF IDEAS

I am listening, but so that I may hear more, discuss it among yourselves. PHILOTIMUS: I shall debate with you then, Logifer, and I would say this first: your statement carries no power of persuasion; rather, the very strength of your reasoning serves to confirm the opposite opinion. For those few who have attained an understanding of this invention—among whose number Hermes and I belong—would extol it with no small praise. However, those who have understood it the least will be able neither to praise nor to blame it. LOGIFER: You speak of what ought to be, not what will be, is, or has been. Many, since they do not understand, and for the very reason that they do not understand—driven moreover by an unfair spirit—heap many slanders against both the author and the art itself. Have you not heard with your own ears Doctor Bobus A satirical name likely targeting a specific contemporary academic critic of mnemonics, who said there is no art of memory, but that it is acquired only through habit and the frequent repetition of passages—by seeing again many times what has been seen, and by receiving again many times what has been perceived by the ears? PHILOTIMUS: If this man had a tail, he would be a long-tailed monkey original: "cercopitecus". LOGIFER: How will you respond to Master Anthoe, who thinks that those who perform operations of memory beyond the common sort are magicians, or possessed by spirits original: "energumenos," referring to those under the influence of demons, or men of some such species? You see how much that man has grown old in his letters. PHILOTIMUS: I would not doubt that this man is the grandson of that famous donkey who...