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Book X -- Memory
Summary
Book X is the beginning of the philosophical portion of Confessions. Augustine sets out to fully vindicate his faith and explain as much of the tenets of Christianity inthe context of philosophy as possible. After having told us of his life and conversion, he now mimics the state of his mind after conversion by showing us as much of his faith as he can. The remainingBooks are longer in length than the preceding one.

The primary purpose of Book X is to show that the search for God is an inward search of one's own mind. The function of memory, which is sharedsomewhat by both animals and humans, produces a bewildering array of conundrums for Augustine. He goes through each type of memory (senses, skills, ideas, and emotions) and wonders at the difficulty inunderstanding how they work. With no knowledge of physiology, Augustine tackles the problem of human memory and its importance to faith. In the Platonic dialogue Meno, Plato argues that the soul doesnot truly learn anything that is true - it merely remembers things from the time before it was born. This thought was taken up by the Neoplatonists, and serves as a starting point for Augustine's ownidea.
Augustine expresses the belief that knowledge (that is, knowledge of true things) is unconsious - it can be found in all people but is not acknowledged or recognized unless touched by God.Augustine admits that he cannot find God using any of his senses, so he must turn his quest inward, into his mind. He likens memory to a storehouse: he begins with sensory memories, and wonders at howthese memories can have such an effect on the person remembering them. He is confounded by the number and variety of images that are stored in a human mind. This leads him to praise God, and see this asfurther evidence that human beings cannot fully understand their total selves. This causes a philosophical paradox for Augustine for the rest of his days.
Skill-memories present new difficulties for...