In the foregoing sketch of Aristotle’s view of memory the attempt has been made to give only what can fairly be found in Aristotle’s text. Much of his tract upon memory is obscure. Commentators have held very conflicting opinions in regard to the importance of what he wrote upon association and recollection. Sir W^m. Hamilton calls him “the founder and finisher of the theory of Association,” looks upon the commentators as marvellously stupid in their interpretations, and deems it a proof of Aristotle’s genius that it took the world 2000 years to become intelligent enough to understand him. Indeed, in reading Hamilton’s erudite discussion one may be led almost to believing that Aristotle was the first Scottish philosopher. But while Hamilton’s Scottish apperception probably found too much in Aristotle’s treatise, and while, on the other hand, Lewes may be right in saying that “here as in so many other cases modern knowledge supplies the telescope with its lenses”, nevertheless Aristotle’s doctrine of association was a valuable contribution to science. And it is manifestly unfair to charge him with ignorance of its importance, because he did not spin out as many volumes upon the subject as the English associationalists have done.[27] III. The Stoics took Plato’s figure of the wax almost literally! They held that the mind is originally a _tabula rasa_. Sensations are the first writing upon this tablet. The object of sensation makes an impression upon the perceiving subject, as the seal impresses the wax. Memory depends upon this impression. This was the view of Zeno. Chrysippus found difficulties in such a crude materialistic theory. How could the mind receive and retain at the same time a number of different and partly incompatible impressions? Accordingly he replaced this view by the theory that the sense impression consists in @a@ qualitative change (ἀλλοίωσις) of the passively receiving organ, the soul.[28] The presentation (φαντασία) is a state of the soul. The relation of memory to the general theory of knowledge with the Stoics was briefly as follows:—The lowest act of the soul is mere perception (αἴσθησις); the next is presentation (φαντασία), which adds conscious observation, its function being to make a first test of the truth of the material furnished by sense. If perception has offered a true picture of the external object, this presenting activity of the mind becomes so intensive that the understanding is brought into action. The understanding or judgment approves or disapproves the presentations. If it approves, there arises the empirical fact, which bears upon it the mark of truth. These facts memory stores up. By combination of the separate facts empirical concepts are formed which make up the treasure of memory or experience.[29]