PARTITION OF THE FUND OF MEMORY BETWEEN THE TWO SOULS.
What about (the memory) of friends, of parents, of a wife, of the fatherland, and of all that a virtuous man may properly remember? In the image of the soul (the irrational soul) these memories will be accompanied by a passive affection; but in the man (the rational soul) they will not be so accompanied. The affections exist since the beginning in the inferior soul; in the superior soul, as a result of her dealings with the other, there are also some affections, but only proper affections. The inferior soul may well seek to remember the actions of the superior soul, especially when she herself has been properly cultivated; for she can become better from her very principle up, and through the education she receives from the other. The higher soul must willingly forget what comes to her from the inferior soul. When she is good, she can, besides, by her power contain the subordinate soul. The more she desires to approach the intelligible world, the more she must forget the things from here below, unless the whole life she has led here below be such that she has entrusted to her memory none but praiseworthy things. Even in our own world, indeed, it is a fine thing to release oneself from human preoccupations. It would therefore be still finer to forget them all. In this sense we might well say that the virtuous soul should be forgetful. She thus escapes manifoldness, reduces manifoldness to unity, and abandons the indeterminate. She therefore ceases to live with manifoldness, lightens her burdens, and lives for herself. Indeed, while remaining here below, she desires to live in the intelligible world, and neglects all that is foreign to her nature. She therefore retains but few earthly things when she has arrived to the intelligible world; she has more of them when she inhabits the heavens. Hercules (in heaven) may well vaunt his valor; but even this valor seems to him trifling when he has arrived at a region still holier than heaven, when he dwells in the intelligible world, when he has risen over Hercules himself by the force manifested in those struggles which are characteristic of veritable sages.