8. It may be urged that the actual presence of past experiences, kept present by Memory, gives the advantage to the man of the longer felicity.
But, Memory of what sort of experiences?
Memory either of formerly attained wisdom and virtue — in which case we have a better man and the argument from memory is given up — or memory of past pleasures, as if the man that has arrived at felicity must roam far and wide in search of gratifications and is not contented by the bliss actually within him.
And what is there pleasant in the memory of pleasure? What is it to recall yesterday’s excellent dinner? Still more ridiculous, one of ten years ago. So, too, of last year’s morality.
9. But is there not something to be said for the memory of the various forms of beauty?
That is the resource of a man whose life is without beauty in the present, so that, for lack of it now, he grasps at the memory of what has been.
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