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Perceptual Imagination and Perceptual Memory
Perceptual Imagination
and Perceptual Memory

edited by
Fiona Macpherson
and Fabian Dorsch

1
3
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In memory of Fabian Dorsch (1974–2017)

An honest man here lies at rest,

The friend of man, the friend of truth,
The friend of age, and guide of youth:
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d;
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.
—Epitaph On A Friend
Robert Burns
Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements ix

Notes on Contributors xi

1. Perceptual Imagination and Perceptual Memory: An Overview 1

Fiona Macpherson

Part I. The Nature of Perceptual Imagination and Perceptual

Memory
2. Aristotle on Distinguishing Phantasia and Memory 9
R. A. H. King
3. Sensory Memories and Recollective Images 28
Dominic Gregory
4. Imagining the Past: On the Nature of Episodic Memory 46
Robert Hopkins
5. Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 72
Dorothea Debus
6. Imaginative Content 96
Paul Noordhof

Part II. The Epistemic Role of Imagination and Memory

7. Infusing Perception with Imagination 133
Derek H. Brown
8. Superimposed Mental Imagery: On the Uses of Make-Perceive 161
Robert Eamon Briscoe
9. Visually Attending to Fictional Things 186
Gregory Currie
10. Justification by Imagination 209
Magdalena Balcerak Jackson
11. How Imagination Gives Rise to Knowledge 227
Amy Kind

Index 247
Preface and Acknowledgements

The chapters forming this volume were first presented as talks at a conference on
‘Perceptual Imagery and Perceptual Memory’ held at the Centre for the Study of
Perceptual Experience at the University of Glasgow. Further details of the Centre can
be found at <www.gla.ac.uk/cspe>. Fabian Dorsch and I were very grateful to the Scots
Philosophical Association, the Mind Association, the University of Fribourg, and the
College of Arts at the University of Glasgow for providing the funding to run the
conference.
I would like to thank enormously all of the contributors for their essays, and for their
quite considerable patience while we produced this volume containing them. I would
also like to thank Peter Langland-Hassan and an anonymous referee for their invalu-
able comments on the specific chapters, and the volume as a whole. Finally, I thank
Peter Momtchiloff and his staff at Oxford University Press for their help and advice in
preparing the volume.
The writing of this preface coincided with my receiving the shocking news of
Fabian’s unexpected and untimely death at the age of 42. Fabian wrote much important
work about perception, imagination, and aesthetics throughout his career. He gradu-
ated with a PhD from University College London in 2005, and thereafter spent time at
several institutions around the world, including Berkeley, Paris, and Warwick. I met
him at various conferences and remember great nights talking to him over many a
beer—not only about philosophy but about all concerns in life. We became great
friends.
Fabian took up a position in Fribourg, Switzerland, and not long after, we organized
a conference there on ‘Phenomenal Presence’ in 2010. He spent the Spring semester of
2011 as a visiting faculty member at the University of Glasgow where he partook in all
the various academic and social aspects of life at Glasgow with gusto. During that time,
we organized and held the conference on perceptual imagination and perceptual
memory on which this volume is based.
Fabian founded the European Society for Aesthetics in 2008. The organization has
now named the newly launched European Society for Aesthetics Essay Prize after him.
He served for over four years as an associate editor of the journal Dialectica and
then became Editor-in-Chief of the journal Estetika: The Central European Journal
of Aesthetics. In 2009 he became the Research Coordinator of the Fribourg-based
research group Experience & Reason (EXRE). Among other things, he recently pub-
lished a monograph The Unity of Imagining (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), and at the time
of his death was preparing to publish a monograph on imagination with Routledge. In
addition to this volume, we were also jointly editing a volume on Phenomenal Presence
(Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
x Preface and Acknowledgements

Fabian leaves behind a wife, Evgenia, and a young son Maxim. Fabian’s love for his son
and the great pleasure that he took in watching him grow and develop was a joy to see.
Throughout his life, Fabian greatly promoted the study of perception, imagination,
and memory not only by his numerous activities outlined above but also by his personal
influence on people. So many philosophers report having wonderful conversations
with Fabian and the influence that he had on their work. He will be remembered by
his colleagues with great fondness, not least for his good company, sense of fun, and his
enthusiasm for, and great contribution to, philosophy. He will be sorely missed.
FM
Glasgow, February 2017
Notes on Contributors

Robert Eamon Briscoe is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at

Ohio University and a contributing editor at Brains, a group blog on topics in the
philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His research takes an empirically oriented,
interdisciplinary approach toward a range of issues in the philosophy of cognitive
science and neuroscience, philosophy of perception, and philosophy of mind.
Derek H. Brown is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Brandon University. He
will take up a lectureship in Philosophy based in the Centre for the Study of Perceptual
Experience at the University of Glasgow in April 2017. His primary research interests
are in philosophy of perception, especially colour vision, theory of knowledge,
philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language.
Gregory Currie is Professor of Philosophy at the University of York and the
Executive Editor of the journal Mind & Language. He works mostly on the arts and
cognition. Presently, he is thinking about literature and the mind, the way the mind
is represented in literature, and how well or badly these representations comport with
the picture given us by experimental psychology. He also writes about film, empathy
and the emotions, irony, and about cognitive archaeology.
Dorothea Debus teaches Philosophy at the University of York. Her research inter-
ests lie in the philosophy of mind and psychology, and ethics, epistemology, and
metaphysics. At present, she is mainly thinking and writing about memory and the
emotions, and exploring how subjects take an active part in their own mental lives.
Fabian Dorsch was Research Professor in Philosophy at the University of Fribourg,
Switzerland, and the Director of the EXRE Centre of Research for Mind and
Normativity where he ran two research projects: The Normative Mind and The
Aesthetic Mind. The main foci of his research were interrelated issues in aesthetics, the
philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of normativity, notably
meta-ethics. Among other things, he recently published a monograph on the various
forms of imagining and their unity. Together with Fiona Macpherson he has edited
another volume forthcoming shortly from Oxford University Press on Phenomenal
Presence. In addition, he served for over four years as an associate editor of the journal
Dialectica and was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Estetika: The Central European
Journal of Aesthetics.
Dominic Gregory is a philosopher at the University of Sheffield. Some of his pub-
lished research has concentrated on philosophical and logical issues concerning
xii Notes on Contributors

necessity and possibility. More recently, however, he has worked on the philosophical
problems that are raised by the contents of a wide range of distinctively sensory forms
of representation, including pictures and sensory mental images. He is currently
working both on that material and also on modal epistemology.
Robert Hopkins is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. His research is
mostly in the philosophy of mind and aesthetics. He has worked on pictorial repre-
sentation and picture perception, and on other topics central to the philosophy of the
visual arts, including the aesthetics of sculpture, photography, painting, and film. He
has also conducted research on other mental states that relate in interesting ways to
our perception of pictures: perception itself, experiential imagining, and episodic
memory. He has also written on the epistemology and metaphysical status of aes-
thetic and moral judgement.
Magdalena Balcerak Jackson is Assistant Professor at the Philosophy
Department at the University of Miami. She works mainly in philosophy of mind and
epistemology but is also interested in the philosophy of language, certain areas of
philosophy of science, and phenomenology. Before coming to Miami, she was
Co-Director of the Emmy Noether Research Group ‘Understanding and the A Priori’
at the University of Konstanz.
Amy Kind is Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College. Her research
interests lie broadly in the philosophy of mind, though most of her published work
has concerned issues relating either to the imagination or to phenomenal conscious-
ness. She has also written about the nature of persons and personal identity.
R. A. H. King is Professor ordinarius with focus on history of philosophy at the
University of Bern. He has published works on Aristotle and life and death, and
Aristotle and Plotinus on memory. He has carried out research comparing different
conceptions of life in early China and in Græco-Roman Antiquity.
Fiona Macpherson is Professor and Head of Philosophy at the University of
Glasgow, where she is also director of the Centre for the Study of Perceptual
Experience. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She sits on the Arts and
Humanities Research Council and is a trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust. Her
work concerns the nature of consciousness, perception and perceptual experience,
introspection, imagination, and the metaphysics of mind. She has written on the
nature of the senses, on cognitive penetration, and on illusion and hallucination. She
has published previous edited collections: Hallucination, MIT Press (with Dimitris
Platchais), The Senses, OUP, The Admissible Contents of Experience (with Katherine
Hawley), Wiley-Blackwell, and Disjunctivism (with Adrian Haddock), OUP. Together
with Fabian Dorsch she has edited another volume forthcoming shortly from Oxford
University Press on Phenomenal Presence.
 Notes on Contributors xiii

Paul Noordhof is Anniversary Professor of Philosophy at the University of York.

He has interests in various kinds of sensuous states—for example, perception, sensuous
imagination and memory (sometimes known as experiential or episodic memory),
and sensations such as pain. He is also conducting research on causation and related
topics in mind and metaphysics, and belief, self-deception, and delusion.
 1
Perceptual Imagination
and Perceptual Memory
An Overview

Fiona Macpherson

The essays in this volume explore the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual
memory. How do perceptual imagination and memory resemble and differ from each
other and from other kinds of sensory experience? And what role does each play in
perception and in the acquisition of knowledge? These are the two central questions
that the essays in this volume seek to address.
One important fact about our mental lives is that sensory experience comes in
(at least) three central variants: perception, imagination, and memory. For instance,
we may not only see the visible appearance of a person or a building, but also recall or
imagine it in a visual manner. The three types of experience share certain important
features that are intimately linked to their common sensory character, many of which
distinguish them from thought. Among these features are their apparent presentation
of external objects or events (rather than propositions about them), their perspectival
nature, that is that they present the world from a certain point of view, and their
connection to one (or more) of the sense modalities, such as by having some modality-
specific content and phenomenal character.
But there are also important differences among the three types of sensory experiences.
Most notably, there is usually taken to be a fundamental divide between perceptions,
on the one hand, and recollections and imaginings, on the other. Perceptual experiences
are typically taken to be distinct from imaginative and mnemonic ones in that they
present objects with a certain sense of immediacy. When we see objects, they seem to
be present directly before us in our environment; while the objects of our memory or
imagination don’t seem to exist now in front of us they may be given to us as being
located in the past or in some imagined world or in some location in this world other
than our environment (although we may imagine that objects are now in front of us).
This difference in kind between perceptual experiences, on the one hand, and
memories and imaginings, on the other, is often accompanied by certain differences
2 Fiona Macpherson

in degree. Thus sensory episodes of imagining or remembering are typically said to

have less “force and vivacity”, to quote David Hume, than episodes of perceiving; while
the latter often appear to be less open to the influence of voluntary mental activity than
the former.1 Whether Hume’s description should be taken literally or metaphorically is
a matter of debate.
In addition, all three types of sensory experience are typically taken to play different
motivational and justificatory roles; and these rational differences are taken, by some
at least, to be phenomenologically salient to a certain extent. We are inclined and
entitled to different beliefs in response to perceptions, memories, and imaginings;
and this is arguably reflected by differences in what it is subjectively like to undergo
these sensory experiences.
The nature of perception has always been one of the major topics in the philosophy
of mind, while the opposite has been true of perceptual imaginings and perceptual
memories. In particular, not much attention is paid to the similarities and differences
between memory and imagination in their sensory forms, as well as to the fact that
both are, from a phenomenal point of view, much closer to each other than to per-
ception.2 One central aim of the volume is, therefore, to remedy this situation and to
get clearer about the nature of perceptual imaginings and perceptual memories by
comparing them with each other and with perceptions.
One important issue in this domain is what makes it possible for imaginings and
memories to possess the features distinctive of sensory experiences despite lacking
perceptual immediacy. When we perceptually imagine an object does this consist in
imagining having a perceptual experience of that object? And when we perceptually
recall an object, do we perceptually remember a perceptual experience of such an object?
Another important issue is whether perceptual imaginings and perceptual mem-
ories differ intrinsically or extrinsically from each other. For instance, do the differ-
ences between them stem solely from how they originate in, and depend on, past
perceptions, or solely in how they are related to the will and to mental agency?
Our sensory imagination is not completely unconstrained. What we can visualize,
say, is restricted to the visible and, arguably, to what we have seen in the past or can
extrapolate from our past perceptions (cf. Hume’s missing shade of blue). But the
imagination is, nonetheless, that aspect of our mental lives concerning which we
enjoy most freedom, at least compared to perception and memory. We typically enjoy
voluntary control with respect to when and what we imagine. This has led some

1
David Hume, Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding (London: A. Millar, 1777),
Section 2, E2.1.
2
At least this was the case until very recently. One exception comes in the form of the newly published
Amy Kind (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination (Oxford and New York: Routledge,
2016). Another is the work on aphantasia—the condition in which people lack the ability to form mental
images. See Adam Zeman, Michaela Dewar, and Sergio Della Sala, ‘Lives without imagery: congenital
aphantasia’, Cortex 73 (2015): 378–80 and Matthew MacKisack, Susan Aldworth, Fiona Macpherson, John
Onians, Crawford Winlove, and Adam Zeman, ‘On picturing a candle: the prehistory of imagery science’,
Frontiers in Psychology 7 (2016): 00515.
 An Overview 3

to argue that there is a certain kind of agency that is constitutive of imagining and
differentiates it from both perceiving and remembering. But is this conception viable
given that people report involuntary instances of imagining? And, in any case, isn’t
some perceptual remembering voluntary?
Some people have thought that only our sensory recollections, but not our sen-
sory imaginations, are inescapably particular in their presentation of objects. While
we recall the appearances of specific objects which we perceived in the past by
means of particular perceptions, imaginings—like depictions—allow for the pres-
entation of generic objects and do not require any specific past acquaintance
(although they do not exclude it). This raises the question of how, and in virtue of
what, we can imagine particular objects rather than generic ones, or to what extent
particular and generic imaginings involve some form of particular or generic sen-
sory memory. It may be helpful in this context to compare the imagination with the
phenomenon of depiction.
The first half of this volume opens with an illuminating essay by R. A. H. King
investigating Aristotle’s conception of imagination and memory, and their relations to
perception. Dominic Gregory then investigates different forms of perceptual memory,
arguing that there are two kinds of perceptual memories—both memories of what
things were subjectively like for one at a certain time, and memories simply of
how things were at a certain time. Experiential or episodic memory is also the topic
of Robert Hopkins’ essay. He argues that an important feature of this type of memory is
that it involves imagining the past in a sensory way. Dorothea Debus considers how
it is that we recognize perceptual memory as presenting the way the past was and we
recognize that we should not take perceptual imagination to do so. The answer that
she gives in her essay is that perceptual memories are related to a host of beliefs and
experiences that allow a subject to tell a certain narrative about that perceptual mem-
ory, in a way that perceptual imaginings are not, and thereby provide the subject with
a reason to take the perceptual memory to be a memory. Paul Noordhof turns his
attention to the nature of perceptual imaginings and whether an account of their
phenomenal character (that is, what it is like for the subject to have them) can provide
reason to believe something about the metaphysical nature of the properties which
determine that phenomenal character.
The second main aim of the volume is to specify and clarify the epistemic roles that
the imagination and memory play in our mental lives.
One part of this discussion consists in the investigation of interactions between
imagination and perception. Sometimes, we project mental imagery onto a perceived
scene; and doing so may help us to acquire certain pieces of knowledge (e.g. whether a
painting would look good on a particular wall), or to successfully perform a certain
practical task (e.g. to pot a ball in billiards or snooker). Similarly, the sensory imagination
has been said to be involved in the perception of hidden or occluded aspects of objects
(e.g. when we see something as a voluminous building, rather than as a mere facade),
or in the perception of ambiguous figures (e.g. seeing a wire cube in one of two possible
4 Fiona Macpherson

ways, rather than the other). This raises the question of what the relationship between
perception and imagination is in these cases, and whether they involve experiences
that are amalgams of perception and imagination, and whether this relationship may
help to explain central features of experience.
Another important issue is whether sensory imaginings can provide us with evi-
dence for belief, and ground knowledge, by themselves, that is, independently of
perception. Standardly, discussions of this issue have been focused on our modal
knowledge of the external world and the closely related knowledge of counterfactual
conditionals. By contrast, this volume also addresses the questions of whether the sen-
sory imagination can also give us access to non-modal knowledge, and whether it can
play an evidential, rather than a merely enabling role, in the acquisition of modal
and non-modal knowledge about experiences (i.e. about the mind itself). Thus the
emphasis is not only on the kind of knowledge needed for certain fairly ordinary
practical tasks, but also on knowledge about the essence of our own experiences. One
key thought that needs to be spelled out is whether, and if so how, the imagination
has to be constrained by our existing beliefs about relevant facts in order to be able to
justify new beliefs.
Finally, it is interesting whether the insights gained into the perceptual and
epistemic role of the sensory imagination can help to answer the question of the nature
of sensory imagination and of its similarities and differences to other kinds of sensory
experience. If perceptual imagination can enrich perception and ground knowledge
then this would seem to indicate that it cannot be too far removed in its nature from
perception and memory since, otherwise, it would be unable to play any comparable
epistemic role.
The second half of this volume consists of five essays addressing these questions.
Derek Brown defends the idea that all perceptual experiences receive some input from
imagination, and spells out what kind of input. Robert Briscoe starts by assuming that
perception and imagination interact and that we can superimpose mental imagery
onto a perceived scene. He considers what knowledge and skills this ability bestows on
us. He then goes on to consider how this phenomenon might explain the phenomenal
character of occlusion. Gregory Currie addresses the question of what interaction
there is between perception and imagination when watching films. He investigates
the relationship between what he argues are distinct systems involving purely visual
activity on the one hand, and the imagination on the other. Magdalena Balcerak
Jackson argues that sensory imagination can provide us with knowledge of the nature
and structure of our own experiences. She investigates this by examining the way in
which sensory imagination is voluntary in a way that perception and memory are
not. What we imagine seems up to us in a way that what we perceive and what we
remember is not. Investigating exactly the way in which it is up to us leads her to
draw interesting conclusions about the justificatory nature of imagination. Amy
Kind’s essay deals with the issue of whether perceptual imagination can provide
 An Overview 5

non-modal knowledge. She argues that it can and gives a detailed account of the sort
of imagination that can play this role.
Fabian and I believe that the essays in this volume substantially push forward the
debates about the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual memory, and hope
that they will inspire a great deal more work on these interesting topics by philo-
sophers in the future.
PA RT I
The Nature of Perceptual
Imagination and Perceptual
Memory
 2
Aristotle on Distinguishing
Phantasia and Memory
R. A. H. King

1. Accounting for Memory Using Imagination

Like many ancient philosophers Coriscus worked for a potentate: he left Athens where
he had been a member of Plato’s Academy for Atarneus near his home city of Scepsis in
Asia Minor, where Hermias held power. And Aristotle remembers Coriscus.1 What
does he do, when he does this?
Aristotle is the first theorist to use ‘imagination’ or phantasia to account for memory.
But just how phantasia forms part of the explanation of memory, and just how Aristotle
distinguishes phantasia when not used in memory, from memory, is not easy to say.
This is the first of two contrasts we shall be pursuing in Aristotle—phantasia in
memory and phantasia apart from memory. Two fundamental strategies for making
this contrast may be crudely distinguished—let us call their proponents ‘the Activist’
and ‘the Phenomenalist’. An Activist will say, or say that Aristotle will say: imagining
is doing something different from remembering. A Phenomenalist will say that
memories and imaginings appear different to their subject. The aim of this chapter is
to show that neither Phenomenalist nor Activist can stand alone in an account of

My thanks to Fabian Dorsch and Fiona Macpherson for organizing a bracing conference, and to the
participants for a spiky discussion. I dedicate this chapter to the memory of Fabian—he is sorely missed,
very warmly remembered. For a (German) translation of and commentary on On Memory and Recollection,
see King (2004); and for an account of the theory in English and a comparison with Plotinus’ work on
memory, King (2009).
1
Coriscus plays the role of the example for an individual in a variety of Aristotle’s works: On the
Generation of Animals 767b25, 768a1; Posterior Analytics 85a24; Soph. Ref. 22 178b39ff; Phys. 219b20;
Eudemian Ethics 1240b45. His name has survived largely because of this use; and also because the sixth
Platonic epistle is addressed to him, Hermias, and Erastos. The final reason he is known is that his son
Neleus was left Theophrastus’ library which contained Aristotle’s works and library as well (Strabo 13.1.54).
Aristotle may be remembering Coriscus in the latter’s absence either before Aristotle leaves Athens for
Assos and Lesbos around the time of Plato’s death in 348 bc, or else when Aristotle has returned to Athens
in 336, leaving Coriscus behind, as far as we know. It is not known what happened to Coriscus after the
death of Hermias at the hands of the Persians in 341. See Lasserre (1987).
10 R. A. H. King

memory such as Aristotle’s. For, to put it in a slogan, remembering is an activity

involving appearances.
So one contrast is that between imagining and remembering. Another contrast is
that between remembering rightly and wrongly.2
To see how this may look, let us see how Aristotle approaches memory through what
I call the Canonical Formula:
For always whenever someone is active with respect to remembering, then he says in this way
in the soul that he heard this or perceived it or thought it before. (On memory 1 449b22–23)

Here we are given a canon or standard for deciding when memory is present, when
someone is remembering. Actively remembering is saying something, and relates to a
past perception or thought. Of course, the person remembering need say nothing out
loud; it can be in the soul: Aristotle says to himself, I saw Coriscus. If an act of memory
is saying something, one important implication is that it can be assessed as to truth and
falsity. “I saw Coriscus”, said by particular person at a particular time, may be true or
false. Depending on that, the memory claim of which it is the content is successful or
not. One may be deceived or not, as to whether one is remembering or not, or remem-
bering rightly or not. This is the second important contrast for a theory of memory.
Apparently, there is no ‘imagination’ here at all. We will see that phantasia is called
in to explain memory; the occurrence of memory, as described here, requires no
occurrent “image”. And it is good that we are neither asked to consider remembering
an image, nor that all memory requires occurrent images. But while the “image”
(phantasia or phantasma) is not the object of memory, it may form part of the explan-
ation of memory. The theorist appeals to it in her theory. The theory is then that the
fact that we are able to remember is based on the fact that we have phantasia. Phantasia
forms part of the capacity to remember.
This approach to memory through the Canonical Formula is an application of an
insight which relates generally to capacities: to understand a capacity, you need to look
at the related activity, and to look at the activity you have to consider the object
(De anima II 4 415a16–22). This points to the first step Aristotle takes in his account of
memory, and which the Canonical Formula forms part of: to explain memory we need
to understand what it is we remember. A crucial element in the answer to this question
is the past (449b15), that is, I take it, past perceptions and so what we perceived in past
perceptions. When someone is active with memory, the Canonical Formula says, we
say I perceived this or that earlier. And this or that may be Coriscus, for example.
Aristotle is adamant that animals apart from humans possess the capacity to
remember.3 The account in On Memory and Recollection applies to animals besides
humans; as has often been pointed out, the Canonical Formula presents a problem
here in that animals do not say anything. So, humans are the main witnesses, but

2
On these two contrasts, cf. Pears (1991), Ch. 3, ‘Memory’.
3
Cf. Historia Animalium I 1 488b24–25 with On memory 1 449b28–30, 2 453a7–9.
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 11

Aristotle remains committed to explaining living behaviour in general, and one

determinant of his view of memory is the conviction that it is not an activity of reason,
since then only humans would have it. The one cognitive faculty all animals possess is
perception, and perception is, ultimately, responsible for imagination. This is an
important result of the treatment of phantasia in De anima, which Aristotle refers
expressly back to in the account of memory (1 449b30). The memory involved is per-
ceptual in that it relies on an act of perception, and has as its object the object of that
perception. Thus, in remembering, Aristotle says, I saw Coriscus. (For the purposes of
this chapter, I ignore remembering relating to thought.)
He explains memory by relying on his account of the faculties of the soul given in
De anima—above all, perception and phantasia. We will have to be selective in using
this general theory of the soul here; but here are some theses, in descending order of
generality which help support the theory of memory. Soul is, by definition, embodied:
it is the primary activity of an organic body. Ends are involved in living behaviour.
Perception gives rise to the ability to have and activate phantasia. In turn memory
depends on phantasia. Thus memory is not a fundamental faculty of the soul. So we
have in our case a capacity to remember, and its exercise, being active with memory.4
This is the patch where the Activist will pitch her camp.
We may distinguish two perspectives from which one should be able to distinguish
between phantasia and memory. It is firstly something that you and I, Aristotle and
Coriscus need to be able to do on a day-to-day basis. If we cannot distinguish between
the two, we would be in trouble, practically, and, presumably, psychologically. But
besides this everyday perspective, there is secondly the philosophical or theoretical
question.5 Posing the puzzle of distinguishing between imagination and memory
forces the question on us, at least for some ways of thinking, what each of them is. In
everyday use, we do not have such an account. Nor, since we make this distinction as a
matter of course, do we need to have such an account. You’re imagining things, you say.
No, I remember it clearly, I reply, I heard her say that. Clearly, there are cases and cases
to be distinguished in everyday talk here.
Aristotle is committed to a methodology which consists in making precise what is
held to be the case, by the wise or the many, about the explanandum. In an important
sense, his philosophy is a refinement of what we anyway know. He does not construct
a conception of memory, and of imagination, to then rely exclusively on technical
definitions to distinguish them. This would anyway be a problematic procedure in the
case of memory and imagination. What right would we then have to say that what we
have defined is memory? As we have seen, Aristotle in fact starts his investigation from

4
David Bloch (2007: 72) claims that for Aristotle memory is a passive state which is not discussed in
terms of activity and capacity. As he sees, this would make Aristotle’s view of memory very different from
ours. His argument is largely based on linguistic considerations; and he has considerable trouble in reinter-
preting the phrase “being active with memory” in the Canonical Formula.
5
Sorabji (2004) rests content with the theoretical distinction between the two.
12 R. A. H. King

the way we talk about memory: we say (as co-conversationalists) that we are active
with memory when we say we have perceived or thought something before.
Aristotle uses the way we attribute memory to someone, in saying something, but
also what the animal or human remembering does, to investigate what is contained in
an act of memory. The Aristotelian scientist relies on a basic recognition of the distinc-
tion to arrive at the definition of the explanandum.
Thus he is committed to saying that we do distinguish between memory and
phantasia. But this is not a phenomenal distinction, the Activist will say: it is not
“vivacity” or “intimacy and warmth”, to mention characteristics which have been
appealed to more recently in the history of philosophy in this context,6 that allows us to
distinguish between the two. These terms, phenomenal terms, are not the ones he uses
to make the distinction. Rather, it is a matter of what we are doing. Part of what this
means is that there is non-transitional awareness of what we are doing when we
remember something. The activity of imagining something (‘putting it before the eye
of the soul’) is only one activity of phantasia (De anima III 3 427b18–20). Here too
one could argue from the Activist’s perspective that the work of distinguishing is not
phenomenal, but drawn by awareness of what you are doing. So, the argument would
go, when you imagine something it may well be phenomenally identical to a memory,
but talking about what you are doing, you would not say: “I can remember such and
such”,7 but “I am imagining such and such”, or “he appears to me such”. Since memory
is an activity of phantasia, and phantasia an activity of perception, this line of thought
is rooted in Aristotle’s view that perception itself is responsible for our awareness of
perception (De anima III 2 425b12–25).
How can the Phenomenalist reply? He or she must admit that there is no talk of
vividness or familiarity. But her arsenal is not exhausted. Firstly, she may appeal to a
further aspect of Aristotle’s account: time. Aristotle links memory closely to knowing
about the past, as we have seen. And one might argue that perceiving time in Aristotle’s
view—“I saw her yesterday”—changes the phenomenon. Here it is not just the simple
image (assuming for a moment that phantasmata are images) that passes through
my mind, but this image, plus, in some sense, yesterday, or at least, past. Since time
is perceived, and phantasmata arise from perception, the perception of time will not
be just a symbolic temporal index. A second limb of the Phenomenalist’s reply will be
expanded on presently: phantasmata may be pictures, and pictures have phenomenal
characteristics.

6
Respectively, David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, I.I.3, ‘Of the ideas of the memory and the
imagination’; William James, The Principles of Psychology, Ch. 16, ‘Memory’. There is no indication in
Aristotle’s ‘physical’ works of the influential account of phantasia as a ‘weak perception’ from the Rhetoric
(I 11 1370a28). The Rhetoric is written to appeal to what most people usually think; that is the basis of the
speaker’s ability to persuade. The importance of this omission is that there is no indication of an interest in
the weakness or strength, or indeed in any qualities of the phantasia.
7
There are interesting distinctions in English between saying, I remember and I can remember, where
even the latter may be used to pick out actual memory.
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 13

Time is the hero of Aristotle’s account; for memory is of the past (449b15).8 This is
part of the way he distinguishes between phantasia and memory: clearly it is possible
to have a phantasia without any index of time. Aristotle thinks one perceives time; and
a full account would have to tackle the question of the perception of time, whether
measured (yesterday, in the 50th Olympiad), or indefinite (past). The tricky question
dividing Activist and Phenomenalist here is whether time has a phenomenal quality.
The Activist can insist that time, strictly, needs counting; the Phenomenalist will
counter that Aristotle (realistically) does not insist that every memory comes date
stamped: they need merely the odour of pastness, in some sense. Memory is restricted
to animals with a sense of time (On memory 1 449b24–30).
How does the Activist react to this? Aristotle uses the way we attribute memory to
someone, in saying something, but also what the person remembering does, to investi-
gate what is contained in an act of memory. There are thus two perspectives on
memory: what we say about someone remembering, and what the human or animal
remembering does. Thus one question concerns the change in perspective from inside
to outside—for how else do we know what occurs when remembering occurs, if not
because we remember? And there is no word of justification of the move from us to
others, from our remembering to anyone or anything remembering. No doubt, there
are things to be said that explain why Aristotle feels no need here. At this stage of the
investigation into the behaviour of living things, it is already clear that soul always
occurs with body, since it is the primary activity of body. Thus there is no problem here
about appealing to other living things, and indeed to what they say, insofar as they
speak at all, in appraising the deliverances of memory. Humans serve here as a model,
and it is not clear what the brute analogue of speaking might be. This change in
perspective is also important for the move from the way we talk to the scientific
account offered by the Aristotelian definitions. This question is related to two others—
one is about generality: are there general accounts of memory? Now, memory has been
subjected to a variety of taxonomies; and Aristotle’s is very economical; one may well
wonder if he can cope with all the ways we talk about memory, let alone theoretical
uses in modern psychology. He argues that memory has to do with perception, and
then accidentally with intellectual activities. Both thinking and perception are
included in the Canonical Formula. Here, I will concentrate entirely on perceptual
memory. (Thought here is the systematic thought of the scientist.)

2. Phantasia—appearances and apparitions

Now, we have already seen that Aristotle refers back to his definition of phantasia in
De anima towards the beginning of his account of memory. And for the Aristotelian

8
Sorabji (2004: 13) criticizes Aristotle for this view of memory; cf. Castagnoli (2018). Aristotle will try
to accommodate things that are not past, either as accidental memory, or else he will say that when actually
using what we have learnt, we are not remembering. Doing maths is not remembering.
14 R. A. H. King

scientist it is straightforward to distinguish between phantasia and memory, given

their definitions. Phantasia and memory are defined differently, hence they are
different. Phantasia is, according to the official definition, “a kind of change remaining
from an actual perception” (De anima III 3 428b30–429a2). The final definition of
memory is equally quickly stated, “the possession of a phantasma, possessed as a
likeness (eikôn) of that of which it is the phantasma” (On memory 1 451b15–16).
A formal and fairly trivial point may be made before we embark on the interpretation of
these hard sayings. The definition of memory makes use of the notion of a phantasma,
the product of the capacity phantasia. So not only are memory and imagination not
identical, memory requires phantasia, and requires more than phantasia.
Let us begin by unpacking the definition of phantasia. Phantasia refers both to the
capacity and its product, whereas a phantasma is only the latter (De anima III 3 428a1).
Phantasia is attributed to or explained by the capacity to perceive (for phantasma cf.
On memory 1 450a10–11). In a loose way of speaking, phantasia is a capacity of living
things; but it is not one of the primitive capacities of living things since it is derived
from perception.9
Aristotle is ambitious: phantasia is meant to explain a wide range of phenomena;
and a question mark must hang over his success in this enterprise.10 There are varieties
of phantasia, apparently, and it is not clear how they all fall under the general account.
There are various etymological connections of the word phantasia which are relevant
in Aristotle’s account. He himself relates it to phôs, light, and says that this is because
there is no sight without light, and sight is the primary form of perception: etymologies
of this kind are of course a feature of Greek philosophy—Plato fills a book with them
(the Cratylus). But there are two other connections, reflected in the language Aristotle
himself uses when discussing phantasia. One is with the verb “to appear” phainesthai,
the other is with the verb phantazesthai (cf. 433b12), and hence with phantasma,
“apparition, phantom”.11 These three associations may be seen as pulling the account of
imagination in different directions—the connection with light and perception may
suggest that phantasia reveals the way things are; whereas the connection with appear-
ance suggests we should be careful about it; and as to apparitions, well, can they give us
any guidance at all as to the way things are? Presumably not. The fact that Aristotle
himself underscores a presumed connection with light and perception, suggests that
he sees phantasia in some sense as a useful capacity. And the use he puts it to explain-
ing not only dreams (which serve no purpose in his book), but also action and memory
confirms its ability to guide us undeceptively, as well as to mislead us.
Let us look briefly at appearances and apparitions. Both aspects of phantasia are
relevant to the treatment of memory: we can be deceived by apparent memory, but
need not be. And as to phantasmata, well, it is not just phantoms that are meant in
Aristotle’s book, but also what we might call images—persisting delusions. But care

9
See Johansen (2012), Ch. 5. 10
See Schofield (1992). 11
Schofield (1992).
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 15

is needed here in that phantasia includes more than images—appearances are also
captured by phantasia.12
Aristotle remarks that we do not say that something appears such and such when we
perceive it clearly (De anima III 3 428a12–15). From this he concludes that phantasia is
not involved in all perception—a case of my seeing something is not merely a case of
things appearing to me, it is seeing the way things are. After all, perception, when
successful, is cognition. The question this raises is how mere appearance is distin-
guished from perception proper.
In contrast, phantasia are ‘appearances’, for example, the sun appears a foot across,
but it is believed to be bigger than the inhabited world (De anima 428b2–4). Here a
crucial contrast between perceptual appearance and belief is marked. Care is needed;
for it is possible to be taken in by appearances, in other words to believe them. And
believing them can be deceptive or not. The main point is that appearances can deceive
or not; but an appearance does not allow one to decide what is the case and what is not.
In contrast, perhaps, to this aspect of phantasia, we have a range of phenomena,
which relate to images—above all dreams and imagination, in the sense of an ability to
call up images before the mind’s eye. This is the realm of phantasms. “This affection
(pathos) [i.e. phantasia] is in our power, when we want (for it is to put something
before one’s eyes, like those do using mnemonic techniques, making an image for
themselves)” (De anima III 3 427b17–20).13
A key text for this strand of phantasia is from On memory and recollection. A repre-
sentation, e.g. the phantasma is like the imprint of a seal, or like a portrait (On memory
1 450a29–32, 450b15–451a2). It is very common indeed to translate phantasma or
phantasia (in the relevant use) by “image”, and so burden Aristotle with a view of
the imagination that is squarely to do with images merely by dint of translation. Thus
many readers of Aristotle regard phantasmata as images, indeed as mental images.14
But it deserves to be said that Aristotle nowhere says that phantasmata are images.
What we have been doing is unpacking some of what Aristotle’s definition of
imagination contains, as part of the project of showing how easy it is for the Aristotelian
natural philosopher to hold imagination and memory apart. Now what we have to do
is to reconstruct the basis in everyday talk for the view of memory and imagination
presented in their respective definitions.
On one reading, a phantasma is merely something which may float through your
mind, a face in a daydream; remembering something requires doing something,
namely taking this as a likeness (eikôn) of the original perception, and hence of that
perception’s object. Aristotle remembers Coriscus, and says, I saw Coriscus.

12
Sorabji (2004), ‘Introduction’.
13
This is one of the rare references in Aristotle to mnemonic techniques; for the reasons that Sorabji is
wrong to attach such importance to these techniques in the context of Aristotle’s theory, see King (2009).
14
Sorabji (2004); Bloch (2007: e.g. 64, 69): the comparison with pictures makes more sense if the images
are pictorial.
16 R. A. H. King

Aristotle thinks that, in remembering, a change remaining from perception, a

phantasia, an appearance or representation, is taken as a likeness (eikôn) of the thing
remembered. We have two contrasts we wish to draw, firstly that between imagin-
ation and memory, and secondly that between being right or wrong when one
remembers. We will have to look more closely at this distinction between appearance
and likeness later.
The background theory of the soul allows for living things to engage in activities.
There are many different activities which living things engage in, and different activities
relate to one another in a variety of ways; for example, one activity may use the products
of another. This is a promising course for the theorist of memory to take. Memory
makes use of phantasia. Then one can distinguish between a phantasma when embed-
ded in an act of memory and when it is not so embedded. The appearance can occur to
one as just that, a face floating through your mind, or else you say: I saw Coriscus.
At this point, the Activist and the Phenomenalist part company. For there are two
ways of interpreting what is happening here. Either we think that the person remem-
bering takes the phantasma in a certain way, or the phantasma appears to one in a
certain way, say, as a portrait of someone.
Is the decisive point how we take the phantasma, or how it appears to one? These
two possibilities mark the distinction between the Activist and the Phenomenalist.
The Activist points to our activity in taking the phantasma one way or the other. The
Phenomenalist points to the fact that the face, say, floating through your mind, may be
the way Coriscus appeared, or someone else. The time has now come to look at the
puzzle which Aristotle uses to approach his account of memory:
One may be puzzled how one remembers what is not present, when the affection (pathos) is
present and the thing is absent. (On memory 1 450a25–27)

Now, all that is present is the affection, the state produced by the past perception. But
what was perceived then is no longer present, so how can one have knowledge of it?
Clearly, there is an assumption at work here about only knowing things that are there
or present in some form. In its wider applications, this would need extensive discus-
sion. The relevance to memory seems clear enough, once we have the view that
memory is of the past, namely how something past can be (made) present so as to be
the subject of cognition. It is gone, and so not available for inspection. It becomes clear
later (450b19–20, translated below) that perception is serving as the model for cognition
here. You can only taste something present; how then can you remember something
not present?
Aristotle also makes an “evident assumption”, as I would like to call it, about what
happens in the act of perception:
It is evident that one must conceive of what happens because of perception in the soul and the
part of the body holding it to be as follows: the affection (pathos), the possession of which we
say is memory, is like a portrait. For the change that takes place imprints as it were a cast (tupos)
of the percept (aisthêma), like people who use a seal on a ring. (450a27–32)
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 17

“Tupos” here translated by “cast”15 is often rendered “impression” or “imprint”; and

that is fine as long as one understands that as the impression or imprint of a seal. But of
course talk of “impressions” overemphasizes Aristotle’s proximity to later theories of
perception. But the comparison with a seal (“as it were”) here does not use a technical
term. Aristotle is adopting and adapting images of Plato’s (the wax block in the soul
Theaetetus 191D–E, and for the picture, the painter, Philebus 39A–D); but they remain
images. Now it may be anything but evident that we have to conceive of perception in
this way. No doubt the reason that Aristotle finds the assumption evident here is that
he is relying on his theory of perception, where he first uses the image of the seal (De
anima II 12). At this point, we have done a lot of Aristotelian psychology. But, still, for
the outsider, there are attractive aspects to this assumption—that the body is involved
as well as the soul, that body and soul in fact are affected, acted on by something being
perceived. The change mentioned here is the actual perception taking place. The pro-
cess appears to be as follows. An actual perception contains a percept—what is perceived;
and this is what we are aware of in perception. As a by-product the process produces a
“cast” of the percept in body and soul. Now Aristotle appeals to our understanding of
what happens when we use a signet ring, as he had done also, to rather different effect
in his treatment of the perceptual capacity in De anima II 12. And to conceive of an
imprint or cast made by the world on a living body as a picture, along the lines of
sealing wax with a signet ring, leaves much unexplained.
Aristotle has little conception of the furious activity animals engage in when they
perceive. And the notion of a mental impression is not available to him either: body
and soul are affected (On Perception and Perceptibles I 436a6).
Not mentioned here but important is the likeness of the signet ring to its imprint. It
is an attractive aspect of signet rings that they were used to authenticate documents,
samples, and to guarantee the sealing of store-houses. To work, the imprint as an
imprint of this seal or that one, not another one—that is the point of the process; and
one reason some seals were so elaborate. So too with the picture or portrait mentioned
here. The importance of similarity emerges in a passage in On dreams:
Each of these [phantasmata] is, as has been said, the remains of the actual percept. And it
remains when the real (alêthes) thing has gone: it is true to say that the phantasma is like
Coriscus, but not Coriscus. When the controlling part, i.e. the one that makes distinctions, is
actually perceiving, it does not say [of the phantasma]: Coriscus, but because of the [phantasma]
it says Coriscus of the true Coriscus. When it perceives the [phantasma], unless it is entirely
obstructed by blood, it says this, because it is moved in perceiving this by the movements in the
sense organs, and the similar thing is held to be the true (alêthes) thing. Such is the power of
sleep that it makes this go unnoticed. (On dreams 3 461b25–30)16

15
A suggestion made by Victor Caston (1996).
16
For similarity as the grounds for some people being easily deceived in sleep, see the start of the whole
passage 461b7–11.
18 R. A. H. King

What is being explained here17 is the mistake Aristotle sees us making regularly in
sleep: we mistake the dream, the phantasma of Coriscus, for Coriscus because of the
power of sleep. Aristotle has an elaborate story to tell about the way blood moves in
sleep to inhibit the workings of perception, and hence perceptual awareness. The heart
is where perception is achieved; and here he mentions a critical faculty, that is, one that
can make distinctions. In sleep this critical faculty is obstructed by blood concentrat-
ing in the heart; but if it is sufficiently unobstructed to form a judgement, to make
distinctions it takes the phantasma of Coriscus, remaining from actually seeing (or
hearing or touching or smelling) Coriscus, for the real thing. The phantasma is a
change or motion remaining in the sense organs from their activity. Here Aristotle
contrasts our confusion in dreams with an explanation of why we can make true judge-
ments when waking. In actual perception, our true judgement about the real Coriscus
is based on (“because of this”) the phantasma. The phantasma is an explanatory factor
in us, which enables us to make the judgement. We are able to make this judgement
because of the similarity between percept and phantasma.
How does this compare to memory? Is the mistake in sleep like that in incorrect
memory? It appears to be a different one. In sleep, we mistake the phantasma for the
real thing. In memory, we make a mistake about what happened in the past, but we do
not say that the phantasm is something real. In sleep, the mistake is one due to sleep,
and the adverse effects it has on our perceptual judgement. We return, with Aristotle,
to mistakes in memory later.
Let us return to memory, with the assurance that similarity is part of the explanation
that phantasma play a role in memory.
After the perception, an affection, or state, remains, and possessing this is memory.
The work seems to be done by the fact that the state is like a portrait, as it were, a
miniature one carries with one. So Aristotle as it were carries a miniature of Coriscus
with him. Having the miniature is remembering. So far we would seem to be on the
side of the Phenomenalist. After all, you can claim that being a portrait is a phenom-
enal character of something: it may not be vivacity or familiarity, but it is a question of
something appearing to me. What is less clear is how the Phenomenalist replies to the
Activist’s point that all the time after seeing Coriscus, you in some sense remember
Coriscus.18 Recognizing Coriscus implies memory in some sense. Aristotle knew
Coriscus well, and we may ask what about his memory of Coriscus when he is doing
something entirely else. Two people are talking about Aristotle in his absence, and one
asks the other: does Aristotle remember Coriscus? The answer “yes” is no doubt true;
then surely there is no phenomenal appearance of a portrait at all. Aristotle has
the miniature in his possession, he remembers, but he does not look at it. So what is
phenomenal here? Nothing. Only actually remembering is phenomenal, if at all, surely.
Insofar as Aristotle is not always thinking of Coriscus, the possession of the miniature

17
On possible interpretations of this tough passage, see van der Eijk (1994: 238–41).
18
For the capacity to remember, see On memory 2 452a1011.
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 19

is the potential. This point counts in favour of the Activist, against the Phenomenalist.
Against our natural inclination to think that any theory which relies on imprints and
pictures must be referring to phenomenal characteristics of these, if they make up the
ability to remember, and this is, by definition, not an appearance at all, then the theory
of memory is not pictorial at all.
One reply available to the Phenomenalist is to say that the Activist is in as bad a
state. Aristotle in our example is not doing any remembering at all, but it is still true to
say of him that he remembers Coriscus. Perhaps both parties to the debate would do
well to agree to confine their dispute to actual remembering. This would be a great
weakness. For of course, the ability to remember is just as much a part of an account of
memory as actual memory. True, it is very hard to get hold of. But the Activist need
not give in so easily. She can say that Aristotle is in a certain state, which is character-
ized, no doubt vaguely enough, as the presence of a change (kinêsis) resulting from
the actual perception.
Although Aristotle has little to say about what happens in a body when we remem-
ber, he does think that certain things can be said of the body, if it is to remember at all.
A striking feature of memory is that it varies through the human life cycle, as one
notices, alas, as one ages. Now, Aristotle has a theory of ageing which relates to his view
of the vegetative processes living things initiate and undergo as long as they are alive.19
The young grow, and so are very active in the processing of nutriments; the old shrink,
and so are much less active. These vegetative processes may be seen as occupying a
position analogous to modern notions of metabolism. Now, Aristotle thinks a mean
state of the metabolism is necessary for memory to occur—the very young, the emo-
tional, the very old do not remember: they either undergo too much or too little change
(450a32–450b1, cf. Ch. 2 453b4–7), due to the growth or decay they are subject to
because of the stage in the life cycle they are at. This is a precondition for, not a class of
changes to be identified with, or concurrent with acts of memory. Bodily changes dis-
turb the capacity to remember.
We are still at the beginning of the puzzle: at present we have the affection or state of
body and soul being like the cast or imprint of a seal. This comparison is the evident
assumption, from the theory of perception. The puzzle needs more development
before it can be solved:
So if this kind of thing is what happens in the case of memory, do we remember the affection
(pathos) or do we remember the thing from which the affection came about? If we remember
the latter, then we would not remember anything absent, if the former [i.e. the affection]
how would we, in perceiving this, remember the absent thing which we do not perceive?
(450b11–15)

The point being made here is that we have this state in our possession, like a miniature,
and the question arises how this is going to help us to latch onto the past, in other

19
See King (2001).
20 R. A. H. King

words, the object of the perception, in the way that it was perceived. For if we perceive
just the miniature, as it were, then we just perceive the miniature. The question is how
does this state here allow us to tell the truth about the past?
If it is like a cast or a drawing in us, why would the perception of this be the memory of another
thing, and not of this itself? For someone who is active with their memory considers and
perceives this [i.e. the ‘cast’, the ‘picture’]. So how does he remember the thing that is not
present? For that would be seeing or hearing what is not present. (450b15–20)

Here we see that in remembering we are, in a sense, perceiving. For the whole problem
arises because one can only perceive something present (cf. 449b15, an ambiguity is
in the Greek as well: present to me, but also present in time). Auditory changes are
also considered—‘hearing what is not present’. So too presumably for other modi of
perception. And here the idea of a picture or cast loses its immediate appeal. How is
one to think of the “cast” or picture of a song?20 We may think of records, or even more
modern forms of storage. But without these no doubt very helpful comparisons, how is
one to think of the picture of a song in one? Changes that remain in the living thing,
maintained by the metabolic changes in the living thing. These changes make up the
potential to remember; and are ascertained only through the actualization.

3. The Solution
Aristotle’s solution appeals to a special case of perception, namely perceiving pictures:
In fact, it is possible for this to happen. For just as the animal drawn on a board is both an
animal and a likeness: one and the same thing is both, but the being for each is not the same;
and it is possible to consider it both as an animal and as a likeness: so too that is how we should
understand the phantasma in ourselves—it is both something in itself and of something else.
(450b20–25)

So we begin from the puzzle of how to perceive something absent. And Aristotle
asserts that we do this as a matter of course, namely when we look at a drawing. This
familiar occurrence is then explained, and this explanation is applied to the phantasma
in us. Thus we arrive at an explanation of memory. Because a phantasma is like a
drawing, it too can explain how we can remember something absent, that is, past.
These lines raise a series of questions for the reader. The fundamental question
is what is a phantasma? Two answers: (a) an image, (b) a change in body and soul
(cf. 450a27–32, above). And the point is that a change in body and soul may be or may
serve as an image. And it is this contrast which is pointed to as an explanation for the
way memory basically works. The same item has two ways of occurring. Aristotle uses
a piece of technical apparatus to make this point. He says that ‘The being for each is
different’. (In the Physics, III 3 202a18–21, this way of speaking is exemplified by the

20
On “earworms”, see On memory 2 453a28–29, and Amy Kind, Chapter 11, this volume.
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 21

road from Athens to Thebes. This is the same as the road from Thebes to Athens.) One
way of taking this is to say that we are invited to ask: what is it? And you get two answers:
an animal, an image. Now in the context of a living thing, one attractive way of enabling
some one item to be two things is to allow that it may stand in different relations, more
precisely, in functional relations. Thus you look at a drawing either as an animal: then
the drawing serves the function of making something present that is not present. Or
else it is just a collection of marks on a board, and is only itself present. The contrast is
then whether the item is serving a function or not. And what about memory? Let us
assume that the person for whom it is possible to consider (theorein) the image is not
the theorist, us as philosophers trying to decide what happens when one remembers
quite generally, but for example, Aristotle trying to remember if he saw Coriscus
(notice that Aristotle says: the phantasma in us—humans, not Aristotelians). Then he
may take the phantasma either as serving a function, here: of memory, or else he does
not take it this way. It is then merely a phantasma, passing idly past the mind’s eye.
But what we want to know, when confronted by these two ways of taking the remains
of the perception, is: what guides this taking? Or more pointedly, what explains taking
something in one way and not the other? An obvious answer seems to be the way
things appear to you. This is where the Phenomenalist will take her stand. A face
appears, and you say: I saw Coriscus, and the face plays, as it were grammatically, the
role of “Coriscus”. And what explains you doing this is the appearance. I saw this,
Aristotle says to himself, where this refers to the phantasma, taken now as representing
something absent. After all, if you rely on something in forming a judgement about the
way things were, prima facie, it must be the appearance. For that is what is in front of
you, what you have. So we rely on appearances when saying I saw Coriscus.
But that is not the end of the story. For the way things were must be allowed to play a
role. As a matter of fact, did Aristotle or did Aristotle not see Coriscus, as, for the
moment, Aristotle claims to have done? This question is not decided by the way things
appear. By being guided by the way things appear we approach the way things are or
were. But what I am doing also depends on the way things were. For if I did not then see
Coriscus, then my claim now that I did is not memory. I am being deceived. Now, of
course, what is required to decide this question finally, in any given case, are more
appearances or perceptions; and of course the appeal to other witnesses is not
precluded, nor are other clues in the world. The soul is not an isolated mind, but neces-
sarily in a body. In any given case, I may necessarily be remembering or not, but there
is no certainty, as of the time that I am remembering, that I am remembering. We may
have to assume that a memory is a memory, and do this non-inferentially, immediately
on the basis of an appearance, but this assumption may be right or wrong in any given
case. The fact that any case of memory is in this way defeasible, does not mean that,
globally, memory is doubtful.
What about the Phenomenalist and the Activist? How does their dispute look now?
It seems both have to make concessions, while insisting on their positions. The way the
things appear—the phantasma can be misleading you: but you do have to go on
22 R. A. H. King

appearances. But if it is right to say that the phantasma is bound or not into what you
are doing, then the Activist is right too. What we do in remembering depends on an
appearance, but it is crucial that we are doing something as well.

4. An Explanation of the Solution

As something in itself it is a sight (theorêma) or phantasma, as something of
another thing, something like a likeness (eikôn) or a memorial. The result is that
whenever its change is active, if it is in itself, and the soul perceives it thus, it
appears to occur like a thought or a phantasma. But if [its change] relates to
another thing, [the soul] considers it like an image in a picture, without being
in the state of seeing Coriscus, as being of Coriscus. Here the affection (pathos)
of this considering is different, and when he [? the soul] considers it like a drawn
animal: the one occurs in the soul like a thought merely, the other like a memorial,
[since it is considered] as in the case of the picture as an image.
(450b25–451a2)21

We have now almost arrived at the Final Definition of memory; and the Activist and
the Phenomenalist have moved close together. In this text we have an explicit contrast,
not between items in the soul, but the way items can occur or be taken. On the one
hand we have a theorema or a phantasma: something which relates to nothing further.
And on the other we have a mnemoneuma, a memorial. So we have Coriscus passing
through my heart, or head if you prefer, and then we have Coriscus passing through my
head and putting me in mind of Coriscus, say, by saying, I heard Coriscus. And this
Coriscus is either taken for or occurs as an appearance or a likeness. If it is a mere
appearance then that is phantasia, or its product a phantasma; and if I take it as a
likeness, then it serves as a memorial.
Coriscus serves Aristotle, as we remarked at the outset, as an example for an
individual. But is identifying an individual something we do merely with appearances?
To what extent do all claims about the way things were depend on the correct identifi-
cation of subjects of predication? These questions go deep into Aristotle’s general
philosophy. For perception is closely linked to the perception of individuals,22 and
while for some purposes Aristotle restricts perception strictly to perceptible qualities,
in fact his full theory of perception allows for a very rich capture of the object of
perception. But clearly there is no unique characteristic for an individual available in
perception. (Given that on some readings of the Metaphysics he believes in individual

21
In what follows, I ignore the complications that the introduction of theorêma and noêma, thought
causes; these refer to universals, e.g. man. “Thought” means systematic thought, not merely something in
the mind in the Cartesian fashion. Because Aristotle thinks that such thoughts, to be thought, anyway
require a phantasma (On memory 449b30–450a10), these cases are parasitic on the case of perception, as
well as requiring new moves in the theory.
22
See e.g. Posterior Analytics A 31.
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 23

essences this is a controversial statement. But it should not be controversial that any
essence is not simply available to perception.) For us the purpose of this is that memory
depends on what perception has captured. Thus if there is no unique bundle of
attributes which will necessarily pick out Coriscus, then the resulting memory will
always be fallible. Of course, the fact that any particular memory is fallible is not a
reason to suspect memory as a whole, as we have already remarked.
If the phantasma serves as a memorial, it may look as though there is no work to be
done: we remember Coriscus using a memorial, and that is all. The Activist can reply to
this by looking more closely at the final definition. To repeat, memory is defined as ‘the
possession of a phantasma, possessed as a likeness (eikôn) of that of which it is the
phantasma’ (On memory 1 451b15–16). But what does it mean to take a phantasma as a
likeness of that which it is the phantasma of? The problem Aristotle starts from is how
something that is absent, the object of the past perception, can be present: all that is
present is the phantasma. Most of the explanatory work is done by a comparison with a
painting, and with the different ways a painting can be taken. A painting can be taken
either as a collection of lines or else as the thing represented. (Say, the ways a picture
restorer and a lover might, as such, regard one and the same expanse of coloured
canvas.) This suggests that what is doing the work is the phenomenal nature of the
painting, but that this phenomenal nature is not entirely passive, but depends on the
subject of the memory taking the phantasia in a certain way. This is an active achieve-
ment of the person remembering. Here the Activist can rest her case.
Aristotle thinks that, in remembering, a change remaining from perception, an
appearance or representation, is taken as a likeness image (eikôn) of the thing remem-
bered. The appearance can occur to one as just that, a face floating through your
mind, or else you can take it, or it appears to one, as a portrait of someone. These
alternatives—how it appears to you, or the way you take it—are left open by Aristotle.
They may be two ways of remembering, or two views of memory. This is the final
battleground of the Activist and the Phenomenalist. But as we have seen they can come
together in an act of memory. The appearance can serve the work of memory.
Aristotle does not suggest that the phantasma has to fulfil certain conditions,
phenomenal conditions, e.g. of likeness, or even vividness, to be able to be taken as
an eikôn.
Where the Phenomenalist will say: Aristotle appeals to the ways we can take a
portrait, therefore he is thinking of a visual or generally perceptual image, the Activist
will say: appealing to a comparison (the phantasma can be used like a portrait) does
not imply that the psychic occurrence is, sans phrase, a portrait. No, she will insist, it
is like a portrait, namely in a very precise sense: not merely in being like the original
(a very weak condition indeed), but in being candidate for two different kinds of
attention, one fixing on the material, non-representative aspects, and the other fixing
precisely on the picture or phantasma as an eikôn of the original. If, the Activist will
insist, the phantasma is anyway pictorial, and being pictorial is a property things can
24 R. A. H. King

have whatever viewers do or do not do or think,23 then Aristotle would not put taking
the phantasma in a certain way at the centre of his account.

5. Doubtful Memories
This is the reason we sometimes do not know, when changes of this kind occur in
the soul from previous perceptions, whether they occur in accordance with the
perceiving, and we are in doubt if it is a memory or not. At times it happens that
we realize, i.e. recollect that we heard something previously or saw it. This happens
when, while considering it [the phantasma] itself, one changes and considers it in
relation to another thing.
(451a2–8)

The reason for the possibility of doubt: it is possible to take what occurs in the soul in
two ways—either to say: that is how it was or to say nothing. This implies that the
psychic occurrence can fit the world or not. Remembering is then affirming this
relation to the object of memory. When making a memory claim, we assert the way
things appear to one. But we can be in doubt because it is unclear whether this is the
way it was or not. As he says here, we are unclear if the phantasma accords with the
perceiving or not. So one considers a phantasma, first of all just in itself, and then we
move to considering it as relating the way things were. What Aristotle does not say is
what moves us, or justifies the move, to asserting the way it was. If all that there is to go
on is the phantasma, then it must be something about the phantasma which justifies or
explains us making the assertion. Supposing that the remembering here is unaided,
then the justification of, and what moves us to the assertion, is the phantasma. This is a
strong card in the Phenomenalist’s hand.
The Activist can reply that the phantasma is not the only thing we have to go on; for
we do something with it, and this activity is one we are aware of. But surely, in itself,
being aware of what one is doing does not making this doing track the truth.
The base line that Aristotle starts from are memories where there is no doubt: this is
how it was. What he does not discuss is whether we can be in no doubt, and yet nonethe-
less be wrong. He does think that we can think that we are remembering, and be wrong
about it. In contrast if one is (as a matter of fact) actively remembering, then this fact
cannot escape one’s notice; the reason for this is just the definition of memory, he says
(On memory 2 452b23–28).24 This is an important argument for the Activist: the question

23
Aristotle refers to mirrors in his account of the genesis of phantasmata (cf. On dreams 459b31); and
clearly there are natural images—the investigation of phantasma is a natural investigation, even if it is illu-
minated by a comparison with the artefact portrait.
24
452b23–29. Sorabji (2004: 10, fn. 1) says that 451a23–28 contravenes the rule that if one is actually
remembering one must be aware of it. What it says is different: that one can think one is remembering, and
be wrong. One’s awareness of remembering can be mistaken; but no actual memory goes unnoticed. What
the Activist is claiming is that the reason for this is that remembering is something one does, and so is
aware of. Aristotle’s epistemology is built on what is the case (the truth)—here the truths are what memory
is, and that one is remembering. As to what it is about actually remembering that makes it necessarily
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 25

is what makes a case of memory a case of memory, and the answer is that memory just is
(as a matter of fact) bringing together, in an assertion, a phantasm and its original.
The case Aristotle now considers is one where conviction does not arise immediately,
but where one comes to realize, that is how it was. This passage also mentions a move
from memory to recollection; so a few words may be said on how these two activities are
related. Here we move from those cases where memory is immediate, in the sense that
no search is necessary, to a search for the right phantasma. In the one case, Aristotle
says, I saw Coriscus; in the other case, he searches for the man he saw, because of his
uncertainty. If successful, the result of recollection is memory: he says, truly, I saw
Coriscus. In a sense Aristotle moves here beyond perceptual memory. For he thinks that
recollection is like a kind of calculation (On memory 2 453a9–14). But he thinks that
we can recollect perceptions among other things; and of course in recollecting what we
are searching through are phantasmata, which are the product of perceptions. So the
Activist and the Phenomenalist can argue here too about successful memory.
Aristotle denies animals the ability to recollect; either they remember or they do
not. He has been criticized for depriving animals of opinions.25 But he does think that
they are guided by knowledge of the world; for perception is a form of knowledge.
But they have not the resources of rationality to sift appearances, subject them to
criticism and so decide which to follow and which to avoid. For humans, in Aristotle’s
view, things are different: we can be in doubt as to whether the present appearance
corresponds to the previous perception or not. And then we can search for the right
phantasma, and make the true assertion: I saw Coriscus. The path to this true assertion
is recollection.

6. Hallucinatory Memories
The opposite also occurs, as it did to Antipheron from Oreus, and to other people
who were mad. For they speak of the phantasmata as things that occurred, as
though they were remembering. This occurs when someone considers what is not
an image (eikôn) as an image.
(451a8–12)

We know nothing about the unfortunate Antipheron, nor about the kind of “madness”
he and the others referred to here suffered from. Nonetheless, there are lessons to be
drawn from this passage. Firstly, there was something wrong with these people: their
memories were not working properly. Then as now, investigating how things work
requires looking at the way things go wrong. But just what was he doing? He “spoke of
the phantasmata as things that occurred, as though they were remembering”. This

something one is aware of, Aristotle does not say that it is the activity, but there are principles in his general
philosophy which would suggest that if he gives the definition of memory as explanation for one’s aware-
ness of genuine remembering then this lies in the fact that activity and definition are identical.
25
Sorabji (1995).
26 R. A. H. King

suggests the following picture. A phantasma comes into his head (well, for Aristotle
the heart is where these things happen), and he says: I saw Coriscus. Well clearly, that
thing, the phantasma, is not what happened. No, it is what the phantasma represents
that he says happened. “Coriscus was in the agora”, that happened. That a phantasma
here is something representing is confirmed by Aristotle’s account of what happens in
such cases. For he says that then one is taking what is not a likeness (eikôn) as a picture.
So on the one hand, there is a mistake in doing something, but the mistake is connected
to what is being dealt with. For, as a matter of fact, the likeness is not a likeness. So the
mistake has two components: what Antipheron does, and what the phantasma is.
And Aristotle links this story to our own inability to tell, sometimes, if we are
remembering or not. For the mistake Antipheron makes is to take something which is
not an image as a picture. Where we have the ability to be right or wrong, Antipheron
seems to have suffered from a kind of fixity. He was not able to move from considering
a phantasma as a copy to not doing so. He is stuck in his delusion; he has, as it were, an
idée fixe. Where we vacillate between taking a phantasma for a likeness and not doing
so, he is on the contrary subject to a persistent delusion.
The moral of the story, it seems to me, is that the Activist and the Phenomenalist
would do well to join forces. Neither a change in the soul alone, nor my activity alone
can make up an act of memory. Something has to be there which I may take as an
eikôn of my past perception. In so doing, I may be deceived or not, successfully
remember or not.

References
Bloch, David (2007). Aristotle on Memory and Recollection. Text, Translation, and Reception in
Western Scholasticism. Leiden: Brill.
Castagnoli, Luca (2018). ‘Is memory of the past?’ In L. Castagnoli and P. Ceccarelli (eds.), Greek
Memories: Theories and Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Caston, Victor (1996). ‘Why Aristotle needs imagination’, Phronesis 41: 20–55.
Eijk, Philip van der (1994). Aristoteles. Werke in deutscher Übersetzung. Begründet von Ernst
Grumach. Herausgegeben von Hellmut Flashar. Band 14 Teil III: De insomniis. De divina-
tione per somnum. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Hume, David (1738, 1740). Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the
Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. London: John Noon.
James, William (1890). The Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Holt.
Johansen, T. K. (2012). The Powers of Aristotle’s Soul. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
King, R. A. H. (2001). Aristotle on Life & Death. London: Duckworth.
King, R. A. H. (2004). Aristoteles. Werke in deutscher Übersetzung. Begründet von Ernst
Grumach. Herausgegeben von Hellmut Flashar. Band 14 Teil II: De memoria et reminiscentia.
Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
King, R. A. H. (2009). Aristotle and Plotinus on Memory. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Lasserre, F. (1987). De Léodamas de Thasos à Philippe d’Oponte. Témoignages et fragments.
Naples: Bibliopolis.
 aristotle on distinguishing phantasia and memory 27

Pears, David (1991). Hume’s System: An Examination of the First Book of his Treatise. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Schofield, Malcolm (1992). ‘Aristotle on imagination’. In Martha C. Nussbaum and Amélie O.
Rorty (eds.), Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 249–77.
Sorabji, Richard (1995). Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate.
Cornell Studies in Classical Philology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Sorabji, Richard (2004). Aristotle on Memory, 2nd edn. with new introduction. London:
Duckworth.
 3
Sensory Memories
and Recollective Images
Dominic Gregory

1. Introduction
We talk about what we ‘remember’ in a pretty wide range of circumstances.1 Some of
what we remember has no special connection to our own pasts, as it amounts simply
to things we have previously learned: I remember in this way that York is north of
Sheffield. But many of our memories are bound much more tightly to our awareness of
our own histories. In particular, our memories often revolve around sensory mental
images that seem to us to correspond to how things were on specific occasions during
our own lives.
I recall spending most of last Saturday morning on my bike, for instance. The
memories which I thereby summon incorporate sensory mental images of various
sorts; the images show things as looking, sounding, smelling, and feeling certain ways.
And the ways that those images show things as looking, sounding, smelling, and feeling
serve to determine the nature of what I recall: it seems to me that things then looked,
sounded, smelled, and felt the relevant ways. The contents of the sensory mental
images thus fix the contents of the past-directed appearances that form an essential
part of the memories; and those appearances augment my sense of my recent life.
Memories of the sort just roughly characterized are sensory memories.2 Recollective
images are the sensory mental images which, in the course of sensory memories, fix
1
Many thanks to an anonymous referee for OUP, whose perceptive comments helped me to improve
this chapter. Many thanks, too, to Rosanna Keefe and Rob Hopkins, for their helpful comments on the
materials that formed the basis for this piece. I am also very grateful to the audience present at the session
of the Glasgow conference that prompted the current volume; their sharp and insightful questions helped
me to improve the chapter in numerous ways. Finally, many thanks to those who attended a departmental
seminar at the University of Manchester at which I presented a version of this chapter, for their very useful
comments and questions.
2
See Debus (2007), section 1—whose ‘recollective memories’ seem to correspond to my ‘sensory
memories’—for a helpful survey of the relationships between the memorial phenomena being dis-
cussed in this chapter and those handled elsewhere in the psychological and philosophical literature
using some different but related terms (such as, for instance, Tulving’s contrast between ‘semantic’ and
‘episodic’ memories).
 sensory memories and recollective images 29

how things seem to us once to have been. Sensory memories are thus memorial
episodes in which, first, it seems to us that things once looked or sounded or otherwise
‘stood sensorily’ certain ways; where, second, the relevant ways that things seem to us
once to have stood sensorily are the ways that the recollective sensory mental images
featuring in the episodes show things as standing sensorily.
While sensory memories are all alike in featuring imagistically presented appear-
ances relating to the past, they seem sometimes to differ in the broad nature of what is
apparently recalled. Many of our sensory memories seem to reflect the ways that things
once were for us in the course of sensory episodes that we ourselves underwent. I am
able to recall some of the ways that things looked to me in the past few hours, for
instance. For I have sensory memories whose accompanying recollective visual mental
images apparently show how things looked to me in the recent past. But it seems that
our sensory memories may also have a less subjective cast, in that they need not seem
to mirror the felt character of previous sensory episodes.
Many of our sensory memories are ‘observer memories’, for instance: sensory
memories whose accompanying recollective visual mental images display oneself as
part of the recalled scene.3 But—just to take the cases that I know best—my own obser-
ver memories do not involve its seeming to me that things once looked to me the ways
that the visual mental images show things as looking; I do not seem to be recalling
episodes in which I somehow saw myself. Rather, they involve its seeming to me that
there were once past scenes in which I played a certain part and which looked—‘from
somewhere’ rather than ‘to someone’—the ways that the visual mental images show
things as looking.
Faced by the apparent variations remarked in the previous two paragraphs, one
might despair of identifying an interesting unified category of ‘sensory memories’. It
might be denied that observer ‘memories’ are capable of really being memories, for
instance.4 But that should surely be an option of last resort, given the extent to which it
clashes with our ordinary ways of thinking. I take it, then, that we should aim either to
account for the possibility of the various kinds of sensory memories described above
or to find very compelling reasons indeed for denying that there can be sensory
memories of those different types. The current chapter takes the first of those paths, by
developing some ideas concerning the representational functions of recollective
images within sensory memories.
Before proceeding, a terminological remark. It is often important to distinguish
between ‘genuine’ sensory memories—sensory memories whose accompanying recol-
lective images actually reflect and appropriately derive from ways that things once
stood sensorily in the course of our pasts—and ‘merely apparent’ sensory memories.

3
See, for example, Nigro and Neisser (1983), Robinson and Swanson (1993), and McIsaac and Eich
(2002) for psychological discussion; see Debus (2007) for interesting philosophical discussion.
4
See Debus (2007: 194–8) and Sutton (2010) for critical surveys of some reasons that might be provided
for denying that observer memories can ever really be memories.
30 Dominic Gregory

For convenience’s sake, however, I shall typically ignore that distinction in what
follows, speaking simply of ‘sensory memories’ when I wish to discuss both genuine
sensory memories and merely apparent sensory memories. So, for instance, this
chapter’s claims concerning ‘the representational functions of recollective images
in sensory memories’ should be taken to apply to the recollective images featuring
in merely apparent sensory memories as well as to those figuring in genuine sensory
memories. There will be some points at which the ‘genuine’ vs. ‘merely apparent’
distinction is needed, however, and they will be marked by explicit uses of those
verbal qualifications.

2. Internal and External Sensory Memories

As noted in section 1, it is natural to think that our sensory memories come in two
varieties: first, those which ostensibly capture the subjective nature of sensory episodes
that we ourselves underwent; and, second, those which merely purport to reflect what
the world was once like.
Suppose that a certain sensory memory involves its seeming to the rememberer that
he or she once underwent sensory episodes in which things looked, or sounded, or
otherwise stood sensorily the ways that the memory’s accompanying recollective
images show things as standing sensorily. Then the sensory memory is an internal
sensory memory. Internal sensory memories correspond to the first of the two kinds of
cases distinguished in the previous paragraph; they purport to capture ‘from the inside’
past sensory episodes enjoyed by their subjects.
Suppose, by contrast, that a certain sensory memory involves its seeming to
the rememberer merely that a portion of the world was once certain sensorily-
characterized ways, ways for the world to be that are encapsulated by the memory’s
accompanying recollective imagery. Then the sensory memory is an external sensory
memory. External sensory memories correspond to the second of the two kinds
of cases distinguished above. Observer memories seem to be examples of external
sensory memories, for instance.
While there seem to be both internal and external sensory memories, some simple
thoughts might make one wonder how there could be sensory memories of both types.
As noted in section 1, recollective images serve to fix the nature of what is recalled
during sensory memories. Consider an internal sensory memory. The memory’s
accompanying recollective imagery somehow ensures that the memory pertains to a
past sensory episode; the imagery’s occurrence in the subject’s mind involves its seem-
ing to the subject that things once, say, looked to him or her the ways that the images
show things as looking. But now consider an external sensory memory. In that case,
the memory’s accompanying recollective imagery somehow ensures that the memory
pertains merely to what the world was once like; the imagery’s occurrence in the
subject’s mind involves its seeming to the subject merely that the world was once the
ways that the images show things as, say, looking.
Another random document with
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and which they were to carry into execution. This was to the effect
that they should rob a horse from the orchard where the cavalry
mounts of my Tangier escort were picketed.
‘In this orchard was a summer-house where the English Medical
Officer who accompanied the Mission had his quarters; as also the
chief of our camp, a Moor from Tangier. The orchard was enclosed
by a high wall, and at the gate several of the Arab guard were posted
day and night.
‘“How are we to abstract a horse?” asked the Berbers. “Shall we
cut the throats of the guard at night, force open the gate, and carry
off the horse?”
‘“No such violence is required,” said Kaid Meno. “After midnight,
when all is quiet, take off your shoes, go in silence to the path round
the southern side of the wall, take pickaxes with you, and choose the
best spot for making a hole through the tapia wall. I know the
ground,” continued the Kaid; “you will find a drop of five feet from the
path to the orchard. Take plenty of rope with you. Steal up to a horse
—you will find several picketed—and lead him to the aperture in the
wall. Then cast the horse quickly and quietly, bind his fore and hind
legs firmly to his barrel, hoist him over your heads, and push him
through the hole.”
‘“What then?” asked the men; “where can we hide the horse? We
cannot take him out into the country, for the gates of the town will be
closed.”
‘“That is all settled,” replied Kaid Meno. “I have arranged with a
Berber cattle-lifter, who came to ask a favour of me this morning, that
he is to wait to-night, with four of his companions, where the river
passing under the walls enters the town.
 ‘“When a whistle is heard, a rope will be cast into the stream, with
a float and white signal attached. This rope will be taken hold of by
you and fastened to the horse, which, securely bound, will be cast
into the river. The men outside, on hearing a second whistle, will haul
the animal under the walls of the town through the archway. A little
water will not choke the horse, which will become their property, and
they will of course lose no time in making off to the mountains before
dawn.”
‘“To each of you,” he added, “I give four ducats; and if the Sultan
disgraces the Arab Kaid, I shall have an ox killed and give a feast to
our regiment.”
‘Meno’s orders were carried out. Some of my camp-followers who
slept in the orchard heard a horse moving about at night, but
supposed the animal had got loose.
‘In the morning the robbery was reported.—I visited the orchard
and saw the aperture through which the animal had been passed.
The wall was three feet thick, and the hole, five feet from the ground,
looked so small that it was a wonder how the poor beast had been
jammed through.
‘Early notice of the robbery had been given to the Governor of
Fas. The Arab Kaid was immediately placed under arrest, and orders
issued that the town gates should be kept closed and search made
in every garden and stable of a suspicious character. This was done,
but without result.
‘The Sultan “thundered and lightened,” as the myrmidons of the
Court told me, on hearing of the daring outrage that had been
committed within the grounds assigned by His Sherifian Majesty for
the quarters of the British Mission, and His Majesty vowed
vengeance on the perpetrators of the theft.
 ‘Later in the day, an Arab camel-driver reported to the Basha that
he had seen, early in the morning, a grey horse mounted bareback
by a Berber, who was riding with speed towards the mountains.
‘Cavalry were dispatched in pursuit, but the robber had escaped.
‘Suspicion then fell on the Kaid and men of the Berber regiment,
for words had been let drop which marked their glee at the disgrace
of the Arab Kaid.
‘One of the Berber soldiers was therefore seized and cruelly
bastinadoed until he offered to tell how the robbery of the horse had
been planned and carried out. His story was found to be true. The
unfortunate Kaid Meno was brought before the Uzir. Undaunted, he
denied the charge, in an insulting manner. The Uzir reported his
language to the Sultan, who ordered Meno to be disgraced and
reduced to the ranks. His horses and all his property were
confiscated. It was not until after I had left the Court that I learnt that
the horse I had received as a gift from the Sultan, a bright dun or
“snabi,” had been the property of Kaid Meno, the colonel of the
Berber regiment. In my reminiscences of boar hunting I tell how
gallant a hunter Snabi proved himself. His poor master must have
been attached to him, for Snabi was gentle with man and faithful as
a dog.
‘The unfortunate Kaid Meno was, after a year, sent prisoner to
Tetuan, where he remained incarcerated until 1886, when, through
my intercession, he was released and the Sultan placed him once
more in command of a Berber regiment.’

During the stay of the Mission in Fas, the Sultan invited its
members to be present at a grand ‘lab-el-barod’ in which he
personally intended taking part; this function to be preceded by a
picnic breakfast provided for his guests in one of the royal gardens
about two miles from the town; and in accordance with this invitation
the members of the Mission and two of the ladies were present at
the ‘lab-el-barod’ conducted by the Sultan in person.
The morning had been spent by the party in one of the beautiful
royal gardens in the environs of Fas, where the Sultan had ordered
luncheon to be served. As this picnic and the subsequent ‘lab-el-
barod’ were regarded in a semi-official light, the Mission was
escorted by the Arab Kaid and cavalry who, as described in the story
of Kaid Meno, had supplanted that Berber officer and his men.
A message arrived, soon after luncheon, requesting Sir John and
his party to proceed to a palace situated about two miles from Fas.
Here, in a large court—or rather square—the performance took
place. The Sultan, who appeared much pleased to see his English
visitors, saluted them, after every charge in which he joined, by rising
in his stirrups and raising his gun, held horizontally to the level of his
turban, as he passed the spot were they were grouped.
When the ‘fraja’ (sight) was over, we rode back to Fas, through a
gay and wild scene. The whole plain was crowded with various
tribes, grouped separately, and each dancing their own form of gun-
dance. There was one tribe of Shloh, wearing white, with red leather
belts and white turbans; another, in brown; and another, all dressed
in blue. Troops of Sus jugglers and Aisawa snake-charmers mingled
with these, whilst crowds of women took advantage of every mound
or ruined wall whence they could watch their male relatives.
We were about half a mile on our way home, when one of our
Arab escort cursed a Shloh. Immediately, from the crowd, a stone
was thrown at the offender, and this was followed by another. The
escort, who had been riding in open order, at once closed up in
expectation of a row. The three Tangier guards present, pushed
forward; the four English gentlemen surrounded Lady Hay, who rode
a mule near Sir John; and Hadj Alarbi, the chief of the Tangier
beaters—a gallant little man—hurried his mule to Miss Hay’s side,
uncovering, at the same time, Sir John’s breechloader, which he was
carrying, as the gentlemen had been shooting in the Sultan’s garden
in the morning. Seeing him cock the gun, Miss Hay said, ‘Why are
you doing that? You know it is not loaded and you have no
cartridges.’ ‘No,’ said the Hadj, ‘but it looks well!’
The escort and the rest of the party, having now drawn closely
together, were preparing to press forward; when Sir John, who was
as usual riding in front, checked them, giving orders to proceed as
slowly as possible; progress therefore became almost funereal. The
crowd thickened about the party, curses were showered on the Arab
cavalry by the constantly increasing numbers of Shloh, joined by all
the idle folk and boys of the town, who united in the abuse. Presently
a bullet struck the ground near the Arab Kaid, and a soldier of the
escort was injured by one of the stones flung from the crowd, but
these missiles were well aimed, as—though members of the escort
were frequently struck—not one touched any of the English party.
Bullets now whizzed over our heads, or struck the sand in front of us,
sending it flying up in our horses’ faces, but no one was injured. It
was not a pleasant half-hour, as the road was full of holes, and the
horses fidgetty from the noise and crush. On reaching the gates of
Fas, it was found that some of the miscreants had closed them, but
the townspeople behaved well, and, after a short pause, re-opened
the gates to admit us, closing them again immediately to exclude the
mob; but after we had entered the town, boys and other scamps ran
along the high wall, still taunting and insulting the soldiers.
That evening, a message was brought to Sir John from the
Sultan, by his ‘Hajib,’ to express His Majesty’s regret that such an
apparent insult had been offered to the Mission. The Hajib stated
that the Sultan had sent for the chiefs of the tribes and asked for an
explanation of their extraordinary conduct. They assured His Majesty
that no insult was offered to or intended for the Bashador, but that
some of the younger men of the tribes, excited by feasting and with
gunpowder, had taunted and tried to annoy the escort, who had
retorted; the Shloh had hoped to make the cavalry fly, as they were
accustomed to do on meeting them in battle, and thus prove that the
Arabs were unworthy to be guards to the British Mission.
 The Hajib then continued, ‘Sidna says he cannot rest unless he is
assured that none of you are injured, and he suggests and begs that
you, your friends and family (meaning the ladies), will return to the
same spot to-morrow to witness the “lab-el-barod,” but without the
Arab escort, and attended only by your Tangier guard.’
Sir John agreed, and next day, accompanied by his younger
daughter and some of the gentlemen, rode to the palace outside the
walls—attended only by the six faithful Suanni men. As we left the
city, each tribe sent a body of armed men to perform the gun-dance
before us.
We witnessed again the ‘lab-el-barod.’ The Sultan was, at first,
mounted on a coal-black horse—in token of his deep displeasure—
but changed soon to a chestnut, and, lastly, mounted a milk-white
steed. Afterwards we rode over the plain, mingling with the tribes.
They cheered wildly, calling down blessings on the Bashador and on
all the English—‘For they are brave and just,’ they cried.
The matters which Sir John especially pressed on the attention of
the Sultan’s advisers on the occasion of this visit were principally
those which, promised in 1873, had not been carried into execution,
in consequence of the death of Sultan Sid Mohammed. Amongst the
more urgent of these demands were the following:—
The placing of a light at Mazagan, to facilitate the entry of ships
into the harbour at night; the building of a pier at Tangier, and of
breakwaters in the harbours of Saffi and Dar-el-Baida; the erection of
more houses and stores for merchants at the ports; permission to
export bones; permission to import sulphur, saltpetre, and lead at a
ten per cent. duty, and the abolition of the Government monopoly on
these articles; the extension of the term placed on removal of
prohibition to export wheat and barley; inquiry into and punishment
of outrages on Jews; immediate settlement of all British claims. Most
particularly he pressed the importance of allowing a cable to be laid
between Tangier and Gibraltar. When he had previously obtained
from the Moorish Government permission for an English Company to
lay such a cable, one of his colleagues informed the Moorish
Government that, in case the concession was granted, he should
insist on telegraph wires being laid between Ceuta and Tangier
overland, and hold the Moorish Government responsible for the
safety of the wires. The Moorish Government, frightened by this
menace, and aware that no inland wires would be safe in the then
state of Morocco, availed themselves of the excuse to withdraw from
their promise to Sir John. On this subject he wrote to Sir Henry
Layard:—

When I presented the proposition to my colleagues, I premised by telling them

frankly of past opposition, and I asked what would have become of the network of
telegraph wires spread throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, if the petty
spirit which had prevailed here had existed on the part of the Representatives of
Foreign Powers throughout the world. I ridiculed the advantages which it was
supposed we should derive in case of war and if the cable became the property of
the British Government. ‘Imagine,’ I said, ‘my informing my Government some day
by telegraph that the Sultan was about to send a force of 30,000 Moorish troops in
the Moorish squadron to act against Spain or France. Such a dream,’ I said, ‘would
soon pass away, as any gunboat could cut the cable in this defenceless bay
whenever it pleased the officer in command. . . .
‘Once,’ I said, ‘the cable or cables introduced at Tangier, the time would not be
far distant when this Government and people would follow the example of the rest
of the world, and have telegraph wires throughout this Empire.’

In a series of letters written to his sister, Mrs. Norderling, Sir John

describes various incidents of the Mission. The first of these letters,
dated April 24, gives an account of the flattering reception the
Mission had received:—

Though we are the pets of the Harem we long to get away, but a message has
just been brought that the Sultan will not let us go till May 1. Never have I met such
a welcome at the Court as on this occasion. Royal honours paid us everywhere,
not a word, not a gesture, not a look that could be called unfriendly. From the
pompous Basha down to the humble labourer, all vie in being civil to the
Englishman who has been, as they say, the friend of the Moor, and who loves
‘justice.’ Even the women don’t hide their faces, or run away from me, but smile
brightly at my grey beard when I peer over the terrace wall, though they are more
shy when my young friends attempt to have a look at them, in their smart dresses,
walking on the terraces.
I have had two private audiences of the Sultan[52] since the public audience.
He and I have become great friends. He is about 6 feet 2 inches high, very
handsome, of a slim and elegant figure, very dignified in his manner, but gentle,
with a sad expression of countenance. I think he is about twenty-seven years of
age. His colour about the same shade as that of Hajot[53]. Features very regular.
He has taken the greatest interest in the telegraph apparatus sent to His Sherifian
Majesty by the British Government. It has been placed in the garden of his palace
between two summer-houses. I stood with the Sultan at one end, and a sapper,
sent by Government to work the instrument, and the Engineer officers at the other.
The first message he received in Arabic letters was ‘May God prolong the life of
Mulai Hassan.’ Several messages were interchanged. I left the room to
communicate with the officers, and the Sultan took possession of the instrument,
and, as the letters are in Arabic, he sent one himself. The sapper was delighted
with his intelligence. He wanted to have wires put between the palace and my
house to enable him to talk to me, he said, but there is no time. He has agreed to
allow of a cable[54] being laid between Tangier and Gibraltar, but not inland as yet,
for he declares that his wild subjects would destroy the wires. I have got, however,
the thin end of the wedge inserted for telegraphic communication. He agrees also
to the Mole at Tangier, and other improvements on the coast, and has removed
some restrictions on trade, so, after much negotiation, ‘un petit pas en avant’ is
made. He told me that he cannot introduce many of the improvements he desires,
from the fear of raising an outcry against himself by some of his ignorant subjects.
He also tells me that his father, before his death, had followed my advice, to give
salaries to the Governors of the Southern provinces, and thus check the system of
corruption and robbery practised by these grandees in office to enrich themselves.
I hear that the inhabitants of these provinces are happy and contented. His
Majesty hopes to introduce the same system into the Northern provinces, and he
sent the Governor-General of half his empire to listen to my advice.
This country is an Augean stable, and I cannot sweep it; but as the Sultan is
well disposed, we are doing our little best to aid him.
He invited us all to witness the feast of the Mulud—an unprecedented favour,
for even in Tangier the authorities think it prudent to recommend Christians and
Jews to keep aloof from the wild tribes who assemble on such occasions.
The chiefs from the Arab provinces and the Berber mountains, with their
followers, amounting to several thousand men, had come to the feast to bring
presents to His Majesty. The Sultan, with all his grandees and regular and irregular
troops, proceeded to a picturesque site two miles beyond the town.
 The Sultan sent us a guard of honour and orders to the commander to allow
me and my friends to take up any position we liked. Each chief with his retinue
formed a line and advanced towards the Sultan, bowing low from their horses. His
Majesty gave them his blessing, which was proclaimed by the Master of the
Ceremonies, and then they wheeled round, cheering, and galloped off. Some thirty
governors or chiefs were presented. The scene was beyond description. Imagine
the brilliant costumes of the Sultan’s troops; the flowing white dresses of the wild
Berber; the massive walls and bastions of Fas in the distance, with minarets and
palm-trees o’ertopping them; undulating hills covered with castles and ‘kubba’-
topped tombs, interspersed with orange-groves, olive-trees, and luxuriant
vegetation; a shining river flowing at our feet, and the snowy range of the Atlas in
the distance, and you have a picture which was wonderful to behold.
No people can behave better than the ‘Fassien’ have this time, and even the
swarms of Berbers we meet are civil to us. The Sultan sent a message to us (we
were all in our ‘armour’) that he was very glad we had come to the feast, as he
wished to show all his subjects that I was his honoured guest and friend.
This is a very chilly place. Last time I was here, in 1868, I had dysentery, and
now I have a frightful cold. Water everywhere; air hot outside, but cold in the
house.

After the Mission had returned to Tangier, he writes to the same

correspondent in July 1875, on the reforms which he was
endeavouring to introduce:—

Yes, we are sitting in Congress at the request of the Moorish Government

about the various improvements. The Representatives (with the exception of the
Don) support the Moorish Government. The silly Spaniards like not that Morocco
should improve and that our young Sultan should become popular. They always
talk (sub rosâ) about Morocco as destined for a Spanish colony, and they fear lest
the Moors should become too strong for them, or that, by improving the country
and commerce, Foreign Powers should put their veto on the petty system of
menace and bullying to which the Dons have resorted since the war of 1860.

Later on he writes to Mrs. Norderling about the Sahara scheme. A

plan had been proposed, and a company was to be formed, with the
object of flooding the Sahara by means of a canal cut on the West
African Coast, in the belief—it was said—of thus re-creating a great
inland sea in place of a sandy desert. On this subject he writes:—
 The Sahara scheme appears to me to be a ‘chateau en Espagne.’ I had a letter
from Lord Derby requesting me to aid McKenzie & Co., and to ask for the good
offices of the Moorish Government. He might as well have asked me to aid the
Naval Expedition to the North Pole. The Moorish Minister did not know the
whereabouts of Cape Bojador, and said the tribes south of Agadir would probably
be more hostile to the explorers if they heard that the Sultan encouraged them.
Remember Davidson’s fate, and that of the two Spaniards who have just been
ransomed for $27,000 after seven years’ captivity at Wadnun.
Bargash put a fair query: ‘If this inundation can really be carried into execution,
does the British Government intend to obtain the consent of the chiefs or
inhabitants of the oases of the desert or neighbouring districts, and to offer them
compensation? Or will their claims be got rid of by swamping them?’

I have not, either in reply to Lord Derby or to McKenzie, who has written to me,
opposed the scheme; but I have warned them that it will be natural to expect a
strong hostile feeling on the part of the tribes who inhabit the oases and borders of
the desert, and who have had, from time immemorial, the privilege of escorting
caravans and levying contributions on the traffic through the Sahara.
I should doubt that there would be any depth in the Kus. In my ignorance I
should say that the sea had withdrawn from that region from the uplifting of the
surface, and that even if there be parts much lower than the Atlantic, it would be a
sea too dangerous to navigate from the risk of sand-banks. I don’t think you and I
will live to hear that the cutting has been made. Money will be raised, and the
engineers will fill their pockets—‘y nada mas.’
 CHAPTER XXII.

1876-1879.

Sir John’s annual leave was generally taken in the autumn, for,
as he writes from Tangier to Sir Joseph Hooker,—

We visit England every year, but prefer going in the shooting instead of the
season, as to us, barbarians, we find English society more cordial in their ‘castles’
than when engaged in circling in a whirlpool of men and women in the ‘season.’
Our stay therefore is very short in town, and this will account for my not having
given you a hail in your paradise at Kew. We probably go home in July; if so, and
you are in town, I shall call either on arrival or return.

In the course of these yearly holidays he was entertained by many

royal and distinguished personages, with some of whom he had
become acquainted as their host at Tangier; but no record of any
special interest is left of these visits in his letters. Thus in the year
under notice, he was present at the Brussels Conference on Africa,
by invitation of the King of the Belgians, who as Duke of Brabant had
visited Tangier in 1862. In the following November he was the guest
of the Prince of Wales at Sandringham, whence he writes, ‘The
children clustered round me, and I had to tell many stories of the
Moors. Captain Nares arrived and dined. We passed the night on the
Arctic Ocean, and found it most interesting.’
Sir John always returned to the South before the cold set in in
England. This was merely from dislike of a chilly climate, after years
of residence under a Southern sky, and not on the score of health,
as may be judged from the following letter to his sister:—

Ravensrock, June 24, 1876.

 Thanks for your good wishes on my entering the shady side of sixty—bright
side I ought to say, for thanks to God I am as hearty and strong as I was twenty
years ago, though I have no longer the speed of youth. Yesterday we had all the
foreign society to play at lawn-tennis, and I flatter myself, though only my third trial
at the game, on having been the best amongst the youngsters who joined the fun.

Eastern affairs boded ill for peace in 1876, and Sir John, always
deeply interested in matters connected with Turkey, writes in July:—

The cloud in the East looks very threatening. I hope we shall not do more than
insist on fair play. If the Christian races are able to hold their own, we ought not to
interfere so long as they are not placed under the sway of Russia or other Power
antagonistic to us. If the Turks succeed in quashing the insurrection, I hope our
influence will be exerted to prevent outrages being committed by the
Mohammedans. I do not believe in the resurrection of the ‘sick man,’ but I am
convinced that Russia has done her best to hurry him to death’s door. When the
Blue Books are published, we shall have much to learn, especially if our Foreign
Office has to defend its present menacing attitude before the British Parliament
and public. If England had looked on passively, we should probably have been
forced into war.

But the crisis was averted.

‘Lord Derby’s policy in the East,’ he writes, ‘has astounded the foreigners. They
all without exception appear pleased to see the old Lion growl and bestir itself, and
Russia “reculer” (“pour mieux sauter”). The policy of the latter was evidently the
system of administering slow poison. I don’t think we can prevent paralysis of the
patient, or his final demise, but we have done right well in showing that we cannot
allow a doctor, who prescribes poison, to play the part of chief adviser to the
patient. Let him live awhile, and the course of events may prevent the balance
tipping in favour of our opponents in the East.’

Of Lord Derby Sir John entertained a high opinion. ‘I believe him,’

he says in one of his letters at this time, ‘to be a far better man and
more thoroughly English than any of his Whig predecessors—except
dear old Palmerston.’
In the following year Sir Henry Layard, Sir John’s former fellow-
worker in Sir Stratford Canning’s time, was appointed Ambassador
at Constantinople, and he thus writes to congratulate him on the
appointment:—

April 5, 1877.
I rejoiced to hear that you go to Stambul pro tem.; for I have no doubt the
appointment will be hereafter confirmed, and the right man will be in the right
place.
As you say, it will be a very difficult post, especially as I fear in these days an
ambassador cannot look alone, as in the days of Ponsonby and Redcliffe, to the
course he deems would best serve the interests of his country—and I may add of
Turkey—but he must seek to satisfy lynx-eyed humanitarians and others, even
though he may know that the real cause of humanity will not be benefited.
If vigilance, tact, and decision can gain the day, it will be yours.
I am, however, very far from rejoicing at your removal from Madrid, and shall
miss you much. Through you the evil machinations of the Don have been
thwarted. Had you been at Madrid in 1859-60 we should not have had war in
Morocco.

On the same subject he writes to his sister:—

Layard has gone to Stambul. He writes me that he has a hard task before him;
he will have to work in the teeth of humanitarians who have done much against the
cause of humanity already, though their motives are no doubt good. I have said
from the first, Russia won’t fight unless Turkey forces her. . . . Russia will get up
another massacre when she thinks the rumour suitable to her interests and views.

And again later:—

I think Layard’s dispatch of May 30 excellent.

He has a most difficult task, but is ceaseless in his efforts to prevent atrocities. I
have no sympathy with the Turkish Government, which is detestable, but I have for
the Turks.
On the other hand, I consider the conduct of the Russian Government—which
has been sapping and mining for years through agents, Bulgarian and foreign, to
bring about rebellion, revolt, and even the very atrocities committed on Christians
in Bulgaria which she now comes forward as champion to avenge—as base,
treacherous, and detestable; her sole aim being conquest. Never shall I have any
sympathy for that treacherous and ambitious Power.

In the meantime Sir John, who still maintained his influence at the
Court, continued unremitting in his efforts to abolish abuses in
Morocco.
Just before going on leave in 1877 he writes from Tangier to his
sister:—

I feel sorry to leave this even for two months, but am glad to have a rest, for as
our young Sultan makes me superintend his foreign affairs, I have no rest. We
think of leaving on the 28th. I have my leave, but I have so much work to get
through I could not well start before then.
I am striking at the Hydra, Protection, which is depriving this Government of its
lawful taxes and of all jurisdiction over Moors. Lord Derby is making it an
international question, and has hitherto given me carte blanche.

Diplomatic operations proceed slowly in Morocco, and this

question of the protection extended by foreigners to Moorish
subjects, which Sir John had so much at heart, was no exception to
the rule. To his great regret his efforts to combat the abuse were
eventually baffled. But he foresaw from the outset that the prospect
of success was never very great, and says:—

I shall fight the battle, and if abuses are maintained, and this Government is too
weak and powerless to resist them, I shall fold my arms and await events; I can do
no more.

To the same subject he returns in a letter to Sir Henry Layard:—

The Moorish Government have very strong grounds for complaint and for
insisting on reform and the abolition of these abuses, which are extending in such
a manner that soon all the wealthy merchants and farmers will be under foreign
protection and refuse to pay taxes. . . .
In my reply to Sid Mohammed Bargash, which I repeated both in French and
Arabic, I said that, though I had been thirty-two years British Representative and
was in charge of the interests of Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands, and
though British trade with Morocco was greater than the trade of all the other
nations put together, I did not give protection to a single Moorish subject not
actually in the service of Her Majesty’s Government, or in my personal service or
that of my subordinate officers.

The settlement of this question was one of the objects which

induced Sir John to remain at Morocco after his period of service, by
the new regulations at the Foreign Office, had expired. He writes to
his sister in the spring of 1878:—

I think I told you that I was informed by Lord Derby that my term of service—
five years in accordance with decree of Parliament about Ministers—had expired,
but that the Queen had been pleased to signify her desire that I should remain in
Morocco, and hopes I shall be pleased. . . . I only agree to remain until I have
settled the question of irregular protection.

The system of protection, as defined by treaty, was limited in its

operation. But, in practice, the system was extended beyond all
reasonable limits, and was capable of gross abuses and
irregularities. By the treaties of Great Britain and Spain with
Morocco, Moorish subjects in the service of foreign diplomatists and
consuls were exempted from taxation by the Sultan, and from the
jurisdiction of Moorish authorities. The same privileges of granting
exemptions were claimed by other Foreign Powers, and extended to
persons not in the employment of their Representatives. The results
were, that the Sultan was deprived of control over a large number of
his subjects; that many of the wealthiest traders, especially among
the Jews, were relieved from all contributions to taxation; and that
persons who were guilty of crime escaped from justice by obtaining a
place on the privileged lists of Foreign Representatives. To such an
extent was the abuse carried that, in Sir John’s opinion, the Moorish
Government was, by its prevalence, reduced to a dangerous state of
weakness. Moreover he felt that if the Foreign Powers surrendered
the privilege of protection or submitted to its careful regulation, they
would be enabled to bring the strongest pressure on the Moorish
Government to carry out much needed reforms in the administration
of the country. Unfortunately Sir John’s opinions on this question
were shared by only a portion of his colleagues, and he saw that
nothing in the matter would be finally achieved at Tangier. He hoped,
however, that a more satisfactory conclusion might be arrived at, if a
Conference could be conducted in some other country.

‘I have suggested,’ he writes to his sister in June, 1877, ‘to Lord Salisbury that
there should be no more palavering at Tangier, where some of the Representatives
have personal interests in maintaining abuses, but that a decision be come to by
the several Governments, or by a Conference at some Court, a Moorish Envoy
attending. As the fate of Morocco will greatly depend on the decision come to, and
as its position on the Straits and its produce must sooner or later bring this country
to the front, I have urged that my suggestion deserves attention.’

Sir John’s proposal was adopted, and a Conference was held at

Madrid on the subject of protection in Morocco. But the result was
not what Sir John had hoped, and he writes to his sister in June,
1880:—

There will be no use in my remaining to continue the imbroglio which the

Madrid Conference has produced.
The French policy has been je veux, and the silly Italians, who really have no
trade or interest in Morocco except to maintain its independence, backed the
French.
British and other foreign merchants claim now the same privileges as the
French, and they cannot be refused; so when each foreign resident in Morocco
appoints a rich farmer in the interior as his factor, and this man is placed beyond
the pale of the Moorish authorities and solely subject to the jurisdiction of a
mercantile consul, living often at a distance of five days’ journey, you may imagine
the rows that will take place, as these factors cannot be selected from angels, but
from erring barbarians. However, as I said to a colleague, ‘My appetite has
improved since I find my propositions have not been accepted,’ for now my
responsibility ceases, and when affairs take a disastrous turn I shall say, ‘I told you
so.’ It is sad, however, for I had advised that when the Powers conceded the just
demands of the Sultan, it would be an opportunity for requiring that he should
introduce gradually reforms in the maladministration of this country.
 In another letter he hints at a different grievance which he sought
to abate, but in this also old traditions and what may be termed
‘vested interests’ proved too strong for him and his allies:—

Lately we have had many meetings of Foreign Representatives, and I have had
to waggle my tongue, and my throat has suffered accordingly. I have some trouble,
being Doyen, and all the meetings take place at my house. We are trying to get rid
of abuses and of the system of Foreign Ministers and Consuls riding roughshod
over this wretched Government and people and compelling them to pay trumped-
up claims. The German and Belgian are my coadjutors.

The commercial condition of Morocco showed signs, however, of

improvement, and the Sultan evidently intended to take steps for
giving security to the lives and property of his subjects. But these
signs of increasing prosperity were doomed to be only the heralds of
terrible disasters, as was foreshadowed in the following letter to Sir
Joseph Hooker dated February 23, 1878:—

‘We continue,’ writes Sir John, ‘to progress like the cow’s tail, but one step has
been made in the right direction. The Sultan is forming a body of regular troops,
and our Government is aiding him by drilling squads at Gibraltar, who will act as
instructors to the “Askar” when they have been instructed and return to the Court.
With ten thousand regulars the Sultan ought to be able to bring under subjection
the wild tribes who only acknowledge him as the Chief of Islam. There would then
be better security for life and property. This I hope would lead to the development
of commerce and resources of this country, but we travel at camel’s pace—I may
add, a lame camel.
‘There has been a great lack of rain throughout Morocco. The usual fall is
between thirty and fifty inches; this winter since September only three and a-half
inches have fallen. The country is parched in the South, all the crops have failed,
and cattle are dying. In this province the crops still look green, and a little rain fell
last night, but water will be as dear as beer in England if we have not a good
downfall. We fear there will be famine in the land.’

These fears were realised, and Sir John writes to his sister that he
had suggested to the British Government that his visit to the Court in
the spring should be postponed, ‘as minds of Moorish Government
will be preoccupied and my preaching and praying would be of no
avail.’
In June he writes again:—

This country is in a very sad state. Robert[55] says the people are dying of
starvation round Mogador, and cattle and sheep by the thousands. I see no
prospect of warding off the famine, and fear that misery will prevail for many years
in the Southern districts, as there will be no cattle to till the land. Sultan is said to
be distributing grain. Wheat and other provisions are imported from England and
other foreign countries. Bread here is dearer than in England, though the crops in
this district are good. Robert has appealed to the British public through the Times
and Lord Mayor, but John Bull has doled out his sovereigns so liberally for Indians,
Chinese, Bulgarians, and Turks, that I fear there will be very little for the Moor.
We have got up subscriptions here for the Mogador poor.

The famine was followed in the autumn of 1878 by an outbreak of

disease, and in a letter, written in October on his return from leave,
he says:—

Good health at Tangier; but cholera—or, if not cholera, some dire disease—is
mowing down the population in the interior. At Dar-el-Baida, a small town with
about 6,000 population, the deaths amounted to 103 a day! but the disease is
moving South, not North. The rains and cool weather will I hope check the evil.
Great misery in the interior. There are reports that the starving people eat their
dead. This I think is an exaggeration, but they are eating the arum[56] root, which
when not properly prepared produces symptoms like cholera.

The closing of the port of Gibraltar against all articles of trade from
Morocco had produced great distress amongst the poorer classes,
and the arbitrary measures taken by the sanitary authorities at
Gibraltar and the Spanish ports served to add to the miseries of the
population of Morocco. In addition to these calamities, during Sir
John’s absence the terrors of some of the European Representatives
led to the introduction of futile and mischievous quarantine
regulations at Tangier itself, which Sir John on his return at once
combated.
 ‘There is good health in Tangier,’ he writes in October, ‘but I expect we shall
have cholera before the spring. My colleagues during my absence had run amuck
and established a cordon outside the town, stopping passengers and traffic,
fumigating skins, clapping poor folk into quarantine exposed to the night air, and
other follies. As I said to them, “Why do you introduce cordons in Morocco when
you don’t have them in other countries? It is only a source of bribery and
corruption. The rich get through and the poor starve outside. It is a measure which
only trammels traffic and promotes distress.”
‘A Spaniard, guard of a cordon at Tetuan, was killed, and there was nearly a
revolution amongst the Mohammedans at Tangier. Then an order came from the
Sultan to remove cordons, and saying Foreign Representatives were only
empowered to deal in sanitary and quarantine regulations by sea and not inland.
My colleagues (except German—Belgian is absent) were furious and said it was
all my doing, and they have been baying at me ever since like a pack of wolves, as
the cordon is taken off. The malady in the interior, whatever it is, cholera or typhus,
is on the wane, but deaths from starvation are numerous.
‘Sultan is feeding some three thousand at Marákesh. Rain has fallen in the
South, but cattle are dead or unfit to plough, and the poor have no seed. The ways
and means of the Government are coming to an end, and the little impulse lately
given to trade and civilisation will, I fear, be lost for years.’

On November 15 he writes again on the subject:—

The doctors at Tangier, Mazagan, and Mogador have now formally declared
that the prevalent disease is not cholera asiatica, but that it has a choleraic
character. The famished, weak, and poor invalids are carried off, but if a person in
comfortable circumstances is attacked, a dose of castor oil, or even oil, cures
them. This is not cholera asiatica. There have been cases they say at Tangier, but
the mortality this year is less than usual.
Gibraltar, however, continues its rigorous measures—thirty days quarantine—
and will not admit even an egg under that. I see no hope for improvement until
after next harvest. The poor must starve. These quarantines increase the misery,
for they check trade, and the poor engaged in labour connected with commerce
are in a starving state. The German Minister and I are doing what we can to relieve
about three hundred people here. Robert relieves some 2,700 daily at Mogador.
It is pouring; what a blessing! All the wells in the town are dry. I send a mile to
get water: two mules at work, and my water-supply must cost me two shillings a
day.
 Towards aiding the starving poor in the Moorish coast towns
£2,600 were raised in London, and at Tangier in December Sir John
writes:—

Last month six of the Foreign Representatives had a meeting, and we decided
on raising a subscription to aid these wretched people to return to their distant
homes. There are some four hundred. £60 was subscribed before the meeting
broke up, and then we sent it on to the Moorish authorities and the well-to-do folk
—Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans, and I believe the collection will amount to
£250. Clothes are to be supplied for the naked, provisions for the road, and with
money sufficient to exist on for a month, we send them off to their distant homes.
We take this step to free Tangier from a crowd of wretched people who have no
homes, and who sleep in the streets under arches. You can imagine the
consequences in our little town, which had become a model as far as scavenging
is concerned.

Though in the Northern provinces the famine had sensibly abated,

in the South there was still much distress, and disease was rife
among all classes. On March 5, 1879, Sir John writes to his sister
with reference to his son, then Consul at Mogador, who had already
been dangerously ill:—

Again we have been alarmed by the accounts of R. The doctor who attended
him reports that he had a brain fever, which finished off in typhus, brought on, as
doctor said, by over-anxiety and work in relieving the famished people. He was,
thank God, on the 23rd convalescent: fever had left him very weak, and he is
ordered to proceed to Tangier as soon as his strength will permit him to move. . . .
The Italian Vice-Consul at Mogador died of typhoid, the French Consul was at
death’s door. Poor Kaid Maclean is in a dangerous state at Marákesh. Several
Europeans at the ports have died of typhoid.
The atmosphere is poisoned by the famished people and bodies buried a few
inches below the surface or even left exposed.
We have sent off the poor, with aid from here, and as I happen to be President
of the Board this month, I am attending to hygienic measures, and hope thereby to
ward off the dread disease from this town.