over a long period of time. The first is by Leopold Infeld, a physicist who
worked with Einstein at Princeton:
I was very much impressed by the ingenuity of Einstein’s most recent paper. It was
an intricate, most skillfully arranged chain of reasoning, leading to the conclusion
that gravitational waves do not exist. If true, the result would be of great impor-
tance to relativity theory . . .
The greatness of Einstein lies in his tremendous imagination, in the unbeliev-
able obstinacy with which he pursues his problems. Originality is the most
essential factor in important scientific work. It is intuition which leads to unex-
plored regions, intuition as difficult to explain rationally as that by which the oil
diviner locates the wealth hidden in the earth.
There is no great scientific achievement without wandering through the dark-
ness of error. The more the imagination is restricted, the more a piece of work
moves along a definite track – a process made up rather of additions than
essentially new ideas – the safer the ground and the smaller the probability of
error. There are no great achievements without error and no great man was always
correct. This is well known to every scientist. Einstein’s paper might be wrong and
Einstein still be the greatest scientist of our generation . . .
The most amazing thing about Einstein was his tremendous vital force directed
toward one and only one channel: that of original thinking, of doing research.
Slowly I came to realize that in exactly this was his greatness. Nothing is as
important as physics. No human relations, no personal life, are as essential as
thought and the comprehension of how ‘‘God created the world.’’ . . . one feels
behind [his] external activity the calm, watchful contemplation of scientific
problems, that the mechanism of his brain works without interruption. It is a
Introduction
3
constant motion which nothing can stop . . . The clue to the understanding of
Einstein’s role in science lies in his loneliness and aloofness. In this respect he differs
from all other scientists . . . He had never studied physics at a famous university, he
was not attached to any school; he worked as a clerk in a patent office . . . For him
the isolation was a blessing since it prevented his thought from wandering into
conventional channels. This aloofness, this independent thought on problems
which Einstein formulated for himself, not marching with the crowd but looking
for his own lonely pathways, is the most essential feature of his creation. It is not only
originality, it is not only imagination, it is something more. 2
The following descriptions are excerpted from a life of St. Thomas
Aquinas, written shortly after his death by Bernardo Gui, and from
testimony taken at Thomas’s canonization hearings from his close con-
temporary, Thomas of Celano, who also knew Reginald, Thomas’s socius,
or friar-companion.
Of the subtlety and brilliance of his intellect and the soundness of his judgment,
sufficient proof is his vast literary output, his many original discoveries, his deep
understanding of the Scriptures. His memory was extremely rich and retentive:
whatever he had once read and grasped he never forgot; it was as if knowledge were
ever increasing in his soul as page is added to page in the writing of a book.
Consider, for example, that admirable compilation of Patristic texts on the four
Gospels which he made for Pope Urban [the Catena aurea or ‘‘Golden Chain’’]
and which, for the most part, he seems to have put together from texts that he had
read and committed to memory from time to time while staying in various
religious houses. Still stronger is the testimony of Reginald his socius and of his
pupils and of those who wrote to his dictation, who all declare that he used to
dictate in his cell to three secretaries, and even occasionally to four, on different
subjects at the same time . . . No one could dictate simultaneously so much various
material without a special grace. Nor did he seem to be searching for things as yet
unknown to him; he seemed simply to let his memory pour out its treasures . . .
He never set himself to study or argue a point, or lecture or write or dictate
without first having recourse inwardly – but with tears – to prayer for the under-
standing and the words required by the subject. When perplexed by a difficulty he
would kneel and pray and then, on returning to his writing or dictation, he was
accustomed to find that his thought had become so clear that it seemed to show
him inwardly, as in a book, the words he needed . . .
Even at meal-times his recollection continued; dishes would be placed before
him and taken away without his noticing; and when the brethren tried to get him
into the garden for recreation, he would draw back swiftly and retire to his cell
alone with his thoughts. 3
It might be useful to isolate the qualities of genius enumerated in each of
the above descriptions. Of Einstein: ingenuity, intricate reasoning, origi-
nality, imagination, essentially new ideas coupled with the notion that to
4
The Book of Memory
achieve truth one must err of necessity, deep devotion to and understand-
ing of physics, obstinacy, vital force, single-minded concentration, soli-
tude. Of Thomas Aquinas: subtlety and brilliance of intellect, original
discoveries coupled with deep understanding of Scripture, memory, noth-
ing forgotten and knowledge ever-increasing, special grace, inward
recourse, single-minded concentration, intense recollection, solitude.
As I compare these two lists I am struck first by the extent to which the
qualities ascribed to each man’s working habits are the same. In both, one
gets a vivid sense of extraordinary concentration on problems to the exclu-
sion of most daily routine. Infeld speaks of tremendous vital force, Bernardo
of intense inner prayer, but both are describing a concentrated continuous
energy that expresses itself in a profound singlemindedness, a remarkable
solitude and aloofness. Each also praises the intricacy and brilliance of the
reasoning, and its prolific character, its originality. It is important to
appreciate that Bernardo values originality in Thomas’s work – he praises
its creativeness just as Infeld praises that in Einstein’s.
What we have, in short, is a recognizable likeness between these two
extraordinary intellects, in terms of what they needed for their composi-
tional activity (the activity of thought), the social isolation required by each
individual, and what is perceived to be the remarkable subtlety, originality,
and understanding of the product of such reasoning. What is strikingly
different is that in the one case this process and product are ascribed to
intuition and imagination unfettered by ‘‘definite’’ tracks, in the other to a
‘‘rich and retentive memory,’’ which never forgot anything and in which
knowledge increased ‘‘as page is added to page in the writing of a book.’’
My point in setting these two descriptions up in this way is simply this:
the nature of creative activity itself – what the brain
does, and the social and
psychic conditions needed for its nurture – has remained essentially the
same between Thomas’s time and our own. Human beings did not
suddenly acquire imagination and intuition with Coleridge, having pre-
viously been poor clods. The difference is that whereas now geniuses are
said to have creative imagination which they express in intricate reasoning
and original discovery, in earlier times they were said to have richly
retentive memories, which they expressed in intricate reasoning and orig-
inal discovery.
We know a good deal about the actual procedures that Thomas Aquinas
followed in composing his works, thanks in part to the full accounts we
have from the hearings held for his canonization,4 and in part to the
remarkable survival of several pages of autograph drafts of certain of his
early works. Both sources of material have received a thorough analysis
Introduction
5
from the paleographic scholar, Antoine Dondaine. 5 Dondaine’s work con-
firmed the existence, alluded to many times in the contemporary accounts,
of a group of three or four secretaries who took down Thomas’s composi-
tions in a fair hand from his own dictation. The autographs are written in
littera inintelligibilis, a kind of shorthand that fully lives up to its name
(Dondaine says that the great nineteenth-century editor, Uccelli, lost his
eyesight scrutinizing these drafts) for it was not designed to be read by
anyone other than the author himself. As Dondaine has reconstructed the
process of composing the Summa contra Gentiles, an early work for which a
number of autograph leaves exist, Thomas wrote first in littera inintelligibilis
and then summoned one of his secretaries to take down the text in a legible
hand while Thomas read his own autograph aloud. When one scribe tired,
another took over.
But no autographs are found of the later major works. Dondaine
remarks this fact as curious, because one would expect these autographs
to have been treasured at least as carefully as those of earlier works. He
suggests that their nonexistence is due not to loss but to there having been
none in the first place to save. ‘‘Le fait qu’il n’y ait plus d’autographes des
ouvrages posteŕieurs invite a´ penser que saint Thomas ne les a pas ećrits,
sinon peut-eˆtre sous forme de brouillons, et qu’il les a dicteś en les
composant.’’6 Dondaine points out the tedium and waste of time involved
for Thomas in writing out a complete text, even in shorthand, and then
reading it aloud for it to be written again, this time in a fair hand.
There is good evidence in the remembrance of his peers that, certainly
later in life, Thomas was not accustomed to writing his thoughts down
himself, even in inintelligibilis. Two incidents in particular suggest this
habit. There is the famous story of Thomas at dinner with Louis XI, Saint
Louis. Though seated next to the king, Thomas was still preoccupied by an
argument he was composing against the Manichees. Suddenly he struck the
table, crying, ‘‘That settles the Manichees!’’ and called out to Reginald, his
socius, ‘‘as though he were still at study in his cell . . . ‘Reginald, get up and
write!’’’7 This incident must have occurred between the springs of 1269 and
1270; the work in progress was the Second Part of the Summa theologica.8
The second incident occurred in conjunction with the writing of his
commentary on Isaiah, a work for which an autograph of five chapters
exists (Vatican lat. 9850).9 Thomas became puzzled for days over the
interpretation of a text:
At last, one night when he had stayed up to pray, his socius overheard him
speaking, as it seemed, with other persons in the room; though what was being
said the socius could not make out, nor did he recognize the other voices. Then
6
The Book of Memory
these fell silent and he heard Thomas’s voice calling: ‘‘Reginald, my son, get up
and bring a light and the commentary on Isaiah; I want you to write for me.’’ So
Reginald rose and began to take down the dictation, which ran so clearly that it
was as if the master were reading aloud from a book under his eyes. 10
Pressed by Reginald for the names of his mysterious companions, Thomas
finally replied that Peter and Paul had been sent to him, ‘‘and told me all
I desired to know.’’ This tale, among other things, suggests that some of
Thomas’s work was composed in a mixture of some parts written out in
shorthand and then read to a secretary and some mentally composed and
dictated. The contemporary sources suggest strongly that the entire Summa
theologica was composed mentally and dictated from memory, with the aid
at most of a few written notes, and there is no reason to disbelieve them.
Around 1263, Thomas wrote a compilation of patristic texts on the
Gospels, the Catena aurea, which Gui describes, in the passage I just
quoted, as ‘‘put together from texts that [Thomas] had read and committed
to memory from time to time while staying in various religious houses.’’11
Chenu accurately describes it as a ‘‘concatenation of patristic texts cleverly
coordinated into a running commentary’’; it includes a number of Greek
authorities as well, which Thomas had had translated into Latin in order to
add these extracts, ‘‘being careful to place the names of the authors before
their testimonies’’ in the proper quotational style, whose purpose, as we will
see in Chapter 3, was certainly to aid memorial retention. 12 The catena or chain is a very old medieval genre of scholarly commentary, used widely by
the monastic scholars as part of lectio divina. 13 The authorities are chained,
or hooked, together by a particular Biblical phrase. Thus the commentary
entirely follows the sequence of the main text, each chapter division of the
Gospel book forming a division of the Catena, and each verse (actually its
unnumbered phrases and clauses) quoted separately with a string of rele-
vant comments following it.
The written organization of the catena simply reproduces its memorial
organization, as each bit of Biblical text calls up the authorities attached to
it. For example, on Mt. 2:9, Thomas Aquinas first gives us a bit of
Chrysostom on Matthew, then Augustine from two sources, then the
ordinary gloss, then Ambrose on Luke, then Remigius, and then the
gloss again. It is important to note that in writing this work Thomas did
not look up each quotation in a manuscript tome as he composed; the
accounts are specific on this point. The texts were already filed in his
memory, in an ordered form that is one of the basics of mnemonic
technique. And of course, once the texts were in his memory they stayed
there for use on other occasions.
Introduction
7
I am not suggesting that Thomas never made reference to manuscripts –
on the contrary, we know that he did. We also know that one task of his
secretaries was to copy manuscripts for his use. 14 But the picture we are
often given of Thomas pausing while dictating in order to check a reference
&nbs
p; in a manuscript seems to me contrary to the evidence. For we are told over
and over again that Thomas’s flow to his secretaries was unceasing: it ‘‘ran
so clearly that it was as if the master were reading aloud from a book under
his eyes.’’ He dictated ‘‘as if a great torrent of truth were pouring into him
from God. Nor did he seem to be searching for things as yet unknown to
him; he seemed simply to let his memory pour out its treasures.’’ And
again, ‘‘When perplexed by a difficulty he would kneel and pray and then,
on returning to his writing or dictation, he was accustomed to find that his
thought had become so clear that it seemed to show him inwardly, as in a
book, the words he needed.’’15
That unceasing torrent, that clarity as though reading from a book
before his eyes, that quality of retaining whatever he had read and
grasped, can be understood if we are willing to give his trained memory
its due. Thomas himself stresses the importance of concentration in
memory, and we are told many times of his remarkable power of deep
concentration, often approaching a trance-like state in which he did not
feel physical pain. Thomas communed with his memory constantly,
certainly before he dictated, and only when he clearly had ‘ the under-
standing and the words required ’ (my emphasis) would he lecture or write
or dictate.16 (This, of course, is not to suggest that his works were dictated
always in the absolutely final form in which we have them today;
Dondaine gives much evidence of revision and reworking in the auto-
graphs and between the autographs and the fair texts. For some works, he
left notes which were to be worked up later; the Supplement to the Summa
is an example of such a practice.) I am even inclined to take somewhat
seriously his comment to Reginald that Peter and Paul spoke with him
and instructed him in his difficulties with the text of Isaiah. Their words
were certainly intimately in his mind, among the many voices in his
memory, intimate colleagues to his own thoughts. Moreover, subvocali-
zation, a murmur, was a persistent and apparently necessary feature of
memory work. One of his secretaries, a Breton called Evan, told how
Thomas would sometimes sit down to rest from the work of dictating
and, falling asleep, would continue to dictate in his sleep, Evan continu-