HERE BEGINNETH THE THREE AND SIXTIETH CHAPTER
Of the powers of a soul in general, and how Memory in special is a principal
power, comprehending in it all the other powers and all those things in the
which they work.
MEMORY is such a power in itself, that properly to speak and in manner, it
worketh not itself. But Reason and Will, they be two working powers, and so is
Imagination and Sensuality also. And all these four powers and their works,
Memory containeth and comprehendeth in itself. And otherwise it is not said that
the Memory worketh, unless such a comprehension be a work.
And therefore it is that I call the powers of a soul, some principal, and
some secondary. Not because a soul is divisible, for that may not be: but
because all those things in the which they work be divisible, and some
principal, as be all ghostly things, and some secondary, as be all bodily
things. The two principal working powers, Reason and Will, work purely in
themselves in all ghostly things, without help of the other two secondary
powers. Imagination and Sensuality work beastly in all bodily things, whether
they be present or absent, in the body and with the bodily wits. But by them,
without help of Reason and of Will, may a soul never come to for to know the
virtue and the conditions of bodily creatures, nor the cause of their beings and
their makings.
And for this cause is Reason and Will called principal powers, for they work in
pure spirit without any manner of bodilyness: and Imagination and Sensuality
secondary, for they work in the body with bodily instruments, the
which be our five wits. Memory is called a principal power, for it containeth in
it ghostly not only all the other powers, but thereto all those things in the
which they work. See by the proof.
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