Socrates: The other class of pleasures, which as we were saying is purely mental, is entirely derived from memory.
Protarchus: What do you mean?
Socrates: I must first of all analyze memory, or rather perception which is prior to memory, if the subject of our discussion is ever to be properly cleared up.
Protarchus: How will you proceed?
Socrates: Let us imagine affections of the body which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and leave her unaffected; and again, other affections which vibrate through both soul and body, and impart a shock to both and to each of them.
Protarchus: Granted.
Socrates: And the soul may be truly said to be oblivious of the first but not of the second?
Protarchus: Quite true.
Socrates: When I say oblivious, do not suppose that I mean forgetfulness in a literal sense; for forgetfulness is the exit of memory, which in this case has not yet entered; and to speak of the loss of that which is not yet in existence, and never has been, is a contradiction; do you see?
Protarchus: Yes.
Socrates: Then just be so good as to change the terms.
Protarchus: How shall I change them?
Socrates: Instead of the oblivion of the soul, when you are describing the state in which she is unaffected by the shocks of the body, say unconsciousness.
Protarchus: I see.
Socrates: And the union or communion of soul and body in one feeling and motion would be properly called consciousness?
Protarchus: Most true.
Socrates: Then now we know the meaning of the word?
Protarchus: Yes.
Socrates: And memory may, I think, be rightly described as the preservation of consciousness?
Protarchus: Right.
Socrates: But do we not distinguish memory from recollection?
Protarchus: I think so.
Socrates: And do we not mean by recollection the power which the soul has of recovering, when by herself, some feeling which she experienced when in company with the body?
Protarchus: Certainly.
Socrates: And when she recovers of herself the lost recollection of some consciousness or knowledge, the recovery is termed recollection and reminiscence?