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In contrast to the Amelés, in which the water of forgetfulness flows,
the Mnemosyne contains the water of remembrance. According
to other writers, everyone drinks from the waters of both rivers,
but it is important to do so in the right balance. That is to say, for
the Greeks remembrance is grace, but it is at least as much of a
mercy to forget. It is no coincidence the sources of the two rivers
are found in the same place. And, of course, it is no accident that
the mother of the muse is oblivion. To put it in Nietzsche’s terms,
the Greeks created art so that they could repress the horror of ex¬
istence, so that we may at least temporarily forget it, though not
permanently. We must also keep in mind that Plato accurately
describes forgetting in the Myth of Er. He words it as those who
were not prevented from doing so by their common sense drank
deeply from the river of forgetfulness. (Rep. 621.b.) Obviously, as
we also see in the Phaedrus (Plato 1972. 249.e.), cognition is nothing
but remembrance (äväuvnoic).
For Hegel also, cognition is remembering—Kierkegaard will
object to this in due course—but it is more than that: it is simul¬
taneously remembrance (Erinnerung, &väjıvnoıg) and internal¬
ization, the realization of itself (Er-innerung) (PoS. p.467. PdG.
p- 591.)”. All this expresses that cognition (remembrance) is not
simply epistemological. It does not only refer to learning things
from the past, but is also ontological, as it creates. “The goal of the
movement is the revelation of depth itself, and this is the absolute
concept.” Or “the aim, absolute knowing, or spirit knowing itself
as spirit. (Ibid. p. 467.)
The wording, that the spirit finds its path in the memory of
spirits, is again a very eloquent expression of the true content of
remembering.
22 This is impossible to translate in practice. “Erinnerung” means remembering
or memory. Er-inner-ung (inwardizing re-collection) is, however, the separated
“er” third person singular (he/she), while “inner” means inner.