  Augustine went further. If our consciousness is confined to the momentary present, how is it possible for us to know as much as we do about the duration of events or processes we live through? Augustine’s solution to this problem turns on the way memory and expectation can interact. For illustrative purposes he envisages himself on the verge of reciting a familiar Psalm. Before starting to speak all the verses are laid out before him in the form of expectations concerning what he is about to say; when part-way through his performance, the reciting of some verses is transferred from expectation to memory; as he continues to speak this transfer continues until the whole of the Psalm passes into memory: ‘thus the life of this action of mine is divided between my memory as to what I have repeated, and expectation as to what I am about to repeat.’ (Gale 1968: 52). Analogous considerations apply over shorter timescales (the experiencing of individual sounds and syllables) and over longer periods (a person’s entire life).