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8. But as, when [both] the form and species of a body have
perished, the will cannot recall to it the sense of perceiving; so,
when the image which memory bears is blotted out by forgetfulness, the
will will be unable to force back the eye of the mind by recollection,
so; as to be formed thereby. But because the i mind has great power
to imagine not only things forgotten, but also things that it never l
saw, or experienced, either by increasing, or diminishing, or
changing, or compounding, after its pleasure, those which have not
dropped out of its remembrance, it often imagines things to be such as
either it knows they are not, or does not know that they are. And in
this case we have to take care, lest it either speak falsely that it
may deceive, or hold an opinion so as to be deceived. And if it avoid
these two evils, then imagined phantasms do not hinder it: just as
sensible things experienced or retained by memory do not hinder it, if
they are neither passionately sought for when pleasant, nor basely
shunned when unpleasant. But when the will leaves better things, and
greedily wallows in these, then it becomes unclean; and they are so
thought of hurtfully, when they are present, and also more hurtfully
when they are absent. And he therefore lives badly and degenerately
who lives according to the trinity of the outer man; because it is the
purpose of using things sensible and corporeal, that has begotten also
that trinity, which although it imagines within, yet imagines things
without. For no one could use those things even well, unless the
images of things perceived by the senses were retained in the memory.
And unless the will for the greatest part dwells. in the higher and
interior things, and unless that will itself, which is accommodated
either to bodies without, or to the images of them within, refers
whatever it receives in them to a better and truer life, and rests in
that end by gazing at which it judges that those things ought to be
done; what else do we do, but that which the apostle prohibits us from
doing, when he says, "Be not conformed to this world"? And
therefore that trinity is not an image of God since it is produced in
the mind itself through the bodily sense, from the lowest, that is,
the corporeal creature, than which the mind is higher. Yet neither is
it altogether dissimilar: for what is there that has not a likeness of
God, in proportion to its kind and measure, seeing that God made all
things very good, and for no other reason except that He Himself is
supremely good? In so far, therefore, as anything that is, is
good, in so far plainly it has still some likeness of the supreme
good, at however, great a distance; and if a natural likeness, then
certainly a right and well-ordered one; but if a faulty likeness,
then certainly a debased and perverse one. For even souls in their
very sins strive after nothing else but some kind of likeness of God,
in a proud and preposterous, and, so to say, slavish liberty. So
neither could our first parents have been persuaded to sin unless it had
been said, "Ye shall be as gods." No doubt every thing in the
creatures which is in any way like God, is not also to be called His
image; but that alone than which He Himself alone is higher. For
that only is in all points copied from Him, between which and Himself
no nature is interposed.
9. Of that vision then; that is, of the form which is wrought in
the sense of him who sees; the form of the bodily thing from which it
is wrought, is, as it were, the parent. But it is not a true
parent; whence neither is that a true offspring; for it is not
altogether born therefrom, since something else is applied to the
bodily thing in order that it may be formed from it, namely, the sense
of him who sees. And for this reason, to love this is to be
estranged.4 Therefore the will which unites both, viz. the
quasi-parent and the quasi-child, is more spiritual than either of
them. For that bodily thing which is discerned, is not spiritual at
all. But the vision which comes into existence in the sense, has
something spiritual mingled with it, since it cannot come into
existence without the soul. But it is not wholly spiritual; since
that which is formed is a sense of the body. Therefore the will which
unites both is confessedly more spiritual, as I have said; and so it
begins to suggest (insinuare), as it were, the person of the Spirit
in the Trinity. But it belongs more to the sense that is formed,
than to the bodily thing whence it is formed. For the sense and will
of an animate being belongs to the soul, not to the stone or other
bodily thing that is seen. It does not therefore proceed from that
bodily thing as from a parent; yet neither does it proceed from that
other as it were offspring, namely, the vision and form that is in the
sense. For the will existed before the vision came to pass, which
will applied the sense that was to be formed to the bodily thing that
was to be discerned; but it was not yet satisfied. For how could that
which was not yet seen satisfy? And satisfaction means a will that
rests content. And, therefore, we can neither call the will the
quasi-offspring of vision, since it existed before vision; nor the
quasi-parent, since that vision was not formed and expressed from the
will, but from the bodily thing that was seen.
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