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2. And the beasts, too, are able both to perceive things corporeal
from without, through the senses of the body, and to fix them in the
memory, and remember them, and in them to seek after things suitable,
and shun things inconvenient. But to note these things, and to retain
them not only as caught up naturally but also as deliberately committed
to memory, and to imprint them again by recollection and conception
when now just slipping away into forgetfulness; in order that as
conception is formed from that which the memory contains, so also the
contents themselves of the memory may be fixed firmly by thought: to
combine again imaginary objects of sight, by taking this or that of
what the memory remembers, and, as it were, tacking them to one
another: to examine after what manner it is that in this kind things
like the true are to be distinguished from the true, and this not in
things spiritual, but in corporeal things themselves; these acts, and
the like, although performed in reference to things sensible, and
those which the mind has deduced through the bodily senses, yet, as
they are combined with reason, so are not common to men and beasts.
But it is the part of the higher reason to judge of these corporeal
things according to incorporeal and eternal reasons; which, unless
they were above the human mind, would certainly not be unchangeable;
and yet, unless something of our own were subjoined to them, we should
not be able to employ them as our measures by which to judge of
corporeal things. But we judge of corporeal things from the rule of
dimensions and figures, which the mind knows to remain unchangeably.
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