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6. The rational soul, however, lives in a degenerate fashion,when
it lives according to a trinity of the outer man; that is, when it
applies to those things which form the bodily sense from without, not a
praiseworthy will, by which to refer them to some useful end, but a
base desire, by which to cleave to them. Since even if the form of
the body, which was corporeally perceived, be withdrawn, its likeness
remains in the memory, to which the will may again direct its eye, so
as to be formed thence from within, as the sense was formed from
without by the presentation of the sensible body. And so that trinity
is produced from memory, from internal vision, and from the will which
unites both. And when these three things are combined into one, from
that combination itself they are called conception. And in these three
there is no longer any diversity of substance. For neither is the
sensible body there, which is altogether distinct from the nature of
the living being, nor is the bodily sense there informed so as to
produce vision, nor does the will itself perform its office of applying
the sense, that is to be informed, to the sensible body, and of
retaining it in it when informed; but in place of that bodily species
which was perceived from without, there comes the memory retaining that
species which the soul has imbibed through the bodily sense; and in
place of that vision which was outward when the sense was informed
through the sensible body, there comes a similar vision within, while
the eye of the mind is informed from that which the memory retains, and
the corporeal things that are thought of are absent; and the will
itself, as before it applied the sense yet to be informed to the
corporeal thing presented from without, and united it thereto when
informed, so now converts the vision of the recollecting mind to
memory, in order that the mental sight may be informed by that which
the memory has retained, and so there may be in the conception a like
vision. And as it was the reason that distinguished the visible
appearance by which the bodily sense was informed, from the similitude
of it, which was wrought in the sense when informed in order to produce
vision (otherwise they had been so united as to be thought altogether
one and the same); so, although that phantasy also, which arises
from the mind thinking of the appearance of a body that it has seen,
consists of the similitude of the body which the memory retains,
together with that which is thence formed in the eye of the mind that
recollects; yet it so seems to be one and single, that it can only be
discovered to be two by the judgment of reason, by which we understand
that which remains in the memory, even when we think it from some other
source, to be a different thing from that which is brought into being
when we remember, that is, come back again to the memory, and there
find the same appearance. And if this were not now there, we should
say that we had so forgotten as to be altogether unable to recollect.
And if the eye of him who recollects were not informed from that thing
which was in the memory, the vision of the thinker could in no way take
place; but the conjunction of both, that is, of that which the memory
retains, and of that which is thence expressed so as to inform the eye
of him who recollects, makes them ap pear as if they were one, because
they are exceedingly like. But when the eye of the concipient is
turned away thence, and has ceased to look at that which was perceived
in the memory, then nothing of the form that was impressed thereon will
remain in that eye, and it will be informed by that to which it had
again been turned, so as to bring about another conception. Yet that
remains which it has left in the memory, to which it may again be
turned when we recollect it, and being turned thereto may be informed
by it, and become one with that whence it is informed.
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