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| The Unity of the Three Takes Place in Thought, Viz. Of Memory, of Ternal Vision,and of Will Combining Both.
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Chapter 3.—The Unity of the
Three Takes Place in Thought, Viz Of Memory, of Ternal
Vision,and of Will Combining Both.
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was corporeally perceived, be withdrawn, its likeness remains in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 combination732
itself they are called
conception.733
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 appear 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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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