In which that is chiefly to be considered, that the superior force of comprehending embraceth the inferior; but the inferior can by no means attain to the superior; for the sense hath no force out of matter, neither doth the imagination conceive universal species, nor is reason capable of the simple form, but the understanding, as it were looking downward, having conceived that form, discerneth of all things which are under it, but in that sort in which it apprehendeth that form which can be known by none of the other. For it knoweth the universality of reason, and the figure of imagination, and the materiality of sense, neither using reason, nor imagination, nor senses, but as it were formally beholding all things with that one twinkling of the mind. Likewise reason, when it considereth any universality, comprehendeth both imagination and sensible things without the use of either imagination or senses. For she defineth the universality of her conceit thus: Man is a reasonable, two-footed, living creature, which being an universal knowledge, no man is ignorant that it is an imaginable and sensible thing, which she considereth by a reasonable conceiving and not by imagination or sense. Imagination also, although it began by the senses of seeing and forming figures, yet when sense is absent it beholdeth sensible things, not after a sensible, but after an imaginary manner of knowledge. Seest thou now how all these in knowing do rather use their own force and faculty than the force of those things which are known? Nor undeservedly; for since all judgment is the act of him who judgeth, it is necessary that every one should perfect his operation by his own power and not by the force of any other.
[174] De diuin, ii.
IV.
Quondam porticus attulit
Obscuros nimium senes
Qui sensus et imagines
E corporibus extimis
Credant mentibus imprimi, 5
Vt quondam celeri stilo
Mos est aequore paginae,
Quae nullas habeat notas,
Pressas figere litteras.
Sed mens si propriis uigens 10
Nihil motibus explicat,
Sed tantum patiens iacet
Notis subdita corporum
Cassasque in speculi uicem
Rerum reddit imagines, 15
Vnde haec sic animis uiget
Cernens omnia notio?
Quae uis singula perspicit
Aut quae cognita diuidit?
Quae diuisa recolligit 20
Alternumque legens iter
Nunc summis caput inserit,
Nunc decedit in infima,
Tum sese referens sibi
Veris falsa redarguit? 25
Haec est efficiens magis
Longe causa potentior
Quam quae materiae modo
Impressas patitur notas.
Praecedit tamen excitans 30
Ac uires animi mouens
Viuo in corpore passio.
Cum uel lux oculos ferit
Vel uox auribus instrepit,
Tum mentis uigor excitus 35
Quas intus species tenet
Ad motus similes uocans
Notis applicat exteris
Introrsumque reconditis
Formis miscet imagines. 40
IV.
Cloudy old prophets of the Porch[175] once taught
That sense and shape presented to the thought
From outward objects their impression take,
As when upon a paper smooth and plain
On which as yet no marks of ink have lain
We with a nimble pen do letters make.
But if our minds to nothing can apply
Their proper motions, but do patient lie
Subject to forms which do from bodies flow,
As a glass renders empty[176] shapes of things,
Who then can show from whence that motion springs
By force of which the mind all things doth know?
Or by what skill are several things espied?
And being known what power doth them divide,
And thus divided doth again unite,
And with a various journey oft aspires
To highest things, and oft again retires
To basest, nothing being out of sight,
And when she back unto herself doth move,
Doth all the falsehoods by the truth reprove?
This vigour needs must be an active cause,
And with more powerful forces must be deckt,
Than that which from those forms, that do reflect
From outward matter, all her virtue draws.
And yet in living bodies passion's might
Doth go before, whose office is to incite,
And the first motions in the mind to make.
As when the light unto our eyes appears,
Or some loud voice is sounded in our ears,
Then doth the strength of the dull mind awake
Those phantasies which she retains within;
She stirreth up such notions to begin,
Whose objects with their natures best agree,
And thus applying them to outward things,
She joins the external shapes which thence she brings
With forms which in herself included be.
[175] The Porch, i.e. the Painted Porch ([Greek: stoa poikilae]) at Athens, the great hall adorned with frescoes of the battle of Marathon, which served as lecture-room to Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect.
[176] Cf. Quin potius noscas rerum simulacra uagari Multa modis multis nulla ui cassaque sensu.
"But rather you are to know that idols or things wander about many in number in many ways, of no force, powerless to excite sense."—Lucr. iv. 127, 128 (trans. Munro).