Further, there is in animals a power that passes judgment, upon such or
such a thing that it is so or not so, decisively, and through which the
animal flees away from shunned evil and seeks chosen good. It is also
evident that this power is other than the imaginative, since this last
imagines (pictures to itself) the sun, in accordance with what it has
got from the apposite sense, to be of the size of its disc; whereas the
matter stands in this power quite otherwise. So too the lion finds his
prey from far off of the size of a small bird, yet its form and size in
no way perplex him, but he makes for it. It is also evident that this
power is other than the imaginative, and this because the imaginative
power performs its manifold deeds without belief and conviction on its
part that matters are in accordance with its imagining. This power is
what is named the conjecturing or the surmising faculty (or judgment).
III. Further, there is in living beings a power that preserves
the purports (or thoughts and conceptions) of what the senses had
perceived, such as, for instance, that the wolf is an enemy; the child,
a darling next of kin. Wherefore, so much at least if not more is
evident, that this power is other than the common-sense (or picturing),
inasmuch as in the latter there are no forms but such as it has gained
from the senses; whereas, again, the senses did not feel the wolf’s
enmity, nor the child’s love, but alone the wolf’s image, and the
child’s bodily shape; and as to love and fierceness, it is the mind’s
eye alone that has got them, and then stored them up in this power. It
is also clear that this power is other than the imaginative power, for
the reason that this last does at times imagine what is other than that
which the mind’s eye has deemed right, found true, and has derived from
the senses; whereas the former power, i.e., the one here dealt with,
imagines none other than what the mind’s eye has deemed right, has
found true, and has derived from the senses.
This power is also other than the conjecturing (surmising) power, for
the reason that this last does not preserve what some other has deemed
to be true, but it of its own self deems to be true, whilst the power
here treated of does not itself pass judgment of truth or falsehood,
but only preserves what another has deemed to be true. This power is
called memory, the preserving or keeping faculty.
Again, the imaginative power is called by this name--imagination--if
the conjecturing (or surmising) power alone use it: and if the speaking
(rational) power use it, it is called the thinking (cogitative) power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account