Chrysippus affirms, these four are different one from another.
Imagination is that passion raised in the soul which discovers itself
and that which was the efficient of it; to use example, after the eye
hath looked upon a thing that is white, the sight of which produceth in
the mind a certain impression, this gives us reason to conclude that the
object of this impression is white, which affecteth us. So with touching
and smelling Phantasy or imagination is denominated from [Greek omitted]
which denotes light; for as light discovers itself and all other things
which it illuminates, so this imagination discovers itself and that
which is the cause of it. The imaginable is the efficient cause of
imagination; as anything that is white, or anything that is cold, or
everything that may make an impression upon the imagination. Fancy is
a vain impulse upon the mind of man, proceeding from nothing which is
really conceivable; this is experienced in those that whirl about their
idle hand and fight with shadows; for to the imagination there is always
some real imaginable thing presented, which is the efficient cause of
it; but to the fancy nothing. A phantom is that to which we are brought
by such a fanciful and vain attraction; this is to be seen in melancholy
and distracted persons. Of this sort was Orestes in the tragedy,
pronouncing these words:
Mother, these maids with horror me affright;
Oh bring them not, I pray, into my sight!
They're smeared with blood, and cruel, dragon-like,
Skipping about with deadly fury strike.
These rave as frantic persons, they see nothing, and yet imagine they
see. Thence Electra thus returns to him:
O wretched man, securely sleep in bed;
Nothing thou seest, thy fancy's vainly led.
(Euripides, "Orestes", 255.)
After the same manner Theoclymenus in Homer.
CHAPTER XIII. OF OUR SIGHT, AND BY WHAT MEANS WE SEE.
Democritus and Epicurus suppose that sight is caused by the insertion
of little images into the visive organ, and by the reception of certain
rays which return to the eye after meeting the object. Empedocles
supposes that images are mixed with the rays of the eye; these he styles
the rays of images. Hipparchus, that the visual rays extend from
both the eyes to the superficies of bodies, and give to the sight the
apprehension of those same bodies, after the same manner in which the
hand touching the extremity of bodies gives the sense of feeling. Plato,
that the sight is the splendor of united rays; there is a light which
reaches some distance from the eyes into a cognate air, and there is
likewise a light shed from bodies, which meets and joins with the fiery
visual light in the intermediate air (which is liquid and mutable);
and the union of these rays gives the sense of seeing. This is Plato's
corradiancy, or splendor of united rays.
CHAPTER XIV. OF THOSE IMAGES WHICH ARE PRESENTED TO OUR EYES IN MIRRORS.
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