things as it imagines to be present to it. If the mind, while
imagining non-existent things as present to it, is at the same
time conscious that they do not really exist, this power of
imagination must be set down to the efficacy of its nature, and
not to a fault, especially if this faculty of imagination depend
solely on its own nature--that is (I. Def. vii.), if this
faculty of imagination be free.
XVIII. If the human body has once been affected by two or more
bodies at the same time, when the mind afterwards imagines any
of them, it will straightway remember the others also.
>>>>>Proof--The mind (II. xvii. Cor.) imagines any given body,
because the human body is affected and disposed by the
impressions from an external body, in the same manner as it is
affected when certain of its parts are acted on by the said
external body; but (by our hypothesis) the body was then so
disposed, that the mind imagined two bodies at once; therefore,
it will also in the second case imagine two bodies at once, and
the mind, when it imagines one, will straightway remember the
other. Q.E.D.
*****Note--We now clearly see what 'Memory' is. It is simply a
certain association of ideas involving the nature of things
outside the human body, which association arises in the mind
according to the order and association of the modifications
(affectiones) of the human body. I say, first, it is an
association of those ideas only, which involve the nature of
things outside the human body: not of ideas which answer to the
nature of the said things: ideas of the modifications of the
human body are, strictly speaking (II. xvi.), those which
involve the nature both of the human body and of external bodies.
I say, secondly, that this association arises according to the
order and association of the modifications of the human body, in
order to distinguish it from that association of ideas, which
arises from the order of the intellect, whereby the mind
perceives things through their primary causes, and which is in
all men the same. And hence we can further clearly understand,
why the mind from the thought of one thing, should straightway
arrive at the thought of another thing, which has no similarity
with the first; for instance, from the thought of the word
'pomum' (an apple), a Roman would straightway arrive at the
thought of the fruit apple, which has no similitude with the
articulate sound in question, nor anything in common with it,
except that the body of the man has often been affected by these
two things; that is, that the man has often heard the word
'pomum,' while he was looking at the fruit; similarly every man
will go on from one thought to another, according as his habit
has ordered the images of things in his body. For a soldier,
for instance, when he sees the tracks of a horse in sand, will
at once pass from the thought of a horse to the thought of a
horseman, and thence to the thought of war, &c.; while a
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