History of Modern Philosophy: From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present TimeFalckenberg, Richard
Philosophy
History of Modern Philosophy: From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time
Falckenberg, Richard
Philosophy, Modern -- History
habits of thought and speech, which were those of a man of the world rather
than of a scholar, were quite incompatible with the adoption and consistent
use of a finely discriminated terminology; he is very free with _sive_, and
not very careful with the expressions _actio, passio, perceptio, affectio,
volitio_. First he equates activity and willing, for the will springs
exclusively from the soul--it is only in willing that the latter is
entirely independent; while, on the other hand, passivity is made
equivalent to representation and cognition, for the soul does not create
its ideas, but receives them,--sensuous impressions coming to her quite
evidently from the body. These equations, "_actio_--the practical, _passio_
= the theoretical function," are soon limited and modified, however. The
natural appetites and affections are forms of volition, it is true, but not
free products of the mind, for they take their origin in its connection
with the body. Further, not all perceptions have a sensuous origin; when
the soul makes free use of its ideas in imagination, especially when in
pure thought it dwells on itself, when without the interference of the
imagination it gazes on its rational nature, it is by no means passive
merely. Every act of the will, again, is accompanied by the consciousness
of volition. The _volitio_ is an activity, the _cogitatio volitionis_ a
passivity; the soul affects itself, is passively affected through its own
activity, is at the same instant both active and passive.
[Footnote 1: For details cf. the able monograph of Dr. Anton Koch, 1881.]
Thus not every volition, _e.g._ sensuous desire, is action nor all
perception, _e.g._ that of the pure intellect, passion. Finally, certain
psychical phenomena fall indifferently under the head of perception or of
volition, _e.g._, pain, which is both an indistinct idea of something and
an impulse to shun it. In accordance with these emendations, and omitting
certain disturbing points of secondary importance, the matter may be thus
represented:
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