"When in a great Throng or Crowd of People, a Man looking round about meets with innumerable strange Faces, that he never saw before in all his Life, and at last chances to espy the Face of one Old Friend or Acquaintance, which he had not seen or thought of many Years before; he would be said in this Case to have Known that one and only that one Face in all that Company, because he had no inward previous or Anticipated Form of any other Face, that he looked upon, in his Mind; but as soon as ever he beheld that one Face immediately there revived and started forth a former Anticipated Form or Idea of it treasured up in his Mind, that, as it were taking Acquaintance with that newly received Form, made him Know it or remember it. So when Foreign, Strange, and Adventitious, Forms are exhibited to the Mind by Sense, the Soul cannot otherwise Know or Understand them, but by something Domestick of its own some Active Anticipation or Prolepsis within it self, that occasionally reviving and meeting with it, makes it know it, or take Acquaintance with it."
— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)
Metaphor
"When in a great Throng or Crowd of People, a Man looking round about meets with innumerable strange Faces, that he never saw before in all his Life, and at last chances to espy the Face of one Old Friend or Acquaintance, which he had not seen or thought of many Years before; he would be said in this Case to have Known that one and only that one Face in all that Company, because he had no inward previous or Anticipated Form of any other Face, that he looked upon, in his Mind; but as soon as ever he beheld that one Face immediately there revived and started forth a former Anticipated Form or Idea of it treasured up in his Mind, that, as it were taking Acquaintance with that newly received Form, made him Know it or remember it. So when Foreign, Strange, and Adventitious, Forms are exhibited to the Mind by Sense, the Soul cannot otherwise Know or Understand them, but by something Domestick of its own some Active Anticipation or Prolepsis within it self, that occasionally reviving and meeting with it, makes it know it, or take Acquaintance with it."
Metaphor in Context
2. A Thing which is merely Passive from without, and doth only receive Foreign and Adventitious Forms, cannot possibly Know, Understand or judge of that which it receives but must needs be a Stranger to it, having nothing within it self to know it by. The Mind cannot know any thing but by something of its own, that is Native, Domestick, and Familiar to it. When in a great Throng or Crowd of People, a Man looking round about meets with innumerable strange Faces, that he never saw before in all his Life, and at last chances to espy the Face of one Old Friend or Acquaintance, which he had not seen or thought of many Years before; he would be said in this Case to have Known that one and only that one Face in all that Company, because he had no inward previous or Anticipated Form of any other Face, that he looked upon, in his Mind; but as soon as ever he beheld that one Face immediately there revived and started forth a former Anticipated Form or Idea of it treasured up in his Mind, that, as it were taking Acquaintance with that newly received Form, made him Know it or remember it. So when Foreign, Strange, and Adventitious, Forms are exhibited to the Mind by Sense, the Soul cannot otherwise Know or Understand them, but by something Domestick of its own some Active Anticipation or Prolepsis within it self, that occasionally reviving and meeting with it, makes it know it, or take Acquaintance with it. And this is the only true and allowable Sense of that Old Assertion, that Knowledge is Reminiscence, not that it is the Remembrance of something which the Soul had some time before Actually Known in a Pre-existent State; but because it is the Mind's comprehending of things by Some Inward Anticipations of its own, Something Native and Domestick to it, or Something actively exerted from within it self.
(IV.i.2, pp. 127-9)
