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"But there are many Objects of our Mind, which we can neither See, Hear, Feel, Smell nor Taste, and which did never enter into it by any Sense; and therefore we can have no Sensible Pictures or Ideas of them, drawn by the Pencil of that Inward Limner or Painter which borrows all his Colours from Sense, which we call Fancy; and if we reflect on our own Cogitations of these things, we shall sensibly perceive that they are not Phantastical, but Noematical."

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Author

Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Work Title

A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for James and John Knapton

Date

1731

Metaphor

"But there are many Objects of our Mind, which we can neither See, Hear, Feel, Smell nor Taste, and which did never enter into it by any Sense; and therefore we can have no Sensible Pictures or Ideas of them, drawn by the Pencil of that Inward Limner or Painter which borrows all his Colours from Sense, which we call Fancy; and if we reflect on our own Cogitations of these things, we shall sensibly perceive that they are not Phantastical, but Noematical."

Metaphor in Context

8. Now that all our Perceptive Cogitations are not Phantasms, as many contend, but that there is another Species of Perceptive Cogitations distinct from them, arising from the Active Vigour of the Mind it self, which we therefore call Conceptions of the Mind, is demonstrably evident from hence; because Phantasms are nothing else but Sensible Ideas, Images or Pictures of Outward Objects, such as are caused in the Soul by Sense; whence it follows, that nothing is the Object of Fancy, but what is also the Object of Sense, nothing can be fancied by the Soul, but what is Perceptible by Sense. But there are many Objects of our Mind, which we can neither See, Hear, Feel, Smell nor Taste, and which did never enter into it by any Sense; and therefore we can have no Sensible Pictures or Ideas of them, drawn by the Pencil of that Inward Limner or Painter which borrows all his Colours from Sense, which we call Fancy; and if we reflect on our own Cogitations of these things, we shall sensibly perceive that they are not Phantastical, but Noematical. As for Example, Justice, Equity, Duty and Obligation, Cogitation, Opinion, Intellection, Volition, Memory, Verity, Falsity, Cause, Effect, Genus, Species, Nullity, Contingency, Possibility, Impossibility, and innumerable more such there are that will occur to any one that shall turn over the Vocabularies of any Language, none of which can have any Sensible Picture drawn by the Pencil of the Fancy. And there are many whole Propositions likewise, in which there is not any one Word or Notion that we can have any genuine Phantasm of, much left can Fancy reach to an Apprehension of the Necessity of the Connexion of the Terms. As for Example, Nothing can be and not be at the same time. What proper and genuine Phantasms can any perceive in his Mind either of Nothing, or Can, or be, or And, or Not be, or at the same, or Time.
(IV.i.8, pp. 139-41)