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"But the Soul, as by a certain secret Instinct, and as it were by Compact, understanding Nature's Language, as soon as these Local Motions are made in the Brain, doth not fix its Attention immediately upon those Motions themselves, as we do not use to do in Discourse upon meer Sounds, but presently exerts such Sensible Ideas, Phantasms and Cogitations, as Nature hath made them to be Signs of, whereby it perceives and takes Cognizance of many other Things both in its own Body, and without it, at a Distance from it, In order to the Good and Conservation of it."

— 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 the Soul, as by a certain secret Instinct, and as it were by Compact, understanding Nature's Language, as soon as these Local Motions are made in the Brain, doth not fix its Attention immediately upon those Motions themselves, as we do not use to do in Discourse upon meer Sounds, but presently exerts such Sensible Ideas, Phantasms and Cogitations, as Nature hath made them to be Signs of, whereby it perceives and takes Cognizance of many other Things both in its own Body, and without it, at a Distance from it, In order to the Good and Conservation of it."

Metaphor in Context

13. Hitherto, by the Instance of am Individual and Material Triangle, we have shewed, how the Soul, in Understanding Corporeal Things, doth not meerly suffer from without from the Body, but Actively Exert Intelligible Ideas of its own, and from within it self. Now I observe that it is so far from being true, that all our Objective Cogitations or Ideas are Corporeal Effluxes or Radiations from Corporeal Things without, or impressed upon the Soul from them in a gross Corporeal Manner, as a Signature or Stamp is imprinted by a Seal upon a piece of Wax or Clay; that (as I have before hinted) this is not true sometimes of the Sensible Ideas themselves. For all Perception whatsoever is a Vital Energy, and not a Meer Dead Passion; and as the Atomical Philosophy instructs us, there is nothing Communicated in Sensation from the Material Objects without, but only Certain, Local Motions, that are propagated from them by the Nerves into the Brain; which Motions cannot propagate themselves Corporeally upon the Soul also, because it penetrates and runs through all the Parts of its own Body. But the Soul, by reason of that Vital and Magical Union which is between it and the Body, sympathizing with the several Motions of it in the Brain, doth thereupon exert Sensible Ideas or Phantasms within it self, whereby it perceives or takes Notice of Objects Distant from the Brain, either within or without the Body. Many of which Sentiments and Phantasms have no Similitude at all, either with those Local Motions made in the Brain, or with the Objects without; such as are the Sentiments of Pain, Pleasure, and Titillation, Hunger, Thirst, Heat and Cold, Sweet and Bitter, Light and Colours, &c. Wherefore the Truth is, that Sense, if we well consider it, is but a kind of Speech, (if I may so call it) Nature as it were talking to us in the Sensible-Objects Without, by certain Motions as Signs from thence Communicated to the Brain. For, as in Speech, when Men talk to one another, they do but make Certain Motions upon the Air, which cannot Impress their Thoughts upon one another in a Passive manner; but it being first consented to and agreed upon, that such certain Sounds shall signify such Ideas and Cogitations, he that hears those Sounds in Discourse, doth not fix his Thoughts upon the Sounds themselves, but presently Exerts from within himself such Ideas and Cogitations as those Sounds by Consent signify, though there be no Similitude at all betwixt those Sounds and Thoughts. Just in the same manner Nature doth as it were talk to us in the Outward Objects of Sense, and import Various Sentiments, Ideas, Phantasms, and Cogitations, not by stamping or impressing them passively upon the Soul from without, but only by certain Local Motions from them, as it were dumb Signs made in the Brain; It having been first Constituted and Appointed by Nature's Law, that such Local Motions shall signify such Sensible Ideas and Phantasms, though there be no Similitude at all betwixt them; for what Similitude can there be betwixt any Local Motions and the Senses of Pain or Hunger, and the like, as there is no Similitude betwixt many Words and Sounds, and the Thoughts which they signify. But the Soul, as by a certain secret Instinct, and as it were by Compact, understanding Nature's Language, as soon as these Local Motions are made in the Brain, doth not fix its Attention immediately upon those Motions themselves, as we do not use to do in Discourse upon meer Sounds, but presently exerts such Sensible Ideas, Phantasms and Cogitations, as Nature hath made them to be Signs of, whereby it perceives and takes Cognizance of many other Things both in its own Body, and without it, at a Distance from it, In order to the Good and Conservation of it. Wherefore there are two kinds of Perceptive Powers in the Soul, one below another; The first is that which belongs to the Inferiour Part of the Soul, whereby it sympathizes with the Body, which is determined by the several Motions and Pressures that are made upon that from Corporeal Things without to several Sensitive and Phantastical Energies, whereby it hath a Slight and Superficial Perception of Individual Corporeal Things, and as it were of the Outsides of them, but doth not reach to the Comprehension of the Essence or Indivisible and Immutable Notion of any thing. The Second Perceptive Power is that of the Soul it self, or that Superiour, Interiour Noetical Part of it which is free from Passion or Sympathy, free and disentangled from all that Magical Sympathy with the Body. Which acting alone by it self, Exerts from within the Intelligible Ideas of Things, Virtually Contained in its own Cognoscitive Power, that are Universal and Abstract Notions, from which, as it were looking downward it comprehends Individual Things. Now because these latter, which are pure Active Energies of the Soul, are many times exerted upon occasion of those other Passive or Sympathetical Perceptions of Individual Things anteceding; it is therefore conceived by many, that they are nothing else but thin and Evanid Images of those Sensible Ideas, and therefore that all Intellection and Knowledge ascends from Sense, and Intellection is nothing but the Improvement or Result of Sense. Yet notwithstanding it is most certainly true, that they proceed from a quite different Power of the Soul, whereby it actively protrudes its own Immediate Objects from within it self, and Comprehends Individuals without it, not Passively or consequentially, but as it were Proleptically, and not with an Ascending, but with a Descending Perception; whereby the Mind first reflecting upon it self, and its own Ideas, virtually contained in its own Omniform Cognoscitive Power, and thence descending downward, comprehends Individual Things under them. So that Knowledge doth not begin in Individuals, but end in them. And therefore they are but the Secondary Objects of Intellection, the Soul taking its first Rise from within it self, and so by its own inward Cognoscitive Power comprehending Things without it. Else how would God have Knowledge? And if we know as God knows, then do we know or gain Knowledge by Universals. In which Sense (though not in that other of Protagoras) the Soul may be truly said to be the Measure of all Things.
(IV.iii.13, pp 214-9)