Norris, John (1657-1712)

An Essay Towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World

London

Printed for S. Manship; and W. Hawes

1701, 1704

"As in a Looking-glass, in which he that looks does indeed immediately behold the Species in the Glass, but does also at the same time actually behold Peter or Paul whose Image it is."

24. To our School-Divine, I shall only join for a companion a certain School-Metaphysitian, one of those good Authors which by a natural Prejudice some perhaps may be tempted the less to regard, because they formerly, convers'd with him in the institution of their younger Studies, tho' I think he deserves to be Read (as well as some others) with more Consideration than we commonly use at that time. It is honest Christopher Scheibler who in his Metaphysics professedly considers this very Question, An Deus Cognoscat res Creatas in Seipso solum, an vero Cognoscat eas juxta proprias earum Essentias? Which indeed is not so exactly Worded as should be, there not being a due opposition between the two parts of the Question, and that because supposing God to know things in Seipso, he does also in a true Sense know them juxta proprias earum essentias, one of these being very Consistent with the other. But however his meaning is right enough, and he expresses it better afterwards when he gives this for the Sense of the Question, Whether Created things are the Object of the Divine Understanding in their own Beings, or only as they are Eminently, Ideally or Vertually contain'd in God ? To which his direct Answer is, in se Cognoscit Deus res Creatas, that God knows the Creatures in himself. Which he farther explains and reconciles with his knowing them also juxta esse proprium according to their own proper Beings, by saying that the Divine Essence has the same reason or proportion in that knowledge whereby God knows, as the Species has in Humane knowledge. And that both of them are immediately that that Reason or Form whereby the knowledge becomes Actual. As therefore upon the Union of the Species with the Cognoscitive Power the things is apprehended which in its Being is out of the understanding, and that according to that its proper Being which it really has in the Word out of the Mind. Even so says he it is when God understands his own Essence, in which as in a Species representing the Essences of Creatures, the Creatures are understood by God according to their proper Natures. As in a Looking-glass, in which he that looks does indeed immediately behold the Species in the Glass, but does also at the same time actually behold Peter or Paul whose Image it is. In Sum he tells us, That God does understand the Creatures both in their own, and in his own Being. In their own as to the Quod, meaning I suppose the thing that may ultimately be said to be understood, and in his own as to the Quo, meaning I suppose the immediate Object or Form of his Understanding. So that according to this Author, tho' God may be truly said to know the Creatures according to their proper Nature, because he sees that which truly represents them, (more truly indeed by infinite degrees than the Image in the Glass does him whose Image it is, which is but a faint Illustration of the Divine Ideality) yet that which is the immediate Object that terminates, or intelligible Form that truly Specifies his knowledge, is his own Divine Essence, which serves him as a Species for the understanding all things out of himself, which very well agrees with our foregoing Account concerning God's knowledge of things, which you see wants neither Reason nor Authority for its Establishment.
(I, pp. 164-167)

Optics::Mirror

Text from Google. Reading John W. Yolton, "As in a Looking-Glass: Perceptual Acquaintance in Eighteenth-Century Britain," Journal of the History of Ideas 40:2 (Apr.-Jun. 1979): 207-34, 211.

At least 3 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1701, 1704, 1722). [Part 2 published in 1704].

An Essay Towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World. Design'd for Two Parts. The First Considering It Absolutely in It Self, and the Second in Relation to Human Understanding. Part 1. by John Norris, Rector of Bemerton, Near Sarum. (London: Printed for S. Manship, at the Ship in Cornhill, near the Royal-Exchange; and W. Hawes, at the Rose in Ludgate-Street near the West-End of St. Paul’s Church, 1701). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO><Link to Vol. I in Google Books><Link to Vol. II in Google Books>

07/30/2014