I.

sight be advantaged by the help of telescopes, it cannot CHAP. receive such an image or idea of the sun which answers to its just magnitude, viz. that it is 160 times bigger than the earth. From whence now comes this apprehension of the bigness of the sun above that proportion which can possibly come in at our senses? If it be said, That, by the observation of the lessening of objects according to the proportion of distance, the mind may come to understand how much bigger the sun may be than he seems, I grant it; but withal inquire how the imagination comes to have proportions and distances which are mere respects, and can have no corporeal phantasms whereby to be represented to it? So that by this very way of ratiocination, it is evident that there is some principle in man beyond imagination. Again, when the mind, by ratiocination, hath proceeded thus far, and finds the sun to be so great, what idea is there of this magnitude in the mind? The mind cannot fix itself on any thing, but it must have an idea of it. From whence comes this idea? Not from corporeal phantasms; for none of them could ever convey the due magnitude of the sun to the mind, and therefore the forming of this idea must be a pure act of intellection, which corrects the errors of imagination, and is a principle above it. So in the sight of a stick, when under water, the representation of it by the sense to imagination is as crooked; for corporeal motion carries things to the eye without any judgment upon them; the eye conveys the image to the brain; and, according to the rules of corporeal perception, must presently take every thing for true which is conveyed thither. Now from what principle is it that this error of our senses is corrected? So in many other things wherein our imaginations are quite puzzled; and when we go according to them, it

III.

BOOK is impossible to apprehend things as our reason tells us they are. Thus as to the antipodes our imaginations are wholly of the mind of the ancients, that the antipodes to us must needs be in danger of knocking their heads against the stars, and if they go upon any thing, it must be their heads, and that that part of the heavens which is in the other hemisphere is below us: these are pertinacious errors of imagination while we adhere to that, and are only corrigible by our reason, which makes it evident to be otherwise. Besides, there are many things our reason and understanding inform us that they may be, and yet our imaginations can form no idea of them. Let an Epicurean philosopher try the power of his imagination in his inane or infinite empty space, and he will soon find, that as strong as his fancy is, it will soon tire and retreat, as not being able to course through so unimaginable a space. So for eternal duration our reason tells us the thing is possible, but when our imaginations begin to fardle up some conceptions of it, they are presently tying both ends together; which will make a strange idea of eternity: the case is the same in the infinite divisibility of quantity, which Epicurus was somewhat aware of when he denied the thing. But how many mathematical problems are there which will jade our imaginations presently, and yet our reason stands still, and assures us of the possibility of the things; as in two lines coming nearer still to each other, and yet never meeting; and in many other things, which most clearly evince that there is a higher faculty in man which exceeds matter and motion, when it is able thus to correct the faults and to supply the defects of imagination.

XVIII.

2. Reflex acts of the mind upon higher principle than imagination.

itself argue a

That there are

I.

such things, is evident to any one who hath any use CHAP. of cogitation; and if any one doubt of it, his very doubting argues he hath reflex acts; for he could not doubt whether he had or no, but by reflection upon himself. Now that reflex acts should be caused through matter and motion, or through mere imagination, is unconceivable; for we see no matter can act upon itself: indeed one part of extended matter may act upon another, but not purely upon itself. The extremities of the fingers can never feel themselves, though they can touch each other; neither can imagination reflect on itself: for that proceeding upon corporeal images must have such a representation from the senses of what it acts upon. Now what image, of itself, can be conveyed to the imagination through the external organs of sense? The eye may see through the motion. of the objects of sight pressing upon it; but how can it see that it sees? So the imagination receives the images conveyed to the brain; but what shop hath it to make new ones in of itself, and so be guilty of the greatest idolatry, or worshipping its own image? But though the imagination cannot thus reflect, yet we find such a principle within us that is very apt to retire into itself, and recollect things which could never have been conserved so long in that shop of shadows, the imagination. For if imagination be nothing else but, as a modern philosopher defines it, conception remain- Hobbes's ing, and a little and little decaying from and after Nature, the act of sense, like the motion of water after a stone is thrown into it, how is it possible that at so great a distance of years, as we commonly find, the image of a thing may be retrieved with as much facility and freshness as to circumstances, as if it were but new done? And that account which he gives of remembrance is very weak and insufficient, when he tells us,

Human

sect. J.

III.

BOOK that remembrance is nothing else but the missing of parts, which every man expecteth should succeed after they have a conception of the whole. For according to this, it is impossible for the mind to retrieve any object without mutilation of it; and so there cannot possibly be a recollecting of all circumstances, when an object is once past, and the motion begins to decay. But all this while we understand nothing by what means this decaying motion should continue so long as our memory can fetch things back, or by what means an object, when once past, can be recovered again, if memory be nothing else but decaying motion. Such perplexities must needs arise, when men will undertake to salve the inward operations of the soul by mere motion: but is it not evident, that many times when the mind is employed about other things, some phantasms of things long ago past will come and present themselves to the mind, with as much clearness as if new done? Whereas if memory were decaying motion, the longer past, the more impossible would it be to recover any thing: but do we not find that many old men will better remember the circumstances of many things they did in their childhood, than a year or two before? Besides, we see what quickness and vivacity there is in our intellectual faculties above corporeal motion, with what facility the mind turns itself from one object to another, how suddenly it rangeth the whole world; how it trips over mountains, crosseth the ocean, mounts to the skies, and at last quarries upon itself, and all in the twinkling of an intellectual eye. As quick as the eye of the body is, the mind far exceeds it, and can withdraw the imagination from attending the organs of sense: thus do men who have their minds much fixed, fix their eyes too; and yet afterwards can scarce tell themselves what they have

I.

looked on all that while. Sometimes the mind fits and CHAP. compares phantasms together, and sports itself in sorting them into several ranks and orders, and making matches between such things which are sure to have no affinity with each other; which are thence called entia rationis, or the creatures of the mind. And can all these, and many other such operations which men are conscious to themselves of, be nothing else but the motion of some phlegmatic matter, the reaction of the brain, and the mere effects of imagination?

3. The profound speculations of the mind argue a power far above imagination and corporeal motion. I wonder how Epicurus's soul, when, if we believe him, it was made up of atoms, could ever imagine an infinite vacuity? Could mere atoms ever dispute whether they were atoms or no? For I doubt not but Epicurus was fain to argue much against himself, before he could persuade himself to so stupendous a piece of folly. Were there nothing in man but mere corporeal motion, whence came the dispute, whether the soul were corporeal or no? Can atoms frame syllogisms in mood and figure? and mere matter argue pro and con, whether it be matter or something else? What kind of aerial particles were their souls compounded of, who first fancied themselves to be immaterial? What strange agitations of matter were those which first made men think of an eternal state? which thoughts have ever since so stuck upon these little spherical bodies, that they could never yet disburden themselves of them. Whence come such amazing fears, such dreadful apprehensions, such sinking thoughts of their future condition, in minds that would fain ease themselves by believing that death would put a period both to soul and body? Whence, on the other side, come such encouraging hopes, such confident expecta