Page:Biographia literaria; or, Biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions (IA biographialitera04cole).pdf/109

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101

and its important functions set forth by Melanchthon, Ammerbach and Ludovicus Vives; more especially by the last. Phantasia, it is to be noticed, is employed by Vives to express the mental power of comprehension, or the active function of the mind; and imaginatio for the receptivity (vis receptiva) of impressions, or for the passive perception. The power of combination he appropriates to the former: "quæ singula et simpliciter acceperat imaginatio, ea conjungit et disjungit phantasia." And the law by which the thoughts are spontaneously presented follows thus: "quæ simul sunt a phantasia comprehensa si alterutrum occurrat, solet secum alterum representare." To time therefore he subordinates all the other exciting causes of association. The soul proceeds "a causa ad effectum, ab hoc ad instrumentum, a parte ad totum;" thence to the place, from place to person, and from this to whatever preceded or followed, all as being parts of a total impression, each of which may recal the other. The apparent springs "Saltus vel transitus etiam longissimos," he explains by the same thought having been a component part of two or more total impressions. Thus "ex Scipione venio in cogitationem potentiæ Turcicæ, proper victorias ejus in eâ parte Asiæ in qua regnabat Antiochus".

But from Vives I pass at once to the source