A Compendium on the Soul · Avicenna
SECTION SEVENTH
Further, there is in animals a power that passes judgment, upon such or such a thing that it is so or not so, decisively, and through which the animal flees away from shunned evil and seeks chosen good. It is also evident that this power is other than the imaginative, since this last imagines (pictures to itself) the sun, in accordance with what it has got from the apposite sense, to be of the size of its disc; whereas the matter stands in this power quite otherwise. So too the lion finds his prey from far off of the size of a small bird, yet its form and size in no way perplex him, but he makes for it. It is also evident that this power is other than the imaginative, and this because the imaginative power performs its manifold deeds without belief and conviction on its part that matters are in accordance with its imagining. This power is what is named the conjecturing or the surmising faculty (or judgment).
III. Further, there is in living beings a power that preserves the purports (or thoughts and conceptions) of what the senses had perceived, such as, for instance, that the wolf is an enemy; the child, a darling next of kin. Wherefore, so much at least if not more is evident, that this power is other than the common-sense (or picturing), inasmuch as in the latter there are no forms but such as it has gained from the senses; whereas, again, the senses did not feel the wolf’s enmity, nor the child’s love, but alone the wolf’s image, and the child’s bodily shape; and as to love and fierceness, it is the mind’s eye alone that has got them, and then stored them up in this power. It is also clear that this power is other than the imaginative power, for the reason that this last does at times imagine what is other than that which the mind’s eye has deemed right, found true, and has derived from the senses; whereas the former power, i.e., the one here dealt with, imagines none other than what the mind’s eye has deemed right, has found true, and has derived from the senses. This power is also other than the conjecturing (surmising) power, for the reason that this last does not preserve what some other has deemed to be true, but it of its own self deems to be true, whilst the power here treated of does not itself pass judgment of truth or falsehood, but only preserves what another has deemed to be true. This power is called memory, the preserving or keeping faculty.
Again, the imaginative power is called by this name--imagination--if the conjecturing (or surmising) power alone use it: and if the speaking (rational) power use it, it is called the thinking (cogitative) power. The heart is the source (spring) of all these powers (faculties), in Aristotle’s opinion; yet the sway over them is in different organs (instruments). Thus the sway over the outward (apparent) senses is in their known organs; whereas the sway over the picturing (representing common-sense) power is in the anterior hollow (ventricle) of the brain; the sway over the imaginative, in the middle hollow thereof; the sway over the remembering, in the posterior hollow thereof; and the sway over the conjecturing, throughout all the brain, but above all in the compartment of the imaginative within the brain [or, throughout the whole of the brain, but more especially alongside of the imaginative thereof]. And in so far as these hollows (ventricles) suffer harm and hurt, so will the manifold workings of these powers suffer also; for were they, (the powers,) standing independently, that is to say subsisting in themselves, and efficient independently, that is to say putting forth their workings of themselves, they would not need, for their proper and peculiar actions, any sort of instrument or organ: in this wise one recognizes that these powers do not subsist in themselves, but that the undying power is the Speaking (Reasoning) Soul, as we shall hereafter set forth; yet for all this, the soul does maybe at times seek out for itself after a fashion (so to speak) the purest quintessences of the kernels of these powers, and cause them to exist of themselves, the setting forth of which shall, D.v., soon follow.
Here follows still another attempt: 1. Perception, of the Five Senses, through organs. 2. Sway of the Common-Sense, in the anterior hollow. 3. Sway of the Imaginative Power, in the middle hollow. 4. Sway of the Remembering Power, in the posterior hollow. 5. Sway of the Conjecturing Power, throughout all the brain, and alongside of the imaginative compartment. Number 1. has been dealt with in Section Six; number 5 belongs exclusively to Man, and will be further dealt with in the next Section; the remaining three, to wit numbers 2, 3, and 4, are in all live animals, and are dealt with in this Seventh Section. The theory is beautifully clear and simple: thus, number 2 grasps and appropriates the outward form brought to it by the senses; number 3 grasps and appropriates particular conceptions; and number 4 stores them up; thus also, the one dwelling in the front hollow is not influenced by the action of the one occupying the middle or the hindermost hollow, whereas conversely each succeeding faculty has recourse to the one preceding it in order of place. This theory arose after an acquaintance with the division and arrangement of the brain into chambers had made considerable progress with the Arabs. Those who read German should not fail to study Dr. Samuel Landauer’s erudite notes in vol. 29 for the year 1875 of the Z.d.D.M.G.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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