Chapter LXI, Section 1b

This is that which shows us future things by dreams, whence the fancy is sometimes named the phantastical intellect. For it is the last impression of the understanding, which, as saith Iamblicus, is that belonging to all the powers of the mind, and forms all figures, resemblances of species, and operations, and things seen, and sends forth the impressions of other powers unto others. And those things which appear by sense, it stirs up into an opinion; but those things which appear by the intellect, in the second place, it offers to opinion; but of itself it receives images from all, and by its property, doth properly assign them, according to their assimilation; it forms all the actions of the soul, and accommodates the external to the internal and impresses the body with its impression. Now these senses have their organs in the head, for the common sense and imagination take up the two forward cells of the brain, although Aristotle placeth the organ of the common sense in the heart; but the cogitative power possesseth the highest and middle part of the head; and, lastly, the memory the hindmost part thereof. Moreover, the organs of voice and speech are many, as the inward muscles of the breast betwixt the ribs, the breasts, the lungs, the arteries, the windpipe, the bowing of the tongue, and all those parts and muscles that serve for breathing. But the proper organ of speech is the mouth, in which are framed words and speeches, the tongue, the teeth, the lips, the palate and the like. Above the sensible soul, which expresseth its powers by the organs of the body, the incorporeal mind possesseth the highest place, and it hath a double nature—the one, which inquireth into the causes, properties, and progress of those things which are contained in the Order of Nature, and is content in the contemplation of the truth, which is, therefore called the contemplative intellect. The other is a power of the mind which, discerning by consulting what things are to be done and what is to be shunned, is wholly taken up in consultation and action, and is therefore called the active intellect. This order of powers, therefore, Nature ordained in man, that by the external senses we might know corporeal things, and by those internal the representations of bodies, as also things abstracted by the mind and intellect, which are neither bodies nor any thing like them. And, according to this three-fold order of the powers of the soul, there are three Appetites in the soul: The first is natural, and is an inclination of nature unto its end, as of a stone downward, which is in all stones; another is animal, which the sense follows, and it is divided into that irascible and that concupiscible; the third is intellectual, and is called the will, differing from the sensitive faculty in that the sensitive is, of itself, of those things which may be presented to the senses, desiring nothing unless in some manner comprehended. But the will, although it be of itself of all things that are possible, yet, because it is free by its essence, it may be also of things that are impossible, as it was in the devil (desiring himself to be equal with God) and, therefore, is altered and depraved with pleasure and with continual anguish, whilst it assents to the inferior powers. Whence, from its depraved appetite, there arise four passions in it, with which, in like manner, the body is affected sometimes.