Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/126

 T04 DESCARTES. nology ; he is very free with sive, and not very careful with the expressions actio, passio, perception affectio, volitio. First he equates activity alxd willing, for the will springs exclu- sively from the soul— (it is only in willing that the latter is entirely independent; while, on the other hand, passivity is made equivalent to representation and cognition, for the soul does not create its ideas, but receives them, — sensuous impressions coming to her quite evidently from the body. These equations, " actio = the practical, passio = the theo-^ retical function," are soon limited and modified, however, j The natural appetites and affections are forms of volition/ it is true, but not free products of the mind, for they take their origin in its connection with the body. / Further, not all perceptions have a sensuous origin . when the soul makes free use of its ideas in imagination, especially when in pure thought it dwells on itself, when without the inter- ference of the imagination it gazes on its rational nature, it is by no means passive merely. Every act of the will, again, is accompanied by the consciousness of volition. The volitio is an activity, the cogitatio volitionis a passivity ; the soul affects itself, is passively affected through its own activity, is at the same instant both active and passive. Thus not every volition, e. g., sensuous desire, is action nor all perception, e.g., that of the pure intellect, pas- sion. Finally, certain psychical phenomena fall indifferently under the head of perception or of volition, e. g., pain, which is both an indistinct idea of something and an impulse to shun it. In accordance with these emendations, and omit- ting certain disturbing points of secondary importance, the matter may be thus represented : COGITATIO. ACTIO. (Mens sola ; clarae et distinctx idex.) Volitio: 6. Voluntas. Judicium. 3^. Commotiones inteUectua(es. PASSIO. (Mens unita cum corpore ; confuse idez.) 3^. Affectus. 2. Appetitus naturales. Sensiis interni. Percbftio : 5. Intellectus. 4. Imaginatio. ^i. Phantasia. 4a. Memoria, i, Sensus externi.