Observations, censures, and confutations of notorious errours in Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan and other his bookes to which are annexed occasionall anim-adversions on some writings of the Socinians and such hæreticks of the same opinion with him / by William Lucy ...

Sect. 5.

The first reason of Aristotle is drawn from our expe∣rience thus; We all observe, that when we have discern∣ed things by our senses, and the act of sensing (pardon that word sensing, it is unusuall, yet significant) is done, yet there remains in the sensative memory, that image, which represented the object at the first; now it is im∣possible that that should be any material corporeal thing, for then how could so many huge Towers, Ca∣stles, Towns, Kingdoms, yea heaven it self, if a materi∣al heaven, remaine crowded in so narrow a compass? how could such contraries, as black and white, hot and cold, fire and water, high and low, remaine in that little Ark of mans memory? if they were material and reall things, they could not, but being spiritual, intentional, and things, as Philosophers speak, diminutae entitatis, they make a shift, with their little entities, to creep into such a corner: And this confounds likewise another Proposition of his, that the reception of these species makes sense; for these entities are received and retained, and kept fast in that box which received them, the me∣mory, but are not sense any longer then they are hot, and fresh from the object; well, then there must be such things as these species, or else there could be no memory of the object, which, in a material condition, could not exist in the memory.

A second argument may be drawn from another ex∣periment; suppose Aristotle looks upon Plato, Aristotle cannot see his own face, but in Plato's eyes he can; how can that come about, but that some intentional, species and image of him crept into Plato's eye? a material thing could not, it must be an intentionall, for any ma∣terial

thing would be offensive to Plato's eye, nor could it be that Gamboll he talks of so much, a stroak from the object, for then it must have made Plato see Aristotle, not Aristotle himself, according to his Philo∣sophy.

A third argument I can frame thus; Every object, which is distant from the organ, must some way or other make it self reach the organ with its own likeness; but for a reall passage of colours, or such like objects, there can be no imagination, there are but two wayes, either by the propagation of this image, intentionally, through the whole medium, which therefore is not discerned in its passage through the ayr, because the motion is ex∣treamly swift, like the passage of light, instantaneal; and because untill it meets with an eye, or glasse, or some∣thing proper to give it a receipt, it hath no pause for a consideration: This is the most common way of Philo∣sophers; or else it must be by some seminal vertue which it sends abroad, which, when it finds a womb fit to entertain it, there is prolifical, and produceth this image, and therefore in that regard may be called species, because it is such in semine: Now if it should be obje∣cted, that if it were the seed of colours, like the seed of plants, it would produce a thing of the same nature, a reall colour, not an intentionall; It is answered, that se∣cond qualities are like equivocal agents, they cannot produce their own nature, like Mules, and the Monsters of Nile, the furthest they goe is their image; a colour doth not get a colour of its own nature, as heat doth heat; nor can you make one thing white, by putting another white thing to it, unlesse you add some of that white body to the other: This conceit hath much pleased me, and I think would meet with all objections, but I am

not peremptory in it, because I cannot afford my self leasure to spend so much time about such a youthfull study; but, howsoever, one of these wayes, I conjecture, whosoever shall think that the object works upon the sense, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 conceive it, and therefore these species. There are many other arguments used by Philoso∣phers, the least of which he hath not touched, but con∣trouleth them, with only, It is otherwise. I will now leave this, and come to his fourth and last Proposition, in his Humane Nature, where before, numb. 9.

Notes

• Aristotles first reason for them.
• A second ar∣gument from Aristotle's i∣mage in Pla∣to's eye.
• 3 Argument.
• The species why so called.
• Obj••ction an∣swered.