What is Perception?

17. The Functions of the Soul

The soul has 2 functions:

1. Actions

These are all our wills. Our will comes directly from our soul and seem to depend only on it.

2. Passions

These are all the kinds of perceptions or knowledge that are found in us. Often, it is not our soul that makes them as they are, and it always receives them from the things that are represented by them.

18. The Will

Our wills are of 2 kinds:

1. Some are actions of the soul that end in the soul itself, such as when we want to love God or generally apply our thought to some object that is not material

2. Others are actions that end in our body, such as when, from the mere fact that we have the will to walk, it follows that our legs move and we walk.

19. Perception

Our perceptions are also of 2 kinds:

1. Those that are caused by the soul

These are the perceptions of our wills, and of all imaginations or other thoughts that depend on them. This is because we cannot will anything without perceiving at the same time that we will it.

This will comes from our passions.

2. Those that are caused by the body

20. The Imaginations and Other Thoughts Formed by the Soul

Our soul sometimes imagines something that does not exist, an enchanted palace or a chimera.

• This uses the will to perceive it.

Therefore, they are usually considered actions rather than passions.

21. The Imaginations That Have Only the Body for Their Cause

Most bodily perceptions depend on the nerves.

• Some depend on the memory.

Examples of bodily perceptions that come from the memory are imaginations.

• These are not part of the actions of the soul.

These imaginations happen only because the animal spirits can be agitated by encountering the traces of impressions in the brain.

• This makes them flow through certain pores.

Examples are the illusions of our dreams at night or during the day.

Some of these imaginations are passions of the soul.