CAPUT XVI. Quod imaginatio alia sit bestialis, alia rationalis
Two Kinds of Imagination
Imagination is twofold: the animal kind wanders aimlessly through past impressions, while the rational kind composes new images—like a golden house—from what the senses have known.
But to move on to what must be said about Bala's sons, you should know that one kind of imagination is animal, another is rational. The animal kind, however, shouldn't be counted among Jacob's sons, and yet Rachel would never want to claim it as her adopted son either. Animal imagination, then, is when we race around with a wandering mind through things we saw or did a short time ago, with no benefit and no deliberation. This is certainly animal: for a beast can do this too. The rational kind, however, occurs when we take things we know through our bodily senses and fashion something in the imagination. For example: we have seen gold; we have seen a house; but we have never seen a golden house. Yet we can imagine a golden house if we want to. This, of course, a beast cannot do; it's possible only for a rational creature.
Imagining the Life to Come
Rational imagination turns our mixed experiences of present goods and evils into images of the unmixed, supreme goods and evils of the life to come, making it both Bala's and Rachel's.
We often use this kind of imagination when we look more carefully into what the goods—or the evils—of the life to come will be. Nowhere here are there goods alone, nowhere evils alone, but goods and evils mixed together at the same time. And although there are many in each kind, still they are never found unmixed. There, goods can be found without any mixture of evils, and evils likewise without any mixture of goods. Likewise here: just as we don't find them pure, so neither do we find them supreme. There we don't doubt that goods—and evils too—are both supreme and unmixed. So whenever, from the many goods or evils that bodily sense experiences in this life, one gathers of what sort—or how great—that supreme good or evil of the life to come can be, and from imagining these a certain image of things to come is formed, such imagination is easily shown to be rational, and it seems to belong both to Bala and to Rachel.1 It belongs to Bala insofar as it is imagination; but to Rachel, insofar as it is rational.
A Child Born of Bala, Governed by Rachel
Such an image is generated by imagination but raised and governed by reason, so the offspring belongs to both by birth and adoption.
Such an offspring, then, belongs both to imagination by birth and to reason by adoption. For one of them generates offspring of this kind, but the other raises it.2 For it is born from Bala, but governed through Rachel.
Read the original Latin
Sed, ut de Balae filiis quae dicenda sunt prosequamur, sciendum est quod imaginatio alia bestialis, alia rationalis. Bestialis autem inter filios Jacob annumerari non debet, nec tamen aliquando Rachel adoptivum sibi filium facere volet. Bestialis itaque imaginatio est, quando per ea quae paulo ante vidimus, vel fecimus, sine ulla utilitate, absque omni deliberatione huc illucque vaga mente discurrimus. Haec utique bestialis est: nam et hoc bestia facere potest. Rationalis autem est illa, quando ex his quae per sensum corporeum novimus, aliquid imaginabiliter fingimus. Verbi gratia: Aurum vidimus, domum vidimus, auream autem domum nunquam vidimus. Auream tamen domum imaginari possumus si volumus. Hoc utique bestia facere non potest, soli rationabili creaturae possibile.
Hujusmodi imaginatione saepe utimur, cum quae sint futurae vitae bona, vel mala diligentius rimamur. Nusquam hic sola bona, nusquam hic sola mala, sed permista simul et bona et mala. Et, quamvis in utroque genere sint multa, nunquam tamen inveniuntur sola. Ibi inveniri possunt et bona sine admistione malorum, et mala nihilominus sine admistione bonorum. Item hic sicut nec sola, sic nec summa invenimus. Ibi, et summa et impermista bona, et mala esse non dubitamus. Quoties igitur ex multis bonis, vel malis quae in hac vita sensus corporeus experitur, quale, vel quantum esse possit illud futurae vitae summum bonum sive malum colligitur, et ex horum imaginatione, quaedam futurorum imago figuratur, talis utique imaginatio rationalis esse facile convincitur, et ad Balam, et ad Rachel pertinere videtur. Ad Balam pertinet, in quantum imaginatio est; ad Rachel autem, in quantum rationalis est.
Talis itaque proles, et imaginationis est per nativitatem, et rationis per adoptionem. Hujusmodi enim prolem una generat, sed altera educit. Ex Bala namque nascitur, sed per Rachel moderatur.
Notes
Benjamin Minor (The Twelve Patriarchs / Preparation of the Mind for Contemplation) companion
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