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56: THE PHYSICAL POWERS AND THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS 210 |
In man five outer powers exist, which are the agents of
perception—that is to say, through these five powers man
perceives material beings. These are sight, which perceives
visible forms; hearing, which perceives audible
sounds; smell, which perceives odors; taste, which perceives
foods; and feeling, which is in all parts of the body
and perceives tangible things. These five powers perceive
outward existences.
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Man has also spiritual powers: imagination, which conceives
things; thought, which reflects upon realities; comprehension,
which comprehends realities; memory,
which retains whatever man imagines, thinks and comprehends.
The intermediary between the five outward
powers and the inward powers is the sense which they
possess in common—that is to say, the sense which acts
between the outer and inner powers, conveys to the inward
powers whatever the outer powers discern. It is
termed the common faculty, because it communicates
between the outward and inward powers and thus is
common to the outward and inward powers.
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For instance, sight is one of the outer powers; it sees and
perceives this flower, and conveys this perception to the
inner power—the common faculty—which transmits this
perception to the power of imagination, which in its turn
conceives and forms this image and transmits it to the
power of thought; the power of thought reflects and, having
grasped the reality, conveys it to the power of comprehension;
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the comprehension, when it has comprehended
it, delivers the image of the object perceived to
the memory, and the memory keeps it in its repository.
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