pp2p18 vestigium

Meaning | Latin: footprint, track, trace, vestige, mark, sole of the foot, horseshoe. Some sticky change in the human body (corpus humanus) from which the mind can infer that something has made an impact there. Vestigium and imago mean the same in Ethica.
Occurrence | [geomap]
NOT linked: | Vestigium when used literally as a horse shoe print; vestigia when Ethica deals with philosophical systems inconsistent with its own (Descartes theory of the pineal gland)

{2post05 in aliam mollem imprimit}
...When the fluid part of the human body is determined by an external body to impinge often on another soft part, it changes the surface of the latter, and, as it were, leaves the impression thereupon of the external body which impels it. | ...Cum corporis humani pars fluida a corpore externo determinatur ut in aliam mollem spe impingat, ejus planum mutat et veluti quaedam corporis externi impellentis vestigia eidem imprimit.

2p17c quamvis non existant nec praesentia ... an imago or vestigium is a change in the surface of the softer parts of the body...
... When external bodies determine the fluid parts of the human body, so that they often impinge on the softer parts, they change the surface of the last named ... hence ... they are refracted therefrom in a different manner from that which they followed before such change ... | ... Dum corpora externa corporis humani partes fluidas ita determinant ut in molliores spe impingant, earum plana ... mutant, unde fit ... ut inde alio modo reflectantur quam antea solebant ...

2p17s Videmus itaque non sunt veluti praesentia ...this scholium is called imaginationis definitionem in {5p21} and allows in association with other quotes below to infer the steps in the process from impact to imago and then to imagined idea (called imaginatio NOT imago): ...1. an external body makes an impact on the human body...2. the resulting affectiones of the human body are called imagines (elswhere vestigia) ..3. perceptio by the mind produces ideas in the mind of those affectiones... 4. the effect of the impact, the imprint, also called -see other quotes of this page- vestigium, remains in the body after the impact: vestigia-imagines are durable...5. when the mind recalls the idea of such an imago-vestigium but in association with an inadequate idea of the external body that caused it, the mind is said to imagine. N.B. And imago is part of the human body (corpus humanus) but the verb imaginare denotes a cogitatio-operatio, an operation of the mind (mens) ...Inadequacy of ideas comes about NOT by imagination ITSELF by by the absence of other adequate ideas able to adequately "qualify" the imagined idea (think of seeing something that looks like unicorn and by apt thinking determining what the visual impression is really caused by). Ability to thus imagine a thing in itself is necessarily, and in all cases, positive mind-power, but it weakens or strengthens you depending on whether in addition you have an inadequate or adequate idea that save you from wrong conclusions...
...... to retain the usual phraseology, the modifications [Lat: affectiones] of the human body, of which the ideas represent external bodies as present to us, we will call the images of things, though they do not recall the figure of things. When the mind regards bodies in this fashion, we say that it imagines. I will here draw attention to the fact, in order to indicate where error lies, that the imaginations of the mind, looked at in themselves, do not contain error. The mind does not err in the mere act of imagining, but only in so far as it is regarded as being without the idea, which excludes the existence of such things as it imagines to be present to it. If the mind, while imagining non-existent things as present to it, is at the same time conscious that they do not really exist, this power of imagination must be set down to the efficacy of its nature, and not to a fault, especially if this faculty of imagination depend solely on its own nature-that is (I. Def. vii.), if this faculty of imagination be free. | ....ut verba usitata retineamus, corporis humani affectiones quarum ideae corpora externa velut nobis praesentia repraesentant, rerum imagines vocabimus tametsi rerum figuras non referunt. Et cum mens hac ratione contemplatur corpora, eandem imaginari dicemus. Atque hic ut quid sit error indicare incipiam, notetis velim mentis imaginationes in se spectatas nihil erroris continere sive mentem ex eo quod imaginatur, non errare sed tantum quatenus consideratur carere idea quae existentiam illarum rerum quas sibi praesentes imaginatur, secludat. Nam si mens dum res non existentes ut sibi praesentes imaginatur, simul sciret res illas revera non existere, hanc sane imaginandi potentiam virtuti suae naturae, non vitio tribueret praesertim si haec imaginandi facultas a sola sua natura penderet hoc est (per definitionem 7 partis I) si haec mentis imaginandi facultas libera esset.

{2p18 pluribus corporibus simul} ...vestigia can be the cause of mental association of two or more things...
...If the human body has once been affected by two or more bodies at the same time, when the mind afterwards imagines any of them, it will straightway remember the others also. | ...Si corpus humanum a duobus vel pluribus corporibus simul affectum fuerit semel, ubi mens postea eorum aliquod imaginabitur, , statim et aliorum recordabitur.
... The mind ...imagines any given body, because the human body is affected and rearranged by the impressions from an external body, in the same manner as it is affected when certain of its parts are acted on by the said external body; but ... the body was then so rearranged, that the mind imagined two bodies at once; therefore, it will also in the second case imagine two bodies at once, and the mind, when it imagines one, will straightway remember the other... | ...Mens ... corpus aliquod ea de causa imaginatur quia scilicet humanum corpus a corporis externi vestigiis eodem modo afficitur disponiturque ac affectum est cum quaedam ejus partes ab ipso corpore externo fuerunt impulsae sed ...corpus tum ita fuit dispositum ut mens duo simul corpora imaginaretur; ergo jam etiam duo simul imaginabitur atque mens ubi alterutrum imaginabitur, statim et alterius r recordabitur...

{3post02 retinere objectorum impressiones} ...vestigia identified with imagines and are durable ...
...The human body can undergo many changes, and, nevertheless, retain the impressions or traces of objects ... and, consequently, the same images of things ... | ...Corpus humanum multas pati potest mutationes et nihilominus retinere objectorum impressiones seu [mng eqv] vestigia (de quibus vide postulatum 5 partis II) et consequenter easdem rerum imagines...

{3p16 imaginamur simile} ...written in full: first the body is affected by an external body, that is: the body acquires a corporeal image or vestigium. Then the mind, through the passive (!) operation of perceptio [more]] is affected by the image and produces an idea...
...The point of resemblance was in the object ...when we regarded it with pleasure or pain, thus ...when the mind is affected by the image thereof, it will straightway be affected by one or the other emotion, and consequently the thing, which we perceive to have the same point of resemblance, will be accidentally ... a cause of pleasure or pain. Thus ... although the point in which the two objects resemble one another be not the efficient cause of the emotion, we shall still regard the first-named object with love or hate... | ...Id quod simile est objecto, in ipso objecto ...cum affectu laetitiae vel [excl non-exh] tristitiae contemplati sumus atque adeo ... cum mens ejus imagine afficietur, statim etiam hoc vel [excl non-exh] illo afficietur affectu et consequenter res quam hoc idem habere percipimus, erit ... per accidens laetitiae vel [excl non-exh] tristitiae causa adeoque .... quamvis id in quo objecto est similis, non sit horum affectuum causa efficiens, eam tamen amabimus vel [excl non-exh] odio habebimus...
object...when the mind is affected by the image thereof... | objecto...cum mens ejus imagine afficietur...

5p23s Nec tamen fieri potest ut recordemur nos ante corpus exstitisse ...In {5p23} the part of a human mind containing the adequate ideas that a person managed to to acquire in his life is proven eternal. From this proof, a conceptual problem arises: the mind is nothing but the entirety of your ideas of your body. Those ideas are acquired by perceptio from imagines-vestigia in the body. A person's effort to achieve adequacy of his ideas cannot have started before (that is: in duratio!!) the body was there. How can something that started in duratio be eternal? This is addressed in the quote of 5p23s below:..
...it is not possible that we should remember that we existed before our body, for our body can bear no trace of such existence, neither can eternity be defined in terms of time, or have any relation to time. But, notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal. For the mind feels those things that it conceives by understanding, no less than those things that it remembers. For the eyes of the mind, whereby it sees and observes things, are none other than proofs. Thus, although we do not remember that we existed before the body, yet we feel that our mind, in so far as it involves the essence of the body, under the form of eternity, is eternal, and that thus its existence cannot be defined in terms of time, or explained through duration... | ...Nec tamen fieri potest ut recordemur nos ante corpus exstitisse quandoquidem nec in corpore ulla ejus vestigia dari nec aeternitas tempore definiri nec ullam ad tempus relationem habere potest. At nihilominus sentimus experimurque nos aeternos esse. Nam mens non minus res illas sentit quas intelligendo concipit quam quas in memoria habet. Mentis enim oculi quibus res videt observatque, sunt ipsae demonstrationes. Quamvis itaque non recordemur nos ante corpus exstitisse , sentimus tamen mentem nostram quatenus corporis essentiam sub aeternitatis specie involvit, aeternam esse et hanc ejus existentiam tempore definiri sive per durationem explicari non posse...