A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the…A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the…

Now, for the Corruptions and Diseases of this Faculty, I conceive the principal to be¹ these three, Error, Levity, and dull fixedness: The Error of the Imagination may be taken both actively, and passively; the Error which it produceth, and the Error which it suffereth: That the Fancy is fruitful in producing Error, is as manifest, as it is difficult to show the manner how it doth it. Hence, those strange and yet strong delusions, whereby the Mind of melancholy men (in whom this Faculty hath the most deep and piercing operation) have been peremptorily possessed: Hence, those vanishing and shadowy Assurances, Hopes, Fears, Joys, Visions, which the Dreams of men (the immediate issues of this Faculty) do produce: Hence those ghastly Apparitions, dreadful Sounds, black Thoughts, Tremblings, and Horrors, which the strong working of Imagination doth present unto, or produce in men; disquieted either with the ugliness of their Sins, or heaviness of their Natures, making them to fear, where no fear is: which, whether it be done by affecting only the Fancy, or by the impression of such forms and shapes upon the Spirits, which go unto the outward senses, as may thereby affect them with the same Images (not by reception from without, but by impression and transfusion from within) it is manifest, not only by various relations, but by continual experience, what strong and strange effects those distempers have produced.

Now, for the Corruptions and Diseases of this Facultie, I conceive the principall to be¹ these three, Error, Levitie, and dull fixednesse: The Error of the Imagination may be taken both actively, and passively; the Error which it produceth, and the Error which it suffereth: That the Fancie is fruitfull in producing Error, is as manifest, as it is difficult to shew the manner how it doth it. Hence, those strange and yet strong delusions, whereby the Mind of melancholy men (in whom this Facultie hath the most deepe and piercing operation) have beene peremptorily possessed: Hence, those vanishing and sh•dowie Assurances, Hopes, Feares, Ioyes, Visions, which the Dreames of men (the immediate issues of this Facultie) doe produce: Hence those gastly Apparitions, dreadfull Sounds, blacke Thoughts, Tremblings, and Horrors, which the strong working of Imagination doth present unto, or produce in men; disquieted either with the uglinesse of their Sinnes, or heavinesse of their Natures, making them to feare, where no feare is: which, whether it be done by affecting onely the Fancie, or by the impression of such formes and shapes upon the Spirits, which goe unto the outward senses, as may thereby affect them with the same Images (not by reception from without, but by impression and transfusion from within) it is manifest, not onely by various relations, but by continuall experience, what strong and strange effects those distempers have produced.