(14) Thus, when men say that this or that
physical action has its origin in the mind, which latter has dominion
over the body, they are using words without meaning, or are confessing
in specious phraseology that they are ignorant of the cause of the said
action, and do not wonder at it.
(2:15) But, they will say,, whether we know or do not know the means
whereby the mind acts on the body, we have, at any rate, experience
of the fact that unless the human mind is in a fit state to think,
the body remains inert. (16) Moreover, we have experience, that the
mind alone can determine whether we speak or are silent, and a variety
of similar states which, accordingly, we say depend on the mind's
decree. (17) But, as to the first point, I ask such objectors,
whether experience does not also teach, that if the body be inactive
the mind is simultaneously unfitted for thinking? (18) For when the
body is at rest in sleep, the mind simultaneously is in a state of
torpor also, and has no power of thinking, such as it possesses when
the body, is awake. (2:19) Again, I think everyone's experience will
confirm the statement, that the mind is not at all times equally, fit
for thinking on a given subject, but according as the body is more or
less fitted for being stimulated by, the image of this or that object,
so also is the mind more or less fitted for contemplating the said object.
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