Chapter 11.—That the Image or Begotten Word of the Mind that Knows Itself is Equal to the Mind Itself.

16. But all knowledge according to species is like the thing which it knows. For there is another knowledge according to privation, according to which we speak a word only when we condemn. And this condemnation of a privation is equivalent to praise of the species, and so is approved. The mind, then, contains some likeness to a known species, whether when liking that species or when disliking its privation. And hence, in so far as we know God, we are like Him, but not like to the point of equality, since we do not know Him to the extent of His own being. And as, when we speak of bodies by means of the bodily sense, there arises in our mind some likeness of them, which is a phantasm of the memory; for the bodies themselves are not at all in the mind, when we think them, but only the likenesses of those bodies; therefore, when we approve the latter for the former, we err, for the approving of one thing for another is an error; yet the image of the body in the mind is a thing of a better sort than the species of the body itself, inasmuch as the former is in a better nature, viz. in a living substance, as the mind is: so when we know God, although we are made better than we were before we knew Him, and above all when the same knowledge being also liked and worthily loved becomes a word, and so that knowledge becomes a kind of likeness of God; yet that knowledge is of a lower kind, since it is in a lower nature; for the mind is creature, but God is Creator. And from this it may be inferred, that when the mind knows and approves itself, this same knowledge is in such way its word, as that it is altogether on a par and equal with it, and the same; because it is neither the knowledge of a lower essence, as of the body, nor of a higher, as of God. And whereas knowledge bears a likeness to that which it knows, that is, of which it is the knowledge; in this case it has perfect and equal likeness, when the mind itself, which knows, is known. And so it is both image and word; because it is uttered concerning that mind to which it is equalled in knowing, and that which is begotten is equal to the begetter.

CAPUT XI.

16. Mentis se ipsam noscentis imaginem seu verbum genitum ipsi aequale esse. Sed omnis secundum speciem notitia, similis est ei rei quam novit. Est enim alia notitia secundum privationem, quam cum improbamus, loquimur. Et haec privationis improbatio speciem laudat, ideoque approbatur. Habet ergo animus nonnullam speciei notae similitudinem, sive cum ea placet, sive cum ejus privatio displicet. Quocirca in quantum Deum novimus, similes sumus: sed non ad aequalitatem similes, quia nec tantum eum novimus, quantum ipse se. Et quemadmodum cum per sensum corporis dicimus corpora, fit eorum aliqua similitudo in animo nostro, quae phantasia memoriae est: non enim omnino ipsa corpora in animo sunt, cum ea cogitamus; sed eorum similitudines: itaque cum eas pro illis approbamus, erramus; error namque est pro alio alterius approbatio: melior est tamen imaginatio corporis in animo, quam illa species corporis, in quantum haec in meliore natura est, id est, in substantia vitali, sicuti animus est: ita cum Deum novimus, quamvis meliores efficiamur quam eramus antequam nossemus, maximeque cum eadem notitia etiam placita digneque amata verbum est, fitque aliqua Dei similitudo illa notitia: tamen inferior est, quia in inferiore natura est; creatura quippe 0970 animus, Creator autem Deus. Ex quo colligitur, quia cum se mens ipsa novit atque approbat, sic est eadem notitia verbum ejus, ut ei sit par omnino et aequale, atque identidem: quia neque inferioris essentiae notitia est, sicut corporis; neque superioris, sicut Dei. Et cum habeat notitia similitudinem ad eam rem quam novit, hoc est, cujus notitia est; haec habet perfectam et aequalem, qua mens ipsa , quae novit, est nota. Ideoque et imago et verbum est, quia de illa exprimitur, cum cognoscendo eidem coaequatur, et est gignenti aequale quod genitum est.