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The 17th Article


What the functions of the soul are. .

Having thus considered all the functions belonging to the body only, it is easy to know there remains nothing in us which we ought to attribute to our soul, unless our thoughts, which are chiefly of two kinds, to wit, some actions of the soul, others, her passions. Those which I call her actions are all our wills because we experimentally find they come directly from our soul and seem to depend on nought but it. As on the contrary, one may generally call her passions all those sorts of apprehensions and understandings to be found within us because oftimes our soul does not make them such as they are to us, and she always receives things as they are represented to her by them.