Annotation
E.
It is often not within our power to keep our minds clear of images: whenever
we deal with lines, surfaces, and points, our mind resorts to these fictions
and models, because that was how we first comprehended what they represent; and
thereafter we made a habit of using them. Likewise, when we think about God,
some picture of a dignified old man comes into our mind; and those who
religiously struggle to shake them off usually do not succeed. The mind is only
clear when it is abstracted from such images, or at least when we do not have
them in any great number, do not value them, do not affirm or deny anything of
them, and do not infer anything from them, but infer the natures of things only
from a notion or idea. Thus, little by little we reach a state in which those
images are so well filtered that very few pass through, or even none at all.
For images are reinforced by repeated reflection, and by the utterance of
speeches evoked by them and the demands they make on us; but if the mind persists
in disdaining them, they at length vanish, or at least become somewhat fainter.
Until then, the mind cannot attain inner freedom, or at least be at liberty to
seek truth through sublime Philosophy; for only then will the mind address
itself and listen to its ideas and innate notions."
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