The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

→ See the front page for how to read the Notebooks by RSS.

Page 839 of 1565.
Previous / Next

HOW THE NERVES SOMETIMES ACT OF THEMSELVES WITHOUT ANY COMMANDS FROM
THE OTHER FUNCTIONS OF THE SOUL.

This is most plainly seen; for you will see palsied and shivering
persons move, and their trembling limbs, as their head and hands,
quake without leave from their soul and their soul with all its
power cannot prevent their members from trembling. The same thing
happens in falling sickness, or in parts that have been cut off, as
in the tails of lizards. The idea or imagination is the helm and
guiding-rein of the senses, because the thing conceived of moves the
sense. Pre-imagining, is imagining the things that are to be.
Post-imagining, is imagining the things that are past.

Miscellaneous physiological observations (840-842).

Previous / Next