An Image What Phantasmes An image (in the most strict signification of the word) is the Resemblance of some thing visible: In which sense the Phantasticall Formes, Apparitions, or Seemings of Visible Bodies to the Sight, are onely Images; such as are the Shew of a man, or other thing in the Water, by Reflexion, or Refraction; or of the Sun, or Stars by Direct Vision in the Air; which are nothing reall in the things seen, nor in the place where thy seem to bee; nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object; but changeable, by the variation of the organs of Sight, or by glasses; and are present oftentimes in our Imagination, and in our Dreams, when the object is absent; or changed into other colours, and shapes, as things that depend onely upon the Fancy. And these are the Images which are originally and most properly called Ideas, and idols, and derived from the language of the Graecians, with whom the word Eido signifieth to See. They are also called Phantasmes, which is in the same language, Apparitions. And from these Images it is that one of the faculties of mans Nature, is called the Imagination. And from hence it is manifest, that there neither is, nor can bee any Image made of a thing Invisible.
It is also evident, that there can be no Image of a thing Infinite: for all the Images, and Phantasmes that are made by the Impression of things visible, are figured: but Figure is a quantity every way determined: And therefore there can bee no Image of God: nor of the Soule of Man; nor of Spirits, but onely of Bodies Visible, that is, Bodies that have light in themselves, or are by such enlightened.