DiotimosReading Desk

Agency

Imagination and its lost dominion

Imagination is a formative power relating a centre to its domain. In this account it is more than private fantasy, but its original human dominion has been lost.

From the book

Centrum Naturae Concentratum

Attributed to Ali Puli · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordImagination is a formative power relating a centre to its domain. In this account it is more than private fantasy, but its original human dominion has been lost.
  • In the bookThe devil’s fall and the human fall share a pattern: disorder at a governing centre affects what depends on it. The account ends by distinguishing lost universal command from the remaining ability to alter particular things through work.
  • In this edition“By consent” is preserved beside the source’s assertions of compulsion. The translation does not resolve that difficulty by making every participant equally willing.
  • A place to readThe Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 40–The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41: the assertion of pre-fall obedience must be read with the immediately following account of its loss.

Meaning

Imagination here is an effective relation between a centre and its surrounding properties, not simply a private image or fantasy. Its goodness or badness changes the domain over which the centre has authority. The work’s own narrative sharply limits the human possession of this power after the fall.

The term’s force comes from its relation to a centre, an encompassing domain and a right of command. In The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38 the human centre is also a heart, and its imaginative power reaches its maternal elements. In The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41 the loss is described not only as inability but as loss of a natural right. These relational and juridical terms distinguish the account from a description of images passing through an individual mind. They also make the timing of each claim indispensable.

Use in the book

The first cosmogonic fall begins with the devil’s attempt to raise his light to equality with God’s. The ensuing account speaks of heated imagination and of a realm obliged to receive movement from its centre. That realm did not fall deliberately in the same way as its ruler; it followed through a dependent participation described with the Latin phrase “per Consensum.” The tension between compulsion and consent belongs to the wording and should not be resolved by pretending that all participants made the same free decision. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 17, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18.)

The human fall repeats the relation between a damaged centre and its dependent domain. Soul affects spirit and body; spirit and body affect air, water and earth, because spirit and body are their universal centre or heart and possess imaginative power in their maternal elements. The narrator makes the relation intelligible through a sick heart whose illness the whole body must share. He then extends the analogy to sin: the members become implicated although they acted under compulsion. Heart consequently explains dependent solidarity and transmitted damage, but the move from illness to guilt also creates a difficulty which a paraphrase should not erase. The members do not first make the same free decision as the initiating centre (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38–The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 39).

Paragraph 40 restates the positive power before the fall: created things had to obey the human centre through imagination. The next paragraph removes any warrant for reading this as an unrestricted present ability. Adam, like the earlier fallen ruler, loses the right and power of good imagination through its evil use. Nature now rejects and spits out human imagination. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 40, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41.)

What remains is expressly narrower: nature must still sustain human spirit and body, and understanding and labour can improve or worsen particular things. This remainder explains why natural art can remain meaningful without restoring universal command. It also prevents the book’s exalted language about the microcosm from becoming a doctrine that any present wish can reshape the whole world. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41.)

The terminology is internally theological as well as natural. Grace, right, obedience, compulsion and rejection are parts of the explanation, not incidental decorations around an otherwise modern psychological theory. The lexicon reports the claimed formative power and its loss without adopting it as a demonstrated mechanism. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41.)

Places to read

  1. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 17German“dem Lichte GOttes gleich zu machen vermeynte” The ruler’s intention is described as presumptuous self-exaltation.
  2. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18German“nicht vorsetzlich, sondern per Consensum” The dependent realm’s participation differs from deliberate initiating action.
  3. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18German“in die hitzige imagination” The lower-case source form belongs to the account of destructive self-exaltation.
  4. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38German“das Universale Centrum oder Hertz” The human centre transmits its fall to its natural domain.
  5. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38German“die Krafft der Imagination” The power is located in a relation to the maternal elements.
  6. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 39German“ob sie schon nichts als gezwungen, gethan haben” The bodily analogy preserves the members’ compulsion.
  7. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 40German“vor dem Fall gehorsamen” Universal obedience is restricted to the prelapsarian state.
  8. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41German“sein Natur-Recht verlohren” Right and effective power have been lost.
  9. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41German“particulare Dinge in der Natur” The remaining practical ability concerns particular things.

Translation in this edition

The supplied edition explicitly distinguishes this historical use of “imagination” from modern private fantasy and from a verified capacity to command matter. “By consent” is retained for the Latin phrase, but the same sentences also assert dependence and compulsion. Neither the translator nor this lexicon should silently turn that difficult conjunction into wholly voluntary cooperation.

The phrase nicht vorsetzlich, sondern per Consensum contrasts deliberate initiating action with a different mode of participation (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18). “By consent” is therefore not enough, in isolation, to characterise the dependent realm’s freedom. The surrounding account still says that the realm had to receive movement from its centre.

At The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41 “particular things” marks the residue of human power after the loss. The verbs include both improving and worsening. That remainder is neither complete impotence nor restored universal dominion; both exaggerations would suppress words that the translation retains.

Printed forms

imagination

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18 — 1682 p. 17. “in die hitzige imagination”

Imagination, here the heated formative movement implicated in the first fall.

Imagination

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38 — 1682 pp. 28–29. “die Krafft der Imagination”

Imagination as an effective power connecting a centre with its surrounding natural domain.

Natur-Recht

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 41 — 1682 pp. 29–30. “sein Natur-Recht verlohren”

Natural right, the former rightful dominion lost by Adam.

Hertz

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38 — 1682 pp. 28–29. “das Universale Centrum oder Hertz”

Heart, an organic image for the centre on which the larger domain depends.

per Consensum

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38 — 1682 pp. 28–29. “zwungen sie per Consensum mitzufallen”

By consent or participation: the surrounding elements fall through their dependent connection to the human centre.