Pagina 34 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

34 LEON POMPA
ancient Italie language. In thè account which Vico gives here of ancient
belief about thè nature of man, he modifies thè theory given in De an­
tiquissima by linking thè trio of faculties, imagination, memory and in­
gegno, required to produce thè imaginative universal, to «thè primary
operation of thè mind, whose regulating art is topics»57. Early man, he
writes, «reduced all thè internai functions of thè spirit to three parts of
thè body: thè head, thè breast and thè heart».
To thèhead theyassigned all cognitive functions, and as all these involved
imagination, they located memory (memoria being thè Latin term for phan­
tasia) [...] in thè head. And in thè returned barbarian timesfantasia was used
for ingegno and an ingenious or inventive man was called a fantastic man.
Imagination is nothing but thè springing up again of reminiscences, and in-
genuityor invention is nothing but thèworking over ofwhat is remembered.
Following this account of poetic man’s beliefs, however, thè tenor of
thè discussion changes. For thè remarks which follow imply that what
Vico has been offering is not merely an account of thè beliefs of poetic
man but an account of thè poetic mentality which he endorses:
Now, since thè human mind at thè time we are considering had not been
refined by any art of writing or spiritualised by any practice of counting or
reckoning, and had not developed its powers of abstraction by thè many ab­
stract terms inwhich languages nowabound, it exercised all its force in these
three excellent faculties which carne to it from thè body. All three appertain
to thè primary operation of thè mind, whose regulating art is topics, just as
thè regulating art of thè second operation of mind is criticism; and as thè lat-
ter is thè art of judging, so thè former is thè art of inventing. And since nat­
urally thè discovery or invention of things comes before criticism of them,
it was fitting that thè infancy of thèworld should concern itselfwith thè first
operation of thè human mind, for thè world then had need of all inventions
for thè necessities and Utilities of life l...]58.
There are interesting similarities and differences between this ac­
count of thè faculties of thè mind and that given in De antiquissima. In
thè latter, memory and imagination, though related to each other in thè
same way as they are here, are given as separate faculties from ingenium,
whereas here they are included with it as belonging to thè «primary op­
eration of thè mind, whose regulating art is topics».
57Ibid., §699.
58 It is not clear to me how Vico could have thought that men with an inability to sepa­
rate properties from subjects could have held such a theory of their own natures. But I shall
disregard that point in what follows.