juice. His organ is the tongue with his tasting nerves; the medium, a
watery juice; the object, taste, or savour, which is a quality in the
juice, arising from the mixture of things tasted. Some make eight
species or kinds of savour, bitter, sweet, sharp, salt, &c., all which
sick men (as in an ague) cannot discern, by reason of their organs
misaffected.
_Touching_.] Touch, the last of the senses, and most ignoble, yet of as
great necessity as the other, and of as much pleasure. This sense is
exquisite in men, and by his nerves dispersed all over the body,
perceives any tactile quality. His organ the nerves; his object those
first qualities, hot, dry, moist, cold; and those that follow them,
hard, soft, thick, thin, &c. Many delightsome questions are moved by
philosophers about these five senses; their organs, objects, mediums,
which for brevity I omit.
SUBSECT. VII.—_Of the Inward Senses._
_Common Sense_.] Inner senses are three in number, so called, because
they be within the brainpan, as common sense, phantasy, memory. Their
objects are not only things present, but they perceive the sensible
species of things to come, past, absent, such as were before in the
sense. This common sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom
we discern all differences of objects; for by mine eye I do not know
that I see, or by mine ear that I hear, but by my common sense, who
judgeth of sounds and colours: they are but the organs to bring the
species to be censured; so that all their objects are his, and all
their offices are his. The fore part of the brain is his organ or seat.
_Phantasy_.] Phantasy, or imagination, which some call estimative, or
cogitative, (confirmed, saith [989]Fernelius, by frequent meditation,)
is an inner sense which doth more fully examine the species perceived
by common sense, of things present or absent, and keeps them longer,
recalling them to mind again, or making new of his own. In time of
sleep this faculty is free, and many times conceive strange, stupend,
absurd shapes, as in sick men we commonly observe. His organ is the
middle cell of the brain; his objects all the species communicated to
him by the common sense, by comparison of which he feigns infinite
other unto himself. In melancholy men this faculty is most powerful and
strong, and often hurts, producing many monstrous and prodigious
things, especially if it be stirred up by some terrible object,
presented to it from common sense or memory. In poets and painters
imagination forcibly works, as appears by their several fictions,
antics, images: as Ovid's house of sleep, Psyche's palace in Apuleius,
&c. In men it is subject and governed by reason, or at least should be;
but in brutes it hath no superior, and is ratio brutorum, all the
reason they have.
_Memory_.] Memory lays up all the species which the senses have brought
in, and records them as a good register, that they may be forthcoming
when they are called for by phantasy and reason. His object is the same
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