Of Sense
Concerning the thoughts of man, I will consider them first singly, and afterwards in train, or dependence upon one another. Singly, they are every one a “representation” or “appearance” of some quality, or other accident of a body without us, which is commonly called an “object.” Which object worketh on the eyes, ears, and other parts of a man’s body; and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of appearances.
The original of them all, is that which we call “sense,” for there is no conception in a man’s mind, which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original.
To know the natural cause of sense, is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have elsewhere written of the same at large. Nevertheless, to fill each part of my present method, I will briefly deliver the same in this place.
The cause of sense, is the external body, or object, which presseth the organ proper to each sense, either immediately, as in the taste and touch; or mediately, as in seeing, hearing, and smelling; which pressure, by the mediation of the nerves, and other strings and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the brain and heart, causeth there a resistance, or counterpressure, or endeavour of the heart to deliver itself, which endeavour, because “outward,” seemeth to be some matter without. And this “seeming,” or “fancy,” is that which men call “sense”; and consisteth, as to the eye, in a “light,” or “colour figured”; to the ear, in a “sound”; to the nostril, in an “odour”; to the tongue and palate, in a “savour”; and to the rest of the body, in “heat,” “cold,” “hardness,” “softness,” and such