About the Book
CHAPTER I. OF SENSEConcerning the Thoughts of man, I will consider them first Singly, andafterwards in Trayne, or dependance upon one another. Singly, theyare every one a Representation or Apparence, of some quality, or otherAccident of a body without us; which is commonly called an Object. WhichObject worketh on the Eyes, Eares, and other parts of mans body; and bydiversity of working, produceth diversity of Apparences.The Originall of them all, is that which we call Sense; (For there isno conception in a mans mind, which hath not at first, totally, or byparts, been begotten upon the organs of Sense.) The rest are derivedfrom that originall.To know the naturall cause of Sense, is not very necessary to thebusiness now in hand; and I have els-where written of the same at large.Nevertheless, to fill each part of my present method, I will brieflydeliver the same in this place.The cause of Sense, is the Externall Body, or Object, which presseth theorgan proper to each Sense, either immediatly, as in the Tast and Touch;or mediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, bythe mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavour because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without. Andthis Seeming, or Fancy, is that which men call sense; and consisteth, asto the Eye, in a Light, or Colour Figured; To the Eare, in a Sound; Tothe Nostrill, in an Odour; To the Tongue and Palat, in a Savour; andto the rest of the body, in Heat, Cold, Hardnesse, Softnesse, and suchother qualities, as we discern by Feeling. All which qualities calledSensible, are in the object that causeth them, but so many severalmotions of the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversly. Neitherin us that are pressed, are they anything els, but divers motions; (formotion, produceth nothing but motion.) But their apparence to us isFancy, the same waking, that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the Eye, makes us fancy a light; and pressing the Eare, produceth a dinne; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce thesame by their strong, though unobserved action, For if those Colours, and Sounds, were in the Bodies, or Objects that cause them, they couldnot bee severed from them, as by glasses, and in Ecchoes by reflection, wee see they are; where we know the thing we see, is in one place; theapparence, in another. And though at some certain distance, the reall, and very object seem invested with the fancy it begets in us; Yet stillthe object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that Sense inall cases, is nothing els but originall fancy, caused (as I have said)by the pressure, that is, by the motion, of externall things upon ourEyes, Eares, and other organs thereunto o