(¶ 1.4) 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 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 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
other qualities as we discern by feeling. All which qualities called
sensible are in the object that causeth them but so many several motions of
the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversely. Neither in us that
are pressed are they anything else but diverse motions (for motion
produceth nothing but motion). But their appearance to us is fancy, the
same waking that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye
makes us fancy a light, and pressing the ear produceth a din; so do the
bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong, though
unobserved action. For if those colours and sounds were in the bodies or
objects that cause them, they could not be severed from them, as by glasses
and in echoes by reflection we see they are: where we know the thing we see
is in one place; the appearance, in another. And though at some certain
distance the real and very object seem invested with the fancy it begets in
us; yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So
that sense in all cases is nothing else but original fancy caused (as I
have said) by the pressure that is, by the motion of external things upon
our eyes, ears, and other organs, thereunto ordained.
(¶ 1.5) But the philosophy schools, through all the universities of
Christendom, grounded upon certain texts of Aristotle, teach another
doctrine; and say, for the cause of vision, that the thing seen sendeth
forth on every side a visible species, (in English) a visible show,
apparition, or aspect, or a being seen; the receiving whereof into the eye
is seeing. And for the cause of hearing, that the thing heard sendeth forth
an audible species, that is, an audible aspect, or audible being seen;
which, entering at the ear, maketh hearing. Nay, for the cause of
understanding also, they say the thing understood sendeth forth an
intelligible species, that is, an intelligible being seen; which, coming
into the understanding, makes us understand. I say not this, as
disapproving the use of universities: but because I am to speak hereafter
of their office in a Commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions by
the way what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency
of insignificant speech is one.