The following is the terminology of the five inward senses:

  1. Common-Sense = hiss mushtarak, mutaçawwirah.
  2. Vis formans, imaginatio = khayâl, muçawwirah, fantasia, takhayyul, mutakhayyilah.
  3. Vis cogitativa, vis imaginativa = mufakkirah, mutakhayyilah, mutawahhimah, zânnah, mutaçarrifah, mutafakkirah, takhayyul.
  4. Memory, remembering, preserving = hâfizah, mutazhakkirah, zhâkirah, zhikr.
  5. Vis existimativa, opinativa = wahm, mutawahhimah, zhânnah, takhayyul, wahmiyyah.

Here follows an attempt to clear up this bewildering subject:

  1. Perception, through any one or more of the five outward senses, of the outward concrete form.
  2. Conception of particular notions, over and beyond the concrete form perceived.
  3. Memory, which retains both outward forms perceived as well as recalls inward particular forms conceived.
  4. Common-Sense, rises a step higher than the three preceding, in that it unites two or more of the products of any of the three preceding and derives from them a new conception.
  5. Opining, which rises higher still and passes judgment, or comes to a definite opinion as to the truth or falsehood of conceptions formed.

In respect of memory, Ibn Sînâ in his «Kanon» of Medicine, makes a distinction. He says: «And just here is a point for scrutiny and judgment as to whether the preserving power and the power recalling (to consciousness) such notions as had been stored up by the opining power but have passed away from it, are one power or two.»

Here follows still another attempt:

  1. Perception, of the Five Senses, through organs.
  2. Sway of the Common-Sense, in the anterior hollow.
  3. Sway of the Imaginative Power, in the middle hollow.
  4. Sway of the Remembering Power, in the posterior hollow.
  5. Sway of the Conjecturing Power, throughout all the brain, and alongside of the imaginative compartment.

Number 1. has been dealt with in Section Six; number 5 belongs exclusively to Man, and will be further dealt with in the next Section; the remaining three, to wit numbers 2, 3, and 4, are in all live animals, and are dealt with in this Seventh Section. The theory is beautifully clear and simple: thus, number 2 grasps and appropriates the outward form brought to it by the senses; number 3 grasps and appropriates particular conceptions; and number 4 stores them up; thus also, the one dwelling in the front hollow is not influenced by the action of the one occupying the middle or the hindermost hollow, whereas conversely each succeeding faculty has recourse to the one preceding it in order of place. This theory arose after an acquaintance with the division and arrangement of the brain into chambers had made considerable progress with the Arabs.

Those who read German should not fail to study Dr. Samuel Landauer’s erudite notes in vol. 29 for the year 1875 of the Z.d.D.M.G.