PART IV.
PHYSICS,
OR THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE.
CHAPTER XXV.
OF SENSE AND ANIMAL MOTION.
[1.] The connexion of what hath been said with that which followeth.—[2.] The investigation of the nature of sense, and the definition of sense.—[3.] The subject and object of sense.—[4.] The organs of sense.—[5.] All bodies are not indued with sense.—[6.] But one phantasm at one and the same time.—[7.] Imagination the remains of past sense, which also is memory. Of sleep.—[8.] How phantasms succeed one another.—[9.] Dreams, whence they proceed.—[10.] Of the senses, their kinds, their organs, and phantasms proper and common.—[11.] The magnitude of images, how and by what it is determined.—[12.] Pleasure, pain, appetite and aversion, what they are.—[13.] Deliberation and will, what.
The connexion of what hath been said with that which followeth.
1. I have, in the first chapter, defined philosophy to be knowledge of effects acquired by true ratiocination, from knowledge first had of their causes and generation; and of such causes or generations as may be, from former knowledge of their effects or appearances. There are, therefore, two methods of philosophy; one, from the generation of things to their possible effects; and the other, from their effects or appearances to some possible generation of the same. In the former of these the truth of the first principles of our ratiocination, namely definitions, is made and constituted by ourselves, whilst we consent and agree about the appellations of things. And this part I have finished in the foregoing chapters; in which, if I am not deceived, I have affirmed nothing, saving the definitions themselves, which hath not good coherence with the definitions I have given; that is to say, which is not sufficiently demonstrated to all those, that agree with me in the use of words and appellations; for whose sake only I have written the same. I now enter upon the other part; which is the finding out by the appearances or effects of nature, which we know by sense, some ways and means by which they may be, I do not say they are, generated. The principles, therefore, upon which the following discourse depends, are not such as we ourselves make and pronounce in general terms, as definitions; but such, as being placed in the things themselves by the Author of Nature, are by us observed in them; and we make use of them in single and particular, not universal propositions. Nor do they impose upon us any necessity of constituting theorems; their use being only, though not without such general propositions as have been already demonstrated, to show us the possibility of some production or generation. Seeing, therefore, the science, which is here taught, hath its principles in the appearances of nature, and endeth in the attaining of some knowledge of natural causes, I have given to this part the title of Physics, or the Phenomena of Nature. Now such things as appear, or are shown to us by nature, we call phenomena or appearances.
Of all the phenomena or appearances which are near us, the most admirable is apparition itself, τὸ φαίνεσθαι; namely, that some natural bodies have in themselves the patterns almost of all things, and others of none at all. So that if the appearances be the principles by which we know all other things, we must needs acknowledge sense to be the principle by which we know those principles, and that all the knowledge we have is derived from it. And as for the causes of sense, we cannot begin our search of them from any other phenomenon than that of sense itself. But you will say, by what sense shall we take notice of sense? I answer, by sense itself, namely, by the memory which for some time remains in us of things sensible, though they themselves pass away. For he that perceives that he hath perceived, remembers.
In the first place, therefore, the causes of our perception, that is, the causes of those ideas and phantasms which are perpetually generated within us whilst we make use of our senses, are to be enquired into; and in what manner their generation proceeds. To help which inquisition, we may observe first of all, that our phantasms or ideas are not always the same; but that new ones appear to us, and old ones vanish, according as we apply our organs of sense, now to one object, now to another. Wherefore they are generated, and perish. And from hence it is manifest, that they are some change or mutation in the sentient.
The investigation of the nature of sense, and the definition of sense.