"By the apprehensive power we perceive the species of sensible things present, or absent, and retain them as wax doth the print of a seal."
— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)
Author
Date
1651
Metaphor
"By the apprehensive power we perceive the species of sensible things present, or absent, and retain them as wax doth the print of a seal."
Metaphor in Context
Next in order is the sensible faculty, which is as far beyond the other in dignity, as a beast is preferred to a plant, having those vegetal powers included in it. 'Tis defined an "Act of an organical body by which it lives, hath sense, appetite, judgment, breath, and motion." His object in general is a sensible or passible quality, because the sense is affected with it. The general organ is the brain, from which principally the sensible operations are derived. This sensible soul is divided into two parts, apprehending or moving. By the apprehensive power we perceive the species of sensible things present, or absent, and retain them as wax doth the print of a seal. By the moving, the body is outwardly carried from one place to another; or inwardly moved by spirits and pulse. The apprehensive faculty is subdivided into two parts, inward or outward. Outward, as the five senses, of touching, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, to which you may add Scaliger's sixth sense of titillation, if you please; or that of speech, which is the sixth external sense, according to Lullius. Inward are three--common sense, phantasy, memory. Those five outward senses have their object in outward things only, and such as are present, as the eye sees no colour except it be at hand, the ear sound. Three of these senses are of commodity, hearing, sight, and smell; two of necessity, touch, and taste, without which we cannot live. Besides, the sensitive power is active or passive. Active in sight, the eye sees the colour; passive when it is hurt by his object, as the eye by the sunbeams. According to that axiom, visibile forte destruit sensum. Or if the object be not pleasing, as a bad sound to the ear, a stinking smell to the nose, &c.
Categories
Provenance
Distributed Proofreaders text: produced by Karl Hagen and D. Moynihan.
Date of Entry
09/21/2006
