Chapter VIII.

Of the Senses, and of Those Things which are Objects of the Senses,

The Stoics give this definition of sense: Sense is the Apprehension or comprehension of an object by means of an organ of sensation. There are several ways of expressing what sense is; it is either a habit, a faculty, an operation, or an imagination which apprehends by means of an organ of sense - and also the eighth principal thing, from whence the senses originate. The instruments of sense are intelligent exhalations, which from the said commanding part extend unto all the organs of the body. Epicurus, that sense is a faculty, and that which is perceived by the sense is the product of it; so that sense hath a double acceptation - sense which is the faculty, and the thing received by the sense, which is the effect. Plato, that sense is that commerce which the soul and body have with those things that are exterior to them; the power of which is from the soul, the organ by which is from the body; but both of them apprehend external objects by means of the imagination. Leucippus and Democritus, that sense and intelligence arise from external images; so neither of them can operate without the assistance of image falling upon us.