Leviathan

Concerning the Thoughts of man I will consider them first Singly and afterwards in Trayne or dependance upon one another. Singly they are every one a Representation or Apparence of some quality or other Accident of a body without us; which is commonly called an Object. Which Object worketh on the Eyes Eares and other parts of mans body; and by diversity of working produceth diversity of Apparences. The Originall of them all is that which we call Sense; (For there is no conception in a mans mind which hath not at first totally or by parts been begotten upon the organs of Sense.) The rest are derived from that originall. To know the naturall cause of Sense is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have els-where written of the same at large. Nevertheless to fill each part of my present method I will briefly deliver the same in this place. The cause of Sense is the Externall Body or Object which presseth the organ proper to each Sense either immediatly as in the Tast 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 it self: 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 Eare in a Sound; To the Nostrill in an Odour; To the Tongue and Palat in a Savour; and to the rest of the body in Heat Cold Hardnesse Softnesse 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 diversly. Neither in us that are pressed are they anything els but divers motions; (for motion produceth nothing but motion.) But their apparence 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 Eare produceth a dinne; 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 bee severed from them as by glasses and in Ecchoes by reflection wee see they are; where we know the thing we see is in one place; the apparence in another. And though at some certain distance the reall 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 els but originall fancy caused (as I have said) by the pressure that is by the motion of externall things upon our Eyes Eares and other organs thereunto ordained.