Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/164

 then the Tast, which doth not perceive but those that are nigh. But the touch perceives both wayes, for it perceives bodies nigh; and as Sight discerns by the medium of the Aire, so the touch perceives by the medium of a stick or pole, bodies Hard, Soft, and Moist. Now the touch only is common to all animals. For it is most certain that man hath this sense, and in this, and tast he excels all other animals, but in the other three he is excelled by some animals, as by a Dog, who Hears, Sees, and Smels more acutely then Man, and the Linx, and Eagles see more acutely then all other Animals, & Man. Now the interior senses are, according to Averrois, divided into four, whereof the first is called Common sence, because it doth first collect, and perfect all the representations which are drawn in by the outward senses. The second is the imaginative power, whose office is, seeing it represents nothing, to retain those representations which are received by the former senses, and to present them to the third faculty of inward sense, which is the phantasie, or power of judging, whose work is also to perceive, and judge by the representations received, what or what kind of thing that is of which the representations are, and to commit those things which are thus discerned, and adjudged, to the memory to be kept. For the vertues thereof in generall, are discourse, dispositions, persecutions, and flights, and stirrings up to action: but in particular, the understanding of intellectuals, vertues, the manner of Discipline, Counsel, Election. And this is that which shews us future things by dreams: whence the Fancy is sometimes named the Phantasticall Intellect. For it is the last impression of the understanding; which, as saith Iamblicus, is belonging to all the powers of the mind, and forms all figures, resemblances of species, and operations, and things seen, and sends forth the impressions of other powers unto others: And those things which appear by sence, it stirs up into an opinion, but those things which appear by the Intellect, in the second place it offers to opinion, but of it self it receives images from all, and by its property, doth properly assign them, according to their assimilation, forms all the actions of the soul, and accommodates the externall to the internall, and impresses