Touching.] Touch, the last of the senses, and most ignoble, yet of as great necessity as the other, and of as much pleasure.  This sense is exquisite in men, and by his nerves dispersed all over the body, perceives any tactile quality.  His organ the nerves; his object those first qualities, hot, dry, moist, cold; and those that follow them, hard, soft, thick, thin, &c.  Many delightsome questions are moved by philosophers about these five senses; their organs, objects, mediums, which for brevity I omit.

SUBSECT.  VII.—­Of the Inward Senses.

Common Sense.] Inner senses are three in number, so called, because they be within the brainpan, as common sense, phantasy, memory.  Their objects are not only things present, but they perceive the sensible species of things to come, past, absent, such as were before in the sense.  This common sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects; for by mine eye I do not know that I see, or by mine ear that I hear, but by my common sense, who judgeth of sounds and colours:  they are but the organs to bring the species to be censured; so that all their objects are his, and all their offices are his.  The fore part of the brain is his organ or seat.

Phantasy.] Phantasy, or imagination, which some call estimative, or cogitative, (confirmed, saith [989]Fernelius, by frequent meditation,) is an inner sense which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, of things present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind again, or making new of his own.  In time of sleep this faculty is free, and many times conceive strange, stupend, absurd shapes, as in sick men we commonly observe.  His organ is the middle cell of the brain; his objects all the species communicated to him by the common sense, by comparison of which he feigns infinite other unto himself.  In melancholy men this faculty is most powerful and strong, and often hurts, producing many monstrous and prodigious things, especially if it be stirred up by some terrible object, presented to it from common sense or memory.  In poets and painters imagination forcibly works, as appears by their several fictions, antics, images:  as Ovid’s house of sleep, Psyche’s palace in Apuleius, &c.  In men it is subject and governed by reason, or at least should be; but in brutes it hath no superior, and is ratio brutorum, all the reason they have.

Memory.] Memory lays up all the species which the senses have brought in, and records them as a good register, that they may be forthcoming when they are called for by phantasy and reason.  His object is the same with phantasy, his seat and organ the back part of the brain.