Ars Brevis

bullet1 9. Subjects

bullet2 6. The Sensitive

6. The Sixth Subject, or the Sensitive Power

The principles and the rules are in the sensitive power in a specific way. One of its powers is sight, hearing is another etc. And this is mainly due to two properties, namely instinct and appetite. Here is its definition: the sensitive is the power whose proper function is to sense things. The sensitive power causes objects to be sensed with its own specific principles and rules. It is general throughout the common sense, and particular in each particular sense. On account of the common sense it has common correlatives, and it has particular correlatives for the particular senses. The sensitive lives on the vegetative life in which it is rooted, connected and planted just like the vegetative in the elementative. The sensitive senses objects with all the senses; for instance, it senses colored objects through sight, and voices through hearing, by means of the affatus that gives things names. Without the affatus, the hearing cannot sense a voice. And here the intellect realizes that the affatus is a sense.