It must be admitted, for the senses in general, that each one is receptive of the perceptible forms of things without the matter, as wax takes the impress from a seal-ring, without the iron or gold of which the ring is made; —takes the device, that is, without the metal on which the device is inscribed. In like manner, the sense is impressed by each object having colour, or savour, or sound; not, however, after the appellation of the object but, according as it is of a certain quality, and in a given relation to the sense. It is the primal organ in which this faculty exists; and it is identical with the object perceived, although different from it in mode of being; for, otherwise, the percipient would be some kind of magnitude. But it cannot belong either to that percipient or to sensation to be magnitude, as they are rather a relation to, and a faculty for the perception of the qualities of each object. Thus, it is, from these reasons, made manifest why sentient impressions in excess destroy the sentient organs; for if the motion of the impression be stronger than that of the organ, then the relation
