The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon

and the second book De Anima, and it judges the diversity of sensibles, such as that in milk there is a white thing other than the sweet thing, which sight cannot do, nor taste, because they do not discern the extremes, as Aristotle intends in the second book De Anima. And it judges the operations of the particular senses, for sight does not feel itself seeing, nor does hearing perceive itself hearing, but another faculty which is the common sense, as Aristotle intends in the second book De Somno et Vigilia On Sleep and Waking. Its ultimate operation, however, is to receive the species coming from the particular senses and to complete the judgment concerning them. But it does not retain them because of the excessive lubricity of its instrument, according to what Avicenna intends in the first book De Anima. And therefore it is necessary that there be another faculty of the soul in the last part of the first cell, whose duty is to retain the species coming from the particular senses because of its tempered humidity and dryness; this is called the imagination, and it is the chest and repository of the common sense, according to Avicenna, who gives the example of a seal, the species of which water receives well, but does not retain because of its superfluous humidity; wax, however, retains it well because of its tempered humidity along with its dryness. Whence he says that it is one thing to receive and another to retain, as is evident in these examples. And thus it is in the organ of the common sense and the imagination. And yet the entire faculty composed of these two, namely, that which occupies the entire first cell, is called the phantasia fantasy/imagination. For from the second book De Anima and De Somno et Vigilia and the book De Sensu et Sensato it is evident that the phantasia and the common sense are the same according to the subject, differing according to being, as Aristotle says, and that the phantasia and imagination are the same according to the subject, differing according to being. Therefore, the phantasia comprehends both faculties, and does not differ from them except as the whole differs from a part. And therefore, since the common sense receives the species and the imagination retains it, a complete judgment of the thing follows, which the phantasia exercises.

CHAPTER III.

Concerning the sensibles, which are felt by their own senses, and by the common sense and the imagination.

It must be known that the imagination and the common sense and the sense...