In the time of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, there were commonly reckoned to be five wits and five senses. The five wits were sometimes taken to be synonymous with the five senses, but were otherwise also known and regarded as the five inward wits, distinguishing them from the five senses, which were the five ''outward'' wits. Much of this conflation has resulted from changes in meaning. In

Early Modern English Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated EModEFor example, or EMnE) or Early New English (ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transit ...

, " wit" and "

sense A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the surroundings through the detection of Stimulus (physiology), stimuli. Although, in some cultures, five human senses were traditio ...

" overlapped in meaning. Both could mean a faculty of perception (although this sense dropped from the word "wit" during the 17th century). Thus "five wits" and "five senses" could describe both groups of wits/senses, the inward and the outward, although the common distinction, where it was made, was "five wits" for the inward and "five senses" for the outward. The inward and outward wits are a product of many centuries of philosophical and psychological thought, over which the concepts gradually developed, that have their origins in the works of

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

. The concept of five outward wits came to medieval thinking from Classical philosophy, and found its most major expression in Christian

devotional literature Christian devotional literature (also called devotionals or Christian living literature) is religious writing that Christianity, Christian individuals read for their personal growth and spiritual formation. Such literature often takes the form of ...

of the Middle Ages. The concept of five inward wits similarly came from Classical views on psychology. Modern thinking is that there are more than five (outward) senses, and the idea that there are five (corresponding to the gross anatomical features — eyes, ears, nose, skin, and mouth — of many higher animals) does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. (For more on this, see Definition of sense.) But the idea of five senses/wits from Aristotelian, medieval, and 16th century thought still lingers so strongly in modern thinking that a sense beyond the natural ones is still called a "sixth sense".

The "inward" wits

Stephen Hawes' poem ''Graunde Amoure'' shows that the five (inward) wits were "common wit", "imagination", "fantasy", "estimation", and "memory". "Common wit" corresponds to Aristotle's concept of ''common sense'' (

sensus communis Common sense () is "knowledge, judgement, and taste which is more or less universal and which is held more or less without reflection or argument". As such, it is often considered to represent the basic level of sound practical judgement or know ...

), and "estimation" roughly corresponds to the modern notion of

instinct Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements. The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to me ...

. Shakespeare himself refers to these wits several times, in ''

Romeo and Juliet ''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...

'' (Act I, scene 4, and Act II, scene iv), ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'' (Act III, scene iv), ''

Much Ado About Nothing ''Much Ado About Nothing'' is a Shakespearean comedy, comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599.See textual notes to ''Much Ado About Nothing'' in ''The Norton Shakespeare'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 ) p. ...

'' (Act I, scene i, 55), and ''

Twelfth Night ''Twelfth Night, or What You Will'' is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola an ...

'' (Act IV, scene ii, 92). He distinguished between the five wits and the five senses, as can be seen from Sonnet 141. The five wits are derived from the faculties of the soul that

describes in ''

De Anima ''On the Soul'' (Greek: , ''Peri Psychēs''; Latin: ) is a major treatise written by Aristotle . His discussion centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. Thus plant ...

''. The inward wits are part of medieval psychological thought.

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

translated

Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman Roman Senate, senator, Roman consul, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middl ...

' '' Consolation of Philosophy'' into Middle English. According to Chaucer's translation, "ymaginacioun" is the most basic internal faculty of perception. One can, with the imagination, call to mind the image of an object, either one directly experienced or a purely imaginary fabrication. Above that comes "resoun", by which such images of individual objects are related to the universal classes to which they belong. Above that comes "intelligence", which relates the universal classes to eternal "symple forme" (akin to a Platonic ideal). Humans are thus "sensible", "ymaginable", and "reasonable" (i.e. capable of sensing, imagination, and reason, as defined), all three of which feed into memory. (Intelligence is the sole remit of Divine Providence.) To that quartet is also added "phantasia", a creative facet of imagination. A famous example of this is given by

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

, who distinguishes between imagining

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...

, from memory (since he had been there), and imagining

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, a pure fantasy image of a place that he had never been to. Prior to the reformation in England, the five wits were used as a framework for lay people to examine their conscience before confession. They enumerated the five inward wits as will, reason, imagination, memory and thought.

The "outward" wits

The five (outward) senses, as described in Cursor Mundi, are "hering" (hearing), "sight", "smelling" (smell), "fele" (touch) and "cheuing" (taste). It relates them to the five Empedoclean elements (which Aristotle describes in '' De Caelo''), with sight coming from fire, hearing from the upper air (the aether), smell from the lower air, taste from water, and touch from earth. This definition of the origins of human senses was an exceedingly popular one throughout the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

in Europe, not least because of its rough agreement with chapter 30 of the

Second Book of Enoch The Second Book of Enoch (abbreviated as 2 Enoch and also known as Slavonic Enoch, Slavic Enoch, or the Secrets of Enoch) is a pseudepigraphic text in the apocalyptic genre. It describes the ascent of the patriarch Enoch, ancestor of Noah, throu ...

. The use of "wit" to describe these five senses is illustrated by ''The World and the Chylde'' (at right) and the following two quotations: This definition of five senses has its origins in thinkers that came after Aristotle. Aristotle himself, in '' De Sensu et Sensibilibus'' defined ''four'' senses: sight (associated with water because the eye contains water), sound (corresponding to air), smell (corresponding to fire), and touch (corresponding to earth). Aristotle viewed taste as merely a specialized form of touch, which he in turn viewed as the primary sense (because all life-forms possess it). He rejected the earlier view by

Democritus Democritus (, ; , ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, Thrace, Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an ...

that there was in fact only one sense, touch. Similarly,

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

, in '' Theaetetus'', has Socrates stating that there are innumerable senses without names, and that the senses with names include hearing, sight, smell, senses of heat and cold, pleasure, pain, desire, and fear.

Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, ...

defined five senses, saying "Ex quinque his sensibus quose animantibus natura tribit, visu, auditu, gustu, tactu, odoratu, quas Graeci αισθητεισ appellant" ("Nature has given five senses to living beings, sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, called αισθητεισ by the Greeks"). But there is no evidence that this

topos In mathematics, a topos (, ; plural topoi or , or toposes) is a category that behaves like the category of sheaves of sets on a topological space (or more generally, on a site). Topoi behave much like the category of sets and possess a notio ...

existed in the thinking of the Anglo-Saxons, since

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

does not possess the requisite taxonomy, and has difficulty with translations of Latin texts that do. The concept of there being five senses occurs in Christian sermons, devotional literature, and religious allegories of

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

, although not all authors agreed exactly which senses the five were.

Peter Damian Peter Damian (; or '; – 21 or 22 February 1072 or 1073) was an Italian Gregorian Reform, reforming Order of Saint Benedict, Benedictine Christian monasticism, monk and cardinal (Catholicism), cardinal in the circle of Pope Leo ...

in the 11th century correlated the five wounds that Jesus suffered during his crucifixion with the five senses, which was echoed by John Bromyard in ''Summa cantium'', although the latter only explicitly mentions hearing, touch, taste, and sight. By the 14th century, Richard Rolle was giving the formulation of five senses that is now familiar: Chaucer had the same formulation:

The "inward" wits

The "outward" wits

See also

References

Further reading