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If you were to ask any nine-year-old to name the “five senses,” there’s little doubt that you'd receive a prompt and correct reply. However, it would be far more difficult these days to find anyone, young or old, who has even heard of the five wits. What was once known to every member of society – from the smallest child to the most sophisticated adult – is all but forgotten today.
The five wits, or interior senses, complement the exterior senses of taste, touch, hearing, sight and smell. As useful as these familiar senses are, a clue to how essential the interior senses are is found in the expression “to lose one’s wits.” Comprising memory, judgement, fancy, imagination and common sense, the five wits are employed as we go about our business every day.
An extremely popular animated film from several years ago featured to great comic effect a sincere but hapless fish who could not recall anything of her past, even up to the moment. Memory enables us to move forward, drawing upon our experiences, usually unconsciously. Without memory, we would be quite at a loss, blundering through every moment with no frame of reference.
Another of the wits that sustains our daily activities is the power of judgement (also known as estimation). Facilitating a reasonable assessment of our abilities in any given situation, judgement is critical to decisions ranging from the appropriate response in a social situation to projecting future outcomes for any endeavor. It is to be hoped that this faculty is in operation when we are planning any long- or short-term course of action.
The interior sense that permits us to step outside of ourselves and our direct experience is fancy. Shakespeare’s minstrel asks, “Tell me, where is fancy bred/Or in the heart, or in the head?” This faculty might be associated with dreamers – and rightly so. It is what sets innovators apart from the crowd. The iPod, for example, is a product of fancy; its invention was a radical departure from any gadgets that were in existence at the time, and illustrates the power of this seemingly lightweight faculty.
The fourth wit, often confused with fancy, is imagination. This sense is a great facilitator, reconciling particular ideas to universal principles, as well as shaping our recollections into a mental vision. While fancy conjures up the previously unknown, imagination sorts out what is known and applies it creatively.
Finally, common sense, the fifth wit, helps us to keep our feet on the ground and enables us to make sense of our world. Although (as has often been observed) it may not seem to be very common sometimes, this faculty is essential for all of us. A healthy supply of common sense, in fact, makes having a sixth sense (or would that be an eleventh?) superfluous.
