David Hume divides "perceptions of the mind" into "two classes or species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less forcible and lively are commonly denominated THOUGHTS or IDEAS, The other species want a name in our language, and, in most others....Let us then, therefore, use a little freedom, and call them IMPRESSIONS....By the term impression, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned." ~ An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

In his Dictionary of 1755, Samuel Johnson defines "Fancy": contracted from phantasia, Latin. "Imagination; the power by which the mind forms to itself images and representations of things, persons, and scenes of being."

Johnson includes this quote from Milton's Paradise Lost to illustrate "fancy:"

In the soul

Are many lesser faculties, that serve

Reason as chief: among these fancy next

Her office holds; of all external things,

Which the five watchful senses represent,

She forms imaginations, airy shapes,

Which reason joining, or disjoining, frames

ALl what we affirm, or what deny, and call

Our knowledge, or opinion.

According to the The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition (2000), Definition number 7 for RENDER is: Computer Science To convert (graphics) from a file into visual form, as on a video display.

Robert Fludd's Ars Memoriae (1619) frontespiece

Tell me where is fancy bred,

Or in the heart or in the head?

How begot, how nourished?

Reply, reply.

It is engendered in the eyes,

With gazing fed, and fancy dies

In the cradle where it lies.

Let us all ring fancy’s knell.

I’ll begin it. Ding, dong, bell.

Shakespeare

Song from Merchant of Venice

"but Fancy creates of its own accord whatsoever it pleases, and delights in its own work. The end of Reason, is Truth; the end of Fancy, is Fiction: But mistake me not, when I distinguish Fancy from Reason; I mean not as if Fancy were not made by the Rational parts of Matter; but by Reason I understand a rational search and enquiry into the causes of natural effects; and by Fancy a voluntary creation or production of the Mind, both being effects, or rather actions of the rational part of Matter"

Margaret Cavendish

The Blazing World