SPACE 17 



Organisation means a unity in which the different parts 

 ^e combined into a whole through the agency of a common 

 activity. This holds good for the organisation of our body 

 as well as of our mind. Now the different activities of the 

 mind are so closely connected with the activities of the various 

 organs of the body {sight with the activity of the eye^ hearing 

 with that of the ear, and so forth), that we draw the following, 

 conclusion : — in some way or other,, each organ of the body 

 corresponds to an organ of the mind. Through the manifold 

 experience of every day, we learn that the suppression pi 

 an organ leads, as a consequence, to the suppression of an 

 activity of the mind. 



Here we see a way in which we may solve the twofold 

 problem of space. Let us try to find an organ of the body 

 whose removal influences our space-forming activity, either by 

 destroying the direction-signs or by suppression of the planes 

 of direction. 



Cyon established the much-contested theory that the 

 semicircular canals of our ear stand in relation to the three 

 planes of direction. It is impossible to perform the decisive 

 experiment on ourselves. We cannot put this mysterious 

 organ out of action by stopping up the external auditory 

 meatus, as we can put the eye out of action simply by closing 

 the eyelids. We are obliged therefore to resort to ambiguous 

 animal experiment. We must first ask ourselves what visible 

 disturbances of the outside world would appear in our own 

 case if we were suddenly deprived of the direction-planes of 

 our own space, and then find out whether animals deprived 

 of their semicircular canals show corresponding disturbances. 



The planes of direction permit of our transforming the 

 relative position of a movement in space into an absolute 

 position, because the individual direction-signs, by reason of 

 their fixed relation to the planes, appear like separate stitches 

 sewn in a firm canvas. Removal of the semicircular canals 



B 



