Chase.] lob [Feb. 7, 



waves strike the drum of the ear, awakening answering vibrations in the 

 organs of the inner ear, where they arc received by the delicate branching 

 fibres of the auditory nerve and sent to the brain. There Consciousness 

 receives them, not as waves, nor as motions of any kind, nor even as light, 

 but as transformed, by the soul's spiritual activity, into a new order of 

 spiritual conceptions ; conceptions which have a reality of the highest de- 

 gree, but a reality which exists only so long as it is upheld by the power of 

 intelligence. 



Taste and smell are more nearly alike than any other two senses, and 

 they may be examined together. The influence of wave motion is not so 

 evident in them as in sight and hearing, but there is no reason for doubt- 

 ing that the gustatory and auditory and all other nerves transmit their im- 

 pressions to the brain and receive their influences from the brain, by 

 waves or beats. Tyndall's investigations show a striking resemblance be- 

 tween odors and vapors in their absorption and radiation of heat ; sapid 

 substances are always soluble, and taste is not excited until some solution 

 is made. Both these senses, therefore, require a preliminary breaking up 

 of cohesion, and consequent increase of active elasticity. The "kinetic 

 theory of gases," which was first proposed by Daniel Bernouilli, supposes 

 that they are formed of material particles, animated by very rapid move- 

 ments, and that the tension of elastic fluids results from the shock of their 

 particles against the sides of the vessels which enclose them. In discus- 

 sing the theory most physicists, and perhaps all, have assumed the motions of 

 the particles to be rectilinear, but cosmical analogies indicate a probability 

 that they may be more often elliptical, and perhaps often parabolic or 

 hyperbolic. The likelihood of continual internal motion, of some kind or 

 other, amounts to moral or practical certainty ; the probability that taste 

 and smell are in the same category as sight and hearing, objectively as well 

 as subjectively, is, therefore, incalculably great, and if some skilful physi- 

 ologist should announce the discovery and measurement of waves of smell 

 and taste, the discovery would awaken great interest but little or no sur- 

 prise. While awaiting the discovery we know that the throbs of the 

 different nerves, which terminate in the mouth and nose, finally reach 

 the brain, where Consciousness receives them, not as waves, nor as motions 

 of an}' kind, nor even as light nor as sound, but as taste and smell. The 

 spiritual wonder-worker again uses its transforming power to set forth new 

 orders of conceptions ; conceptions full of living reality, but a reality 

 which requires the action of intelligence, both to call it into being and to 

 maintain its existence. 



The sense of touch seems so completely to underlie all the others, that 

 they are often spoken of as modifications of touch. There are, however, 

 some special considerations, connected with the general sensitiveness of the 

 skin, which are worthy of notice. Many of the most important bodily 

 sensations, at least in a physiological point of view, are dependant on tem- 

 perature. One of the most interesting modern physical treatises is Tyn- 

 dall's " Heat as a mode of motion." In that work, the successor of Fara- 



