THE SENSE OF FEELDsG. 251 



the language of novicea and poets, but even in that of sober science, physicists 

 and physiologists still continuing 1o write of blue and red light, sounding 

 strings, &:c., as of old. But to proceed to other misconceptions. You press with 

 the sensitive points of yoiu- fingers against some object, and believe that you 

 feel this object immediately as one existing without your own body ; in other 

 words, the perception of the object touched seems a direct sensation, seems to 

 be the substance of the sensation. Now, this is an illusion, a confounding of 

 sensation with idea. 



The perception of the object touched is a representation which the mind forms 

 for itself from the sensation by help of certain recogniticms derived from expe- 

 rience — an interpretation of the simple sensation, which the mind has patiently 

 learned to supply in the years of childhood, but it is by no means the sensation 

 itself Could you be suddenly carried back to the first days of life, and with 

 matured understanding observe the first sensations of your self-educating mind, 

 you would become aware that from the touching of an object there results at first 

 only what we may call, but scarce define in words, a sensation of pressure; that 

 in the simple, original, suhjective sensatiou there exists no perception of the place 

 of contact or part of the skin pressed. The mind first gradually learns, by 

 circuitous procedures, to be described below, that certain qualifying differences 

 in the sensation are deteimined through the different points at which the skin 

 is pressed, and thus first learns to set itself right as regards its widespread 

 organ of feeling. The mind knows nothing at the outset of objects without us; 

 this knowledge it first learns through the conscious movements of the organs of 

 feeling, whereby it is taught that the same movement of a finger is now ac- 

 companied with a sensation of pressure, and now is not. The idea of external 

 objects of sensation once acquired, it is easy, even without the help of the sense 

 of sight, which must itself pass through the same schooling, to recognize an 

 outer object as cause of the sensation, thus imparting to the latter the character 

 of objectivity. The mind rapidly acquires practice in the interpretation of its 

 sensations, no longer needs reflection to assign to each of them the appropriate 

 idea, and finally connects this last so unconsciously and quickly with the sensa- 

 tion that they present themselves simultaneously. Forgetting the mental ap- 

 plication by which this association has been brought about, the adult man takes 

 the sensatiou and idea for one, or rather conceives the last to be the very essence 

 of the sensation. This error is a general one, and becomes established in the pro- 

 cess of mental development, so that nothing less was needed than the perspica- 

 city and penetrating psychical analysis of one of our most eminent physiolo- 

 gists to fix irrevocably for science the precise boundary between sensation and 

 idea, ( VorstclJung.) This service we OAve to C. H. Weber, and yet, despite 

 the light which he has thrown upon it, a young physiologist has lati ly striven 

 anew and obstinately to defend the existence of an objective sensation of touch, 

 (tastempfiudung,) a sensation, the immediate and real essence of which is the 

 perception of an object touched. We could adduce many examples of the con- 

 fusion of sensations, and representations immediately derived therefrom,, for 

 each sense affords them in abundance ; nay, we are prone wholly to forget that 

 the sensations are subjective, and think that our senses penetrate into the out- 

 ward world, while, on the contrary, it is the outward world which penetrates 

 through the senses into us. We speak of a force of vision, which carries our 

 sight forth as it were into the immeasurable distance, while it is from the im- 

 measurable distance that the waves of light pulsate into the interior of our 

 eyes, and it is in the secret recesses of the brain that the mind first gathers the 

 sensation from the appulse of the currents of the nerves. 



I could hope, by these preliminary remarks, to have excited in my readers 

 an interest in the mysterious functions of the senses, and the desire to bear me 

 company in a survey of their practical workings, to the end that we may catch 

 their sign-language in its natural simplicity, and eventually analyze the high 



