252 ON THE SENSES. 



and inexhaustibly varied signification of tliat language, the living sense which 

 the dead sign acquires through the operation of the thinking spirit. It is the 

 sense of feeling, whose nature and operations I shall first address myself to 

 discuss, as it is in relation to this sense probably that intelligible ideas can be most 

 readily conveyed to the general reader. At another time, perhaps, I may be 

 permitted to attempt a popular exposition of the rest of the senses, especially 

 the more complex ones of seeing and hearing, for which certainly a more com- 

 prehensive apparatus of previously acquu-ed physical knowledge will be re- 

 quisite. 



If we ask, in the first place, what a sensation of touch is, no other reply can 

 be given than an enumeration of the manifold kinds of sensation which pertain 

 to this class ; what is felt we cannot define, nor assign any characteristic token 

 of the sensation. An explanation through the cause of the sensation, as, for 

 instance, that the sensation of heat is that which results from the touch of a 

 heated body, is no definition, merely a paraphrase, which gives us not the 

 slightest insight into the nature of the sensation itself. Neither the feeling of 

 pain nor hunger admits of being described, but can only be experienced, and 

 were there any fortunate individual who had never felt bodily pain, and wished 

 to know what pain is, we should never be able to satisfy his curiosity by words, 

 but only by communicating to him a sensation of pain, from which he might 

 prosecute his study of the idea at leisure. We must rely then entirely upon 

 the experience of the reader when we recount the impressions of this sense ; 

 the knowledge of their nature can only consist in a remembrance of the sensa- 

 tions experienced. Sensations of ^;az^, tickling, shuddering, pleasure, hunger, 

 thirst, pressure, heat, and cold, are the different qualities of this feeling; other 

 distinctions, it is true, obtain in common language, but, as will readily be seen, 

 without reason. The generality of mankind are prone, as regards pain alone, 

 to distinguish many various qualities, such as boring, burning, pricking, tearing, 

 &c. ; the sensation of pain, however, has probably but one quality, and the 

 varieties named are to be referred merely to diiferenc'es in its duration and in- 

 tensity. Since we cannot, in general, more closely chai'acterize any of these 

 qualities of feeling, it is, of course, impossible to compare them and express in 

 words the distinction between them. The above-named sensations admit, how- 

 ever, of a division into two distinctly marked classes, one of which, being the 

 more definite, may be designated as the sensation of touch, (tastempfinduug,) 

 the other as common feeling, (gemeingefiihl.) To the latter pertain sensations 

 of pain, shuddering, tickling, pleasure, hunger, and thirst; to tlie former those 

 of pressure and of temperature. The distinction between the classes will be 

 elucidated by the following example. If we touch an object with the finger 

 there arises a sense of pressure, but at the same time, as has been already 

 stated, an idea not alone of the existence of an external object as cause of the 

 pressure, but also of its size and form, the condition of its surface, its solidity 

 and weight. If, on the other hand, we touch hot iron, there results a purely 

 subjective sensation of pain, from which alone the mind derives no representa- 

 tion of the object which inflicts the pain and of its qualities ; or, to choose a 

 striking example, when pain is felt within the body, with but an obscure per- 

 ception of the place of suffering, the mind is unable to form from the painful 

 sensation the representation of an object through contact with which the pain 

 may be occasioned, or of the properties, form, and extent of that object. The 

 essential diflference, to be more fully explained hereafter, betv>^een a common 

 sensation and one of touch, consists, then, in this — that in the former it is the 

 isolated subjective sensation which excites consciousness, while with the latter 

 are associated objective ideas, through which alone the mind obtains a knowl- 

 edge of the outward world in its manifold relations. And hence is the sensa- 

 tion of touch a genuine function of the sense, which the common feeling of 

 pain is not. 



