30 BEING AND FACULTIES OF MAN. 



performed under the influence of anaesthetic agents, 

 by means of which the Consciousness has been rendered 

 dormant for the time. What we call physical pain is, 

 however, produced by injury or violence to the physical 

 system, and is only felt by the Consciousness in connection 

 with the affected part of that system. Yet physical pain 

 is not in the physical system, nor in the injury done to it : 

 neither is it in the Consciousness apart from the physical 

 system. Pain must therefore be an injury done to the 

 Consciousness itself when present in the portion of the 

 physical system which is injured. It has been already 

 stated that Consciousness is present in the sensation of 

 touch, when that sensation is experienced, and is in actual 

 contact in our physical touch with the object touched. 

 Let us suppose that in the act of touching we receive a 

 cut, as in touching accidentally a sharp razor. The part, or 

 rather surface of touch, is here severed. But are we not 

 entitled to say the Consciousness is also partially severed, 

 and that this is what constitutes pain in the Consciousness 

 by a cut ? In like manner, when a burn or scald is ex- 

 perienced by touching, is not the Consciousness present in 

 the touch burnt or scalded, for it is really the Conscious- 

 ness that perceives the pain of cutting, scalding, or 

 burning, where these are felt, and not the physical parts 

 affected, to which we by indiscriminate language usually 

 ascribe the sensation ? When anaesthesia separates the 

 Consciousness from the part to be operated upon, no 

 sensation of pain is felt, though all the physical parts 

 are treated in precisely the same way as if there had been 

 all the Usual sensations of pain attending the operation. 

 And this fact would seem to suggest that if the Conscious- 

 ness were rendered dormant by anaesthesia, when attracted 

 to the extremity of a limb which in that state was ampu- 

 tated, the amputation of the limb, while the Consciousness 

 was in its extremity dormant, might possibly even sever the 



