262 From Matter to Man. 



message to the brain, and all expecting an answer in 

 return ; every initiative or will action must have 

 countless numbers of stimuli, all acting unconsciously. 

 For though we are unaware of their action, the 

 stimulus in a snuff-box, which causes us to sneeze, is 

 not more real than these imperceptible and unnoticed 

 environing stimuli. 



However distasteful the statement may thus be 

 to the vanity of philosophers, we see no absolute 

 freedom of action in man. We have no absolute will. 

 Possessing a certain deliberation in our movements 

 through the cultivation of our senses, and our experi- 

 ence or knowledge gained through them, we yet are 

 at bottom living marionettes completely at the mercy 

 of our environments. 



Section 4. The Mind as a Five- Sense Organ : 

 Recent discoveries in vermes and fishes of sense- 

 organs and, consequently, of senses different from the 

 normal five senses possessed by all the higher animals 

 in this planet, throw a new light on mental problems 

 which is bound to revolutionise philosophy. For 

 while we are five-sense animals only, with a five-sense 

 mind, there may be beings in other spheres endowed 

 with six, seven, or more senses, the purposes and uses 

 of which we cannot even imagine, and covering a 

 range of intelligence impossible for us to realise. As 

 the limits of human knowledge are the limits of the 

 operations of our five senses, it is thus as impossible 

 for us to attain the " absolute knowledge " of a 



