CHAPTER IV 



METAPHYSICAL CONCEPTIONS OF THE SENSES 



A RATIONALISTIC author says : " We deny that the 

 senses even occasionally deceive us "} Let him place 

 his hand in water at 35° F., and then in water of 60°, 

 when the water will feel decidedly warm ; but if he had 

 first placed it in very hot water and then transferred it to 

 water at 60°, this latter temperature would feel quite 

 cold. " Colour blindness " most certainly does " occasion- 

 ally deceive us," and hearing sounds is by no means 

 infallible. 



So again he says, " The testimony of the senses is 

 ultimate and irrefragable truth," ^ and that there is "no 

 such firm basis in Religion ". 



It is easy enough to deceive the senses, not only that 

 of touch but that of sight. A person looking in a stereo- 

 scope for the first time would suppose the single object 

 was one of three dimensions or solid ; whereas he would 

 find two pictures and both of them flat. 



Again, looking at a mask on the hollow surface or 

 inside, with a strong light upon it, the mask will appear 

 solid like a face, so that to say the senses are an ultimate 

 test and irrefragable is scarcely true. One sense must be 

 corrected if possible by another, but this is not always 

 practicable. 



By reducing psychology to physiology Haeckel would 



1 Mr. Balfour's Apologetics, p. 22. "^Op. cit., p. 28, 



(251) 



