COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



light which endures for one second is composed 

 of at least a million successive sensations, each 

 one of which, if separately excited, would rise 

 into consciousness and be recognized as a flash 

 of light. Now, as this flash of electric light 

 is cognized as white, it follows that the cog- 

 nizable sensation which lasts for one millionth 

 of a second is really made up of at least three 

 sub-conscious psychical states, which, if they 

 were severally to rise into consciousness, would 

 be severally cognized as red, green, and violet 

 flashes, — these being the primitive elements of 

 which the consciousness of white light is com- 

 posed.^ This fact alone shows that the method 

 by which a sensation is formed out of sub-con- 

 scious psychical changes is essentially the same 

 in the eye and in the ear. 



No such elaborate investigations have been 

 made with reference to the other peripheral sen- 

 sations. Yet in the cases of smell and taste, 

 the argument is not essentially different from 

 what it is in the cases of hearing and vision. 

 The physical antecedent, either of smell or taste, 

 is a chemical reaction between particles of the 

 odorous or sapid substance, and the ends of 

 the olfactory or gustatory nerve fibrils. Now, a 

 chemical reaction implies an enormous number 



1 [This assertion is based upon hypotheses as to the nature 

 of colour vision which are no longer generally held by recent 

 experimental psychologists.] 



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