CHAPTEK XX. 



THE PERCEPTION OF SPACE.* 

 THE FEELING OF CRUDE EXTENSITY. 



In the sensations of hearing, touch, sight, and pain we are 

 Qjccustomed to distinguish from among the other elements the 

 element of voluminoiiS7iess. We call the reverberations of a 

 thunderstorm more voluminous than the squeaking of a 

 slate-pencil ; the entrance into a warm bath gives our skin 

 a more massive feeling than the prick of a pin ; a little 

 neuralgic pain, fine as a cobweb, in the face, seems less ex- 

 tensive than the heavy soreness of a boil or the vast discom- 

 fort of a colic or a lumbago ; and a solitary star looks smaller 

 than the noonday sky. In the sensation of dizziness or 

 subjective motion, which recent investigation has proved 

 to be connected with stimulation of the semi-circular canals 

 of the ear, the spatial character is very prominent. Whether 

 the ' muscular sense ' directly yields us knowledge of space 

 is still a matter of litigation among psychologists. Whilst 

 some go so far as to ascribe our entire cognition of exten- 

 sion to its exclusive aid, others deny to it all extensive 

 quality whatever. Under these circumstances we shall do 

 better to adjourn its consideration ; admitting, however, that 

 it seems at first sight as if we felt something decidedly 

 more voluminous when we contract our thigh-muscles than 

 when we twitch an eyelid or some small muscle in the face. 

 It seems, moreover, as if this difierence lay in the feeling 

 of the thigh-muscles themselves. 



In the sensations of smell and taste this element of 

 varying vastness seems less prominent but not altogether 

 absent. Some tastes and smells appear less extensive than 

 complex flavors, like that of roast meat or plum pudding, 

 on the one hand, or heavy odors like musk or tuberose, on 



* Reprinted, with considerable revision, from ' Mind ' for 1887. 



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