THE PERCEPTION OF SPACE. 155 



sensations thus originally localized " are only so in them- 

 selves, but not in the representation of consciousness, which 

 is not 3^et present. . . . They are, in the first instance, de- 

 void of all mutual relations with each other." But such a 

 localization of the sensation 'in itself ' would seem to mean 

 nothing more than the susceptibility or potentiality of being 

 distinctly localized when the time came and other conditions 

 became fulfilled. Can we now discover anything about such 

 susceptibility in itself before it has borne its ulterior fruits 

 in the developed consciousness ? 



'Local Signs. ^ 



To begin with, every sensation of the skin and every vis- 

 ceral sensation seems to derive from its topographic seat 

 a peculiar shade of feeling, which it would not have in 

 another place. And this feeling per se seems quite another 

 thing from the perception of the place. Says Wundt * : 



" If with the finger we touch first the cheek and then the palm, 

 exerting each time precisely the same pressure, the sensation shows not- 

 withstanding a distinctly marked difference in the two cases. Similarly, 

 when we compare the palm with the back of the hand, the nape of the 

 neck with its anterior surface, the breast with the back ; in short, any 

 two distant parts of the skin with each other. And moreover, we easily 

 remark, by attentively observing, that spots even tolerably close 

 together differ in respect of the quality of their feeling. If we pass 

 from one point of our cutaneous surface to another, we find a perfectly 

 gradual and continuous alteration in our feeling, notwithstanding the 

 objective nature of the contact has remained the same. Even the sen- 

 sations of corresponding points on opposite sides of the body, though, 

 similar, are not identical. If, for instance, we touch first the back of one 

 hand and then of the other, we remark a qualitative unlikeness of 

 sensation. It must not be thought that such differences are mere mat- 

 ters of imagination, and that we take the sensations to be different 

 because we represent each of them to ourselves as occupying a different 

 place. With sufficient sharpening of the attention, -we may, confining 

 ourselves to the quality of the feelings alone, entirely abstract from, 

 their locality, and yet notice the differences quite as markedly. " 



*Vorlesungen ilb. Menschen- u. Thierseele (Leipzig, 1863), i. 214. See 

 also Ladd's Physiological Psychology, pp. 396-8, aud compare the account 

 by G. Stanley Hall (Mind, x. 571) of the sensatiocs produced by moving 

 a blunt point lightly over the skin. Points of cutting pain, quivering, 

 thrilling, whirling, tickling, scratching, and acceleration, alternated wi*h 

 each other along the surface. 



