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CHAPTER II.

HOW WE BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE OUTER WORLD.

BEFORE Sensation can be of any use to us in the way of increasing our knowledge, or before Perception can properly avail as a faculty of cognition, we must somehow know that there is an external world. How do we acquire this knowledge, is the immediate present question.

through one

or more of the senses.

By superficial thinkers, and, indeed, by many who are not superficial, it is claimed that we come to this knowlNot directly edge through one or more of the senses, as touch or sight. Dr. Wayland held that sight was immediate perception and not sensation. But I believe his view is sustained by very few good authorities. If, as has been stated, sensations are wholly subjective, and give no knowledge of external things, there must be some other way of accounting for this knowledge. That the sensations do not give this knowledge directly may be made evident by observing the process of sensation through the several organs.

Let us take first the sense of Smell as being, perhaps, the simplest. An odorous body, say a rose, is brought near the person. This odor affects the olfacsmell. tory nerve, as before described. Immediately a sensation is experienced, a new state of mind. Of

Sense of

this the person affected becomes aware by the Inner-Sense. But this is all that he is aware of. There is in this no

intimation of any external cause. So far as the Gives no intiindividual is concerned, the new state may be mation of externality. simply the result of an internal change. It is true that when once we have learned that there is an outer world, and have associated the sense of sight with that of smell, then, by observing that whenever the rose is present, the same state of mind occurs, and that it does not occur when this is absent, we come to regard the presence of the rose as the cause of this particular state of mind, and the state of mind, or sensation, becomes the recognized sign that the rose is present. But neither of these is supposed in the present illustration. We are considering the sense of smell by itself, and are not yet presumed to have discovered an external world. Clearly, this sense by itself gives us no such knowledge.

Let us next observe the operation of Taste, the sense of Flavor. There is some difficulty in studying this, as it can never be wholly separated from the sense of Sense of Touch. Any object which we are to taste taste. must, in order to affect the organs of taste, touch the mouth and tongue. But we may easily separate, in our minds, the two sensations. In taste, the parts affected are the tongue, the palate, and the pharynx. The mucous membrane of these parts is thickly covered with papillæ, and the nerves running from these, as from the organs of sensation, convey the effect to the brain, and hence the sense of taste. Evidently here, but not quite so evidently as in the case of smell, the state of mind is the only thing cognized. It cannot by itself, and before other experiences, give any intimation of a cause in the outer world,

for the reason that an outer world is not yet cognized. Nor does this, of itself, intimate the outer world.

Sense of hearing.

The same result will be arrived at in the case of Hearing. Some sonorous body produces vibrations in the air which affect the auricular apparatus. The effect may proceed from a musical instrument. There is a corresponding effect in the mind. But this gives not the slightest intimation of being produced by anything external to the mind. So mated. far as appears from the sensation itself, it is wholly within the mind itself.

Nothing external inti

Sense of sight.

So far, there is little difficulty in accepting the view that the senses themselves give, us no knowledge of the outer world. But now we come to the sense of Sight, and shall, perhaps, find the opinion less plausible. Some writers have stoutly insisted that this sense certainly gives us direct cognition of the object seen. The eye, by its very constitution, gives us a larger range of sensations than any of the foregoing senses. Being mobile, it seems to have a larger variety of sensations than the others, and perhaps it does. Still it may not have quite all that it seems to have. By experience and the co-operation of the other senses, we acquire the power to perceive by the eye, not only the color but the form, the size, and many other qualities of a visible object. But the proper quality that appeals to the eye is Color. Dr. Hopkins favors the opinion that the eye properly gives only the sensation of Suppose the eye were set in stone and held fixed. . . . Nobody supposes that the eye originally gives form in more than one dimension, that we see a globe or

Color is what appeals to

the eye.

color.

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cube as such. It could then be but a colored surface.

But under these circumstances, what could then be known of surface or extension? Could the form be anything more than the form of color, and would that be form at all? I think not." If this be so, then color is the only thing that affects the eye in vision, and that effect is a simple sensation, a state of mind which in itself gives no intimation of externality.

Sense of

In Touch, as it appears to some, externality is obvious. But we are to consider that when we touch a thing, there is generally something besides simple tactual effect, such as roughness or smoothness, cold touch. or warmth. There is also Pressure. It is true we can conceive of simple touch separate from pressure. Something In such case we are affected by the tactual besides tactquality and nothing else. If we can regard Pressure. this alone as the effect of touch, we shall find that we have here, as in the other senses, only the sensation, a state of the mind which intimates nothing separate from itself.

ual effect.

The knowl

edge of exter

We have now examined the operations of all the senses, and have, so far, discovered no way in which the mind or soul gets any knowledge of externality. Sensation does not give it, nor, so far as I can see, does it come in connection with the operation of any or all of the senses. How, then, does it come?

nality not through

sense alone, but through

resistance.

Any spontaneous or instinctive movement from within. is certain to be met by some resistance, pressure against, or modification of that movement. It is then that the individual discovers that he is not the only being extant, — that there is something besides and exterior to himself. He has found an outer world, and he is not long in distinguishing it into

separate

from it.

jects.

parts and individual objects. This pressure, resistance, Accompanied and modification of his movements is very likely by touch, yet to be accompanied by Touch, and is yet separate from it. Still, by touch and sight principally, and by the other senses subordinately, he learns that when Sensations certain objects are presented, certain sensations signs of exor states of mind occur to him. These become ternal obsigns of the presence and influence upon him of these several objects. We learn these signs and their significance as we learn the alphabet and the vocabulary of a language; and thus, by experience and habitual practice, come to refer any sensation to some appropriate external object as its cause. This is Perception. We are not to suppose that this minute analysis takes place in every act of perception. It is one concrete act, just as in reading we do not analyze each word into its letters and syllables, and think of each elemental sound; but by a glance we comprehend the word, and sometimes the whole sentence, at once.

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