This problem finds a partial solution, when it
is recalled that in the case of the other senses more than one pair of
contraries are to be met with, e.g. in sound not only acute and
grave but loud and soft, smooth and rough, &c.; there are similar
contrasts in the field of colour. Nevertheless we are unable clearly
to detect in the case of touch what the single subject is which
underlies the contrasted qualities and corresponds to sound in the
case of hearing.
To the question whether the organ of touch lies inward or not
(i.e. whether we need look any farther than the flesh), no
indication in favour of the second answer can be drawn from the fact
that if the object comes into contact with the flesh it is at once
perceived. For even under present conditions if the experiment is made
of making a web and stretching it tight over the flesh, as soon as
this web is touched the sensation is reported in the same manner as
before, yet it is clear that the or is gan is not in this membrane. If
the membrane could be grown on to the flesh, the report would travel
still quicker. The flesh plays in touch very much the same part as
would be played in the other senses by an air-envelope growing round
our body; had we such an envelope attached to us we should have
supposed that it was by a single organ that we perceived sounds,
colours, and smells, and we should have taken sight, hearing, and
smell to be a single sense. But as it is, because that through which
the different movements are transmitted is not naturally attached to
our bodies, the difference of the various sense-organs is too plain to
miss.
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