The Senses and the Mind

by Anonymous

Thus, then, it is from an association between the senses that correctness and precision in any one sense are acquired; and especially do the eye and hand support each other, and supply each other's deficiencies till both have learned their perfect lesson. I can stretch my hand out to any object before me with certainty, so truly does the eye tell me whether it is within my reach or not, but the eye first learned that faculty from the hand, after long discipline and many trials. Afterwards the eye speaks a silent language to the hand, and is understood. Under what merciful circumstances are they placed that possess all their faculties and senses! but, alas! how many are there that never dream of thanking a merciful God for his unbounded kindness! nay, there are some atheistical materialists who believe, or rather pretend to believe, that man's exquisite organization, and that of animals and plants, is self-developed—how, they do not condescend to explain; for, granting them their premises, namely, that matter is eternal—and what then? it must be inert, and neither the laws of vitality nor chemistry, involving electricity and galvanism, could be taken on by inert particles—all would be chaotic, did not God govern, arrange, and order all. It is he who has created man, and, fallen as man is, he still is an object of God's care; for he sent his well-beloved Son into the world for our redemption, and the time is coming in which all nations shall know the Lord, and adore him in sincerity and truth.

Like all the organs of our senses, the hands are the instrument of wickedness to sinful man; his sense of touch is the inlet of evil. How refined that sense in the adroit pickpocket, but to what an ill purpose is it devoted! How dexterous are the hands of the shoplifter, but to what a wretched course have they been trained! The hand grasps the pen; every stroke is guided by its delicate sense of touch; it obeys the mind; and, oh! what dictations from the depraved mind have polluted society! God has been reviled, Jesus Christ denied, the Holy Spirit mocked, and in letters written by hands which the almighty Maker and Preserver had endowed so supereminently. Their hands are mouldering; dust has returned to dust; but where are the immortal spirits which directed those hands to scatter poison abroad? It is not for us to inquire or judge. Let us, ourselves, be watchful, and let our hands be clean in the sight of God; let us be diligent in business, serving the Lord; let us fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life!

Though we have described the hand as the great and main organ of touch, let it be understood that it is not the first called into operation. The hand requires rigid discipline; for a long period it is useless as an organ of tact; yet, when educated, how perfect, how precise! But it is made what it is by education. Our ideas coincide exactly with those of sir Charles Bell, who thus writes: "The lips and the tongue are first exercised; the next motion is to put the hand to the mouth in order to suck it; and no sooner are the fingers capable of grasping, than whatever they hold is carried to the mouth; so that the sensibility to touch in the lips and tongue, and their motions, are the first inlets to knowledge, and the use of the hand is a later acquirement."

Another passage from the same gifted writer is as follows: "The first office of the hand, then, is to exercise the sensibility of the mouth; and the infant as certainly questions the reality of things by that test, as the dog does by its acute sense of smelling. In the infant, the sense of the lips and tongue is resigned only in favour of the sense of vision, when that sense has improved, and offers a greater gratification, and a better means of judging of the qualities of bodies. The hand very slowly acquires the sense of touch; and many ineffectual efforts are seen in the arms and fingers of the child, before the direction of objects or their distance is ascertained. Gradually the length of the arm, and the extent of its motions, become the measure of distance, of form, of relation, and perhaps of time."

Throughout life, the sensibility, as it regards tact, of the tongue and lips continues paramount; we can feel the slenderest hair with our tongue, which our hands would not appreciate: but, on the contrary, size, form, distance, order, and the general qualities of matter, can only be gained through the hand, after a persevering discipline. A blind man may examine a statue with his hands, and pronounce upon its excellence; and this fact suggests to us an idea of sir Charles Bell, who says: "The knowledge of external bodies, as distinguished from ourselves, cannot be acquired until the organs of touch in the hand have become familiar with our own limbs. We cannot be supposed capable of exploring anything by the motion of the hand, or of judging of the form or tangible qualities of an object pressed against the skin, before we have a knowledge of our own body as distinguished from things external to us." From these remarks we naturally slide into a dissertation on a sense, allied to that of touch, but yet different—we mean muscular sense.

6. Muscular sense.—God in his infinite wisdom has constructed all living things, and no doubt there is much yet for the philosopher to discover in the organization of animal bodies; there is, moreover, something that he never will understand, namely, life intrinsically considered, and the manner in which the immortal spirit and the dying body communicate with and influence each other. But though these points must ever remain a mystery, still there are those the obscurity of which science has to a certain degree dispelled, and it was reserved for a late scientific anatomist to prove to the world, that the nerves of sensation and the nerves of motion are essentially distinct, although interblended together they pervade every muscle. Hence, as this philosopher observes, (we mean sir Charles Bell,) we are sensible of the action of our muscles, because these muscles have two classes of nerves; and he found that in exciting one of these the muscle contracted, while on exciting the other no action took place. The nerve which had no power to make the muscle contract was the nerve of sensation.

Continuing his experiments, he proved that there is a nervous circle connecting the muscles with the brain, that one nerve is not capable of transmitting what is called the nervous spirits in two different directions at one instant of time, but that for the regulation of muscular action there is a nerve of sensibility, to convey a sensation of the condition of the muscles to the sensorium, as well as a nerve of motion for conveying the mandate of the will to the muscles. He also demonstrated, that in their distribution through the body, the nerves which possess these two distinct powers of conveying sensation, and of exciting the muscles to contraction, are wrapped up, or, as it were, woven together in the same sheath, and that they present to the eye the single appearance of one nerve. It was only by examining the nerves at their roots, that is, where they arise from different tracts of the brain and spinal marrow, and before they coalesce, that this philosophic anatomist succeeded in demonstrating their distinct functions. In the face, the nerve of motion passes by a circuitous route, apart from the nerve of sensation, to be distributed to the muscles; and, therefore, the distinct characters of these two nerves were, as sir C. Bell asserts, more easily proved by experiment than in any other part of the body.

The nerves of sensation then feel, or rather recognise, those actions of the muscles which are excited through the medium of the nerves of contraction, and these nerves of contraction, as far as the voluntary muscles are concerned, obey the commands of an immaterial being—mind, spirit, soul; in the lower animals, so far as we know, this principle is transient, for they have no ideas of life, or of death, or of futurity; but in man, the soul is immortal, and for the future bliss of this immortal essence revelation affords a certain guide.

Now the sense of touch and the muscular sense have, by most writers, been confounded together; hence, we are told that weight is determined by touch, but this is erroneous; it is determined by the muscular agency and sense, under the dictation of the will. The abbé Nollet says of touch, that "it not only puts it in our power to judge of what makes an impression upon us, but also of what resists our impulsions." Here the sense of touch and the muscular sense are confounded together. The agency of touch has nothing to do with weight or resistance; and herein we differ from Dr. Fleming, and agree with sir Charles Bell, by whom, indeed, this muscular sense was first demonstrated. To feel, or touch, is not to resist or struggle. Laocoon, striving with the serpents, resists—his muscular sense is called into action, as is that of the wrestler when engaged in a trial of skill or strength; but what has muscular feeling to do with that tact, which distinguishes between the texture of tissues, or the smoothness or roughness of bodies? For ourselves, we refer the sensations of hardness and softness rather to a muscular sense than a simple sense of touch; but, as we have said, the sense of touch and the muscular sense, or sense of resistance, inter-amalgamate with each other, nevertheless, there is a definite muscular sense of which every one is conscious, and it is by the education of this sense that the infant learns to walk, the man to ascend the lofty ladder, or traverse the ledge of the precipice. It is not connected with feeling alone, but also with sight; and, indeed, the senses of sight, feeling and support, or resistance, are in as close relationship, as are those of smell and taste. This is exemplified in the fencer, whose muscular sense obeys his eye, and in the artist, who strikes out the bold outline of a figure on the canvass.