2783. The motions in themselves, without reference to the trunk, are the motions of the limbs, as standing, walking, &c. The movements of the arms and feet are sympathetic, because their muscles are of equal signification.
B. FUNCTIONS OF THE NERVE-ORGANS.
2784. These functions have relation only to the nervous system itself, because all nerve-organs are elevated above the trunk, and live in themselves. They are simply the functions of the sensorial organs.
a. Functions of the Vegetable Sensorial Organs.
2785. These must be regarded as those that still encroach upon the inferior organs. They are not, however, the inferior processes themselves, but their ascensive formations into the nervous system. This therefore works henceforward only in and by itself, but yet in relation to the inferior processes.
1. Function of the Sense of Feeling.
2786. To constitute the sense of feeling the integument, in other words the nutritive or vascular system, has assumed a nervose character, and consequently that which is in communication with the materiality of the external world. The function of this sense will therefore have materiality only for its object.
2787. The integument is the organ by whose means the animal is absolved or liberated from the world. The sensation belonging to it, is none other than the perception of this diversity subsisting between the two.
2788. Through the tegumentary sense, the world becomes a something external in relation to the nervous function; while previously it was such through the medium of the skin for the lower organs only, viz. as an object of absorption. The discrimination of materiality is called Feeling. The sense of feeling is the earth-sense.
2789. The sense of feeling perceives materiality, like the nerves perceive all objects or all stimuli, through polar excitation. Every pressure, every contact is polar excitation.