2790. The sense of feeling is characterized by poles only being excited in it by absolute proximity or immediate contact. Just because it is the first sense, through which the animal is set free, so must that which is liberated be at once perceived in the moment of liberation, and thus in immediate contact. The sense of feeling is a polarity of contact, a polarity without distance. The stronger the contact, by so much the stronger is the polar excitation—there is increased pressure. The gravity acts simply by pressure. The perception is therefore resolvable into one of pressure or contact.
2791. Different degrees of pressure necessarily impart different amounts of feeling. Perception of the different degrees of pressure made by an object betrays its inequalities of surface. The sense of feeling is also the sense for determining inequalities, for the Soft and Hard, for the Solid, Fluid, and Gaseous; all these feelings, however, are referable to the contact.
2792. Through diseased conditions, the polarizability of the sensitive nerves may become exceedingly elevated, and they then perceive the polarity of contact prior to the contact having taken place. For the two bodies invariably excite poles that are antagonized to each other. Were other bodies not to approach them more closely, or else act upon them more energetically and so extinguish the polarity; they would remain at an infinite distance in a state of polar relation towards each other. Feeling can therefore be extended to an indefinite distance. Hysterical, mesmerized, and even healthy human beings, feel further than they grasp or touch with the hand.
2793. Homogeneous polarities, or those of the same kind, are throughout nature to be found also by means of others; e. g. electrical polarities are not disturbed by the intervention of magnetic ones. Such is the case also in feeling. That which is related to oneself is felt, although it is more remote from us than other objects, upon which we do not bestow any attention, or towards which we do not turn our poles.
2794. The sense of feeling differs according to the diversity of certain points in the integument, and is thus nobler in character, the higher the rank which these may hold. Thus it is most feebly developed in vegetable situations, where hairs, nails, claws, and scales are placed. It must attain the highest grade of perfection in the animal organs, and thus in the limbs or their parallels, the lips.
2795. In the limbs, by reason of their mobility, the feeling becomes voluntary. It is then wholly in our power to strengthen or weaken the contact, to press gently or firmly, and allow these periods of feeling to succeed each other rapidly or slowly.
2796. Feeling associated with motion is called touch; this condition of the organ the tactile sense. The tactile sense is by no means different from that of feeling; it is only the combination of feeling with motion.
2797. The fingers are the most perfect organs of feeling, because they are the most moveable parts of the body, and therefore they are organs of touch.
2798. As simple feeling perceives the asperities of bodies, so does touch the forms. The perception of forms is based upon the form that resides in the tactile organ itself.
2799. All possible forms reside in the motion of the fingers.