Untitled

THE EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL SENSES'
SECTION IV. The Five External Senses:
"
Now whe'h this kingdom had 'attained perfection, and the
influence of the "Fathers" of the upper world had reacted on the
" 1 "Mothers below, arjd the interspace between the air and the fire
in its turn became involved, 2 a finer , offspring resulted and the*
manifestation of the animal world took place. This, bringing
with it the faculties already possessed by the vegetable kingdom,
added thereunto two others, one the faculty of discovery, which
is called the "Perceptive Faculty" (Mudrika), whereby the animal
discerns things the second the ;
power of voluntary movement,
byHhe^ielrj of which the animal moves, approaching that which
is. congenial to it and retreating from that which is offensive,
which is called the " "
Motor Faculty (Muharrikd).
Now the "Perceptive Faculty" is subdivided isto ten branches,
five of which are called the "External Senses,'* and five the
"Internal Senses." The former are "Touch" (v), "Taste," "Sight,"
"Hearing," and !J Smell." Now Touch is a sense distributed
throughout the skin and flesh of the animal, so that the nerves
perceive and disqern anything which comes in contact with them,
such as dryness and moisture, heat and cold, roughness and
smoothness, harshness and softness. Taste is a sense located
in that nerve which is distributed over the surface of the tongue,
which detects soluble nutriments in those bodies which come
in contact with it and it is this sense which discriminates
;
between sweet and bitter, sharp and sour, and the like of these.
Hearing is a sense located in the nerve which is distributed
about the auditory meatus, so that it detects any sound which
is it discharged against by undulations of the air compressed
between two impinging bodies, that is to say two bodies striking
of which the air is thrown
against one another, by the impact
into waves a*nd becortfes the cause of sound, in tkat it imparts
raovement to the air which is stationary in the auditory meatus,
comes into contabt with it, reaches this nerve, and gives rise
to the sensatiorfjof hearing. Sight is a faculty, located in the
optic herve which discerns images projected on the crystalline
humour, whether of figures or.splid bodies, variously coloured,
through the medium of a translucent substance which extends
from it to the surfaces of reflecting bodies. Smell is a faculty
located in a protuberance situated in the fore part of the brain
and resembling the nipple of the female ,breast, which apprehends
1
By the "even Fathers, above " and the " Four Mothers below," the seven planets
and the four elements are intended.
2 The*four elemental spheres (terrestrial, aqueous, aerial
^nd igneous) present
three interspace (fur/a), in the first of which is produced the mineral kingdom, in
the' second the vegetable, and in the third the animal. These three are called the
"threefold offspring."