This page has been validated.

senses in such a world would no doubt attribute four dimensions to complete visual space.

Tactile and Motor Space.—"Tactile space" is more complicated still than visual space, and differs even more widely from geometrical space. It is useless to repeat for the sense of touch my remarks on the sense of sight. But outside the data of sight and touch there are other sensations which contribute as much and more than they do to the genesis of the concept of space. They are those which everybody knows, which accompany all our movements, and which we usually call muscular sensations. The corresponding framework constitutes what may be called motor space. Each muscle gives rise to a special sensation which may be increased or diminished so that the aggregate of our muscular sensations will depend upon as many variables as we have muscles. From this point of view motor space would have as many dimensions as we have muscles. I know that it is said that if the muscular sensations contribute to form the concept of space, it is because we have the sense of the direction of each movement, and that this is an integral part of the sensation. If this were so, and if a muscular sense could not be aroused unless it were accompanied by this geometrical sense of direction, geometrical space would certainly be a form imposed upon our sensitiveness. But I do not see this at all when I analyse my sensations. What I do see is that the sensations which correspond to movements in