CHAPTER X.
SENSATION.
Sensation Is A Faculty Of The Soul, And Is
Produced By Influx Through The Soul
Into The Favorably Disposed
Form Of The External
Organism.
The foregoing principles are indispensable as a preparation for the discussion of the subject of sensation, because the constitution of the sentient being and of the universe is involved in the exercise of this function. One form of sensation explains all, for the same philosophy is employed in the understanding and explanation of each sense-organ.
Consider the sense of touch. The finger being placed upon sandpaper, the sensation of roughness is produced. The paper disposes the nerves of the finger in a certain form. The inflowing life-force is thereby affected in the ultimate, the finger, and then changes on interior planes to correspond with the form of activity in the ultimate, which produces a corresponding impression upon the nerves of the spiritual finger to which the nerves of the material finger ascend. This change is experienced as sensation. In this process the impression is conveyed to the brain and simultaneously to the mind by their acting as one. The sensation of touch is therefore produced by the disposition of the material sense-organ, and by the correspondingly affected life-force. The induced form of the material organism is the external cause of sensation, and the inflowing life-force as thereby affected is the internal cause.
The vibrating bell communicates its motion to the air, and the air affects the ear. By the ear is not meant simply the external ear and drum, but the ear's entire physical organism in all its planes. The air produces a synchronous vibration in the material ear, which clothes the spiritual ear, a perfect spiritual counterpart to the material ear, and so delicately adjoined to the material covering that it is affected by its vibration through the inflowing life-force taking on a form of action in Correspondence with the form of activity in the ultimate. Thereby the inflowing life-force is correspondingly affected, which effect is perceived as sound. The disposition of the material ear made by the vibrating bell and the atmosphere is the external cause of sound, and the correspondingly affected inflowing life-force is the internal cause. The sensation of sound is in the ear of the spirit and according to the form in which the spiritual ear is disposed by the inflowing life-force in passing down to meet the form of activity in the material ear, which is determined by the nature of the aerial vibration, the ultimate.
Taste is from certain forms of matter touching organs in the mouth. The sense of smell is from floating particles touching the olfactory nerves. The effects of such contacts are perceived in like manner by the corresponding organs of the soul as the inflowing life-force is modified in the use of the external organs of touch and taste.
Sight is from ether acting upon the sensitive fluids of the retina, with which the nerves of the spiritual eye are, through the mind-organism, in Correspondence. The natural eye being affected, the inflowing life-force is correspondingly modified, which produces sight.
The Seat Of Sensation Is In The Soul.
All sensation is of the soul; the external means may originate in nature. In general, the things of the natural world dispose the organs of the material body into a certain form. The analogous organs of the spiritual body are similarly impressed, through their close affinity, by the inflowing life-force coming into Correspondence with the ultimate. Thus originate all sensations. The inflowing life-force is from the activity of the spiritual substances which are coincident with or in Correspondence with the spiritual sense-organs. The natural body is an outer covering to the spiritual body, which it serves as an instrument of action in the natural world. The organs of the senses set in the natural body are subsidiary to the analogous ones in the spiritual body, and are organisms whereby, through the successive, ascending planes of their structure, activities in nature are perceived by the mind, which is organized on the planes of the spiritual world. Thus man as a spiritual being is enabled, while clothed with the natural body, to sensate activities in the natural world. The material eye has no more capacity to see than has the eyeglass of the jeweller; nor the ear to hear than the ear-trumpet of the deaf. The senses of the body are simply vehicles by which the spirit descends to and cognizes the material creation. Or, reversely, the senses of the body are mechanisms by which nature's activities are carried up to meet the activities of the spiritual world as they exist in the spiritual senses. The soul with its organs of sense is, on spiritual planes, a parallel of the material body with its organs of sense. The soul with its organs of sense as interiors is within the body with its organs of sense as ultimates; and all of the interior discrete degrees of the soul are in simultaneous order in the ultimates of the body, and act as one with them. And since power acts from ultimates to interiors, the interiors immediately become such as is the form of activity in the ultimate. Hence all sensation is in the soul, and is possible only to the spiritual senses.
The body being the material organism that forms for the spirit an avenue to nature's activities, upon the separation of the spirit from the body, which event is called death, the material world can no longer be sensated by the spirit; though the spirit, because of its complete organization, continues a sentient being, with the use of all the senses, in the spiritual world. As the senses of the body are those of the soul brought down to the plane of passive matter, by which they are limited, bounded, and terminated, in the soul they are as much more acute and superior as spiritual substance is more active than matter.