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Chapter 14

Other Important Questions
Arising From The Relationship
Between The Feeling Soul
And The Body

283. We have said that the body acts, and that its action has a double effect. One effect is on the feeling principle (when the body is united to the soul), producing the corporeal feeling; the other on the feelable element of feeling, changing feeling itself by changing its term.
We also know that the feeling principle itself acts, in a double way, producing two effects. First, its action co-operates in producing its own feeling. Second, it modifies the action of the body, because the body, in its material action, receives from life the capacity to present a series of extrasubjective phenomena different from those of a merely material body.

Thus, the soul acts directly in the production of feeling, but indirectly in the production of extrasubjective phenomena by modifying the force exerted by matter.
The body also acts directly in the production of feeling, but in its role as matter it acts indirectly in the change of feeling by changing the feelable element, the extended term of feeling.

284. These complex, mutual actions of the soul and body, which are usually perceived solely by their effects and in an imperfect way, deserve the careful attention of serious thinkers. One of the difficulties, of course, is language; we still lack a vocabulary for the precise expression of ideas formed at a high level of reflection. If we try to invent a language, it becomes pretentious. I am forced therefore to mix precise with popular expressions. The latter may be true for the level of reflection to which they belong, but they falsify concepts at a higher level without drawing attention to the problems in hand. The only way I can supply for this defect, which arises from our imperfect state of knowledge, is to explain frequently the popular language which I mix with philosophical language, so that the transition from one to the other can be made more easy.

In discussing the relationship of the mutual actions of soul and body, therefore, I shall nearly always use the language of physiologists to present some of the most important questions. However, I must point out that in speaking about corporeal molecules and their organisation, popular language uses these words to mean only material beings, while I use them to mean beings that have the double action described above, that is, beings which by acting on the soul become the extended term of feeling (the sensiferous, feelable body), and by acting on this extended term assume the notion of matter.
Granted, therefore, that the extension in which the primal, corporeal fundamental feeling finishes is identical with the extension of the corresponding matter, let us consider the following questions.

285. First of all, physiologists, in dealing with the intimate production of feeling, ask: `Is subjective sensibility attached to the elementary molecules of bodies or to a certain organisation of the molecules?' Expressed in philosophical language, the question would be this: `Does the proximate term of feeling correspond to the extension in which either the elementary molecules or an organised complex of them is perceived as extrasubjective matter?'

A second question asks: `Does that which is feelable, by its mode of being, have movement as well as extension?' or, in the precise language of philosophy: `Is the extended term of feeling necessarily in continuous motion, and do moving molecules correspond to this term as extrasubjective matter?'

If we suppose that the term of feeling is an organised body with a certain characteristic movement, we must also examine both the primary and secondary structures of this body, that is, the nature of the first living, organised molecules, and the nature of the molecules organised from these first molecules. This gives rise to the question: `Is feeling attached to solids and fluids?' or, expressed philosophically: `Is the term of feeling ultimately something extended which corresponds to what is perceived extrasubjectively and called "solid" or "fluid"?'

Finally, we must ask: `Does the extended term of animal feeling always constitute a unity, and if so, what kind of unity: a unity arising from the continuity of the term, or from the harmony found in the balance of its elements, or from some centre that must always be affected by feeling itself?'

286. It is very important to understand how all these questions are possible in my theory of feeling. If the term of feeling is that which is extended, nothing prevents this term from corresponding, in its external, extrasubjective perception, to elementary particles of space, or to elementary particles bound indivisibly together, or to particles at rest or in motion, or therefore to particles corresponding to solids or fluids, just as nothing prevents the term of feeling from having a unity, or at least, sharing in a unity through the feeling principle — in fact this seems most fitting. The questions, which can be solved only by means of observation and faithful induction from experience, require an answer so that we can come to know fully `the law of harmony between the order of subjective and the order of extrasubjective phenomena'. Knowledge of this law alone can guide us to the formation or understanding of a complete, explicit definition of animal nature.

287. Summarising the questions about the term of feeling, we have asked:

1st. Which is the term of feeling: the basic elements of bodies or specific molecules composed of the basic elements of bodies, according to a certain order and composition called organisation?

2nd. Or must these specific molecules themselves be organised into molecules of a second order so that they can be the term of feeling or at least of certain feelings? And if there is a first organisation (specific molecules) and a second organisation (second order molecules) for certain feelings, must there be a third or fourth organisation in order to have other species and genera of feelings (more perfect animal bodies)?

3rd. Is the organised, felt body a solid or a fluid, or can either be the term of feeling?

4th. Does the term of feeling always require a centre to give it unity, or at least a harmonious accord which unifies it in some way, perhaps by means of the feeling principle?

5th. Must the term of feeling be in continuous, harmonious movement for feeling to exist? And granted bodily organs, do certain kinds of determinate movements become terms of certain sensations, so that other kinds of movements could only be terms not of the same but of other sensations or none?

These are some of the principal questions of fact that have to be solved in a discussion on the production of the corporeal feeling. However, even if the questions were solved, they would not help us to penetrate the mystery of life entirely, although they would enable us to know the law and connection of facts by which feeling begins and continues, and upon which it depends for the conditions of its existence.
Without claiming to solve the questions, which in any case is not necessary for my purpose, I would like to make a few observations on them.(130)

288. The first elements of bodies considered in themselves, even though extended,(131) escape the external perception of our senses. Consequently, we cannot know, by means of direct advertence, whether these minute elements taken individually are the term of feeling. We are totally unable to advert to such small sensations, and we have no reason for positing sensations which as such are absolutely beyond advertence.
On the other hand, where these elements have been united in the form we call animal organisation, I cannot doubt that feeling reaches down to the first elements of bodies,(132) so that life is truly present in them.

289. Nevertheless, if life invests and, as it were, enfolds the atoms, we cannot conclude that the extrasubjective phenomena corresponding to feeling can be reduced solely to the atoms taken individually, or that there is less need for the production of the animal feeling, or for a first, second or even more complex organisation of the indivisible elements. Such a composition of atoms forming the living molecules of living bodies is clearly supposed by Gallini's system, although he seems to think that life is a primitive property adhering to atoms themselves.(133) Gallini explains all the phenomena of life by means of the changing attraction and mobility between the particles composing the structure of living bodies. The action of these forces presupposes a multiplicity of elements, choice, distances, right positions, and, in a word, organisation [App., no. 5]. We can therefore say that even the first elements of a living body have life, but we cannot say that they have it as individual animals do. Life can indeed reveal itself in a more or less multiple, variously organised body, but it must also diffuse itself and terminate in all the primary elements of the same body.

290. Even if a certain amalgam of molecules is necessary for us to notice the production of feeling, how could the nature of this more or less complex aggregation or organisation be determined? The only safe guide is experience and logical induction.
And if we want to see where experience will lead us, we need to investigate the simplest structure or organism to manifest definite signs of sensitivity. For example, there certainly seems to be no contradiction a priori in affirming that monads and other microscopic beings, which are apparently homogeneous in substance and of very simple, indeterminate shape, are endowed with sensitivity.

291. Experience definitely shows that the matter(134) of feeling can be reduced without the complete annihilation of sensitivity. In the more perfect animals a great deal of the matter of sensitivity can be removed without the total destruction of the animal. Sensitivity can be divided and split, as it were, into its different species, so that sometimes one organ exists independently of other organs, while one sense is independent of other senses in what it communicates to the feeling principle. The experiments of Magendie on various kinds of mammals are well known. He claims that if the hemispheres of the cerebrum and cerebellum are removed from a mammal, it becomes blind but remains sensitive to odours, tastes, sounds and tactile impressions. If the posterior nerves of the spinal cord are cut, sensitivity in the trunk disappears; if the fifth cranial nerves are cut before they leave the skull or on the sides of the fourth ventricle, all sensitivity in the face is lost. From these experiments we see that certain kinds of sensations cannot take place unless some organs are more complex than others. For example, visual sensations need the whole of the hemispheres of the optic thalami, the opthalmic branch of the fifth cranial nerves, and perhaps the anterior, quadrigeminal tubercles. On the other hand, other senses need only all the fifth cranial nerves common to all senses along with the nerve special to each; for hearing, this nerve is the soft portion of the seventh cranial nerves; for smell, the first cranial nerves; and for taste, the ninth cranial nerves.

292. This possibility of reduction in feeling is verified by many other observations. The following quotation describes the stages by which sensitivity in old people diminishes and finally ceases.

293. We can make another observation about the variety in the animal kingdom. We grant that the existence of animal feeling has not been verified in sponges, monads, polyps, medusae and zoophytes, but there is certainly a very wide range of beings, from vertebrates to radiaria, from mammals to infusoria, endowed with feeling and with a more or less complex organisation. Only experience, accompanied by strict induction, can establish which of the simplest organisations endowed with feeling constitutes an animal.

294. Our third observation concerns the less complex animals; they seem to indicate more readily that the matter of their feeling can be removed without their being destroyed. The fact that tortoises live for a long time after the removal of their brain, frogs live without both brain and heart, worms and polyps multiply when cut in pieces, shows that feeling does not need many organs for its subsistence, and, as we have said, only a careful observation will be able to determine which is the simplest animal organisation in nature.

295. In carrying out this investigation we must be careful to note that determining the minimum matter necessary for animal feeling is quite different from determining what is required for the conservation of this matter. If an animal dies when it loses a given part, we must not infer that the part was necessary for feeling in general; we can infer only that the rest of the animal could not be maintained without it; it did in fact perish. The body of a mutilated or wounded animal seems to me to resemble a stocking in which a tear `runs'. We see this particularly when a part becomes gangrenous and spreads its infection to adjacent parts. This does not prove that feeling needs these organs, but that they are needed by the kind of feeling proper to the animal, that is, the organisation and composition of the matter of that feeling, in order to keep itself together and endure.(136)

296. Finally, Professor Rolando's efforts to discover the ultimate vital organisation under discussion should be mentioned. He examined the first stages of organisation in moulds and funguses, and found only a union of globules or granules which sometimes vaguely resembled a particular arrangement but more often looked like filaments forming a net. These filaments spread through the fluid and seemed to have much more delicate roots formed by a succession of globules, measuring between 0.07 and 0.08 mm. These results convinced him that beings of a simple form exist

297. Nevertheless, we still need:

1st. To verify whether the contractility and distension that accompanies feeling proper to animals is sometimes present in nature without this feeling.

2nd. And, granted that the organisation presented by the phenomena of contractility and distension is sometimes found in nature without animal feeling, to determine the signs indicating that the organisation is accompanied only by contractility and distension without animal feeling, and the certain or probable indication of the presence of that feeling.

298. We must therefore pay a good deal of attention to the being to which the rudiments of imperfect, initial organisation belong. If these rudiments later develop of themselves into an animal, we have to accept that feeling has never been lacking. It would be a far greater mystery to accept that the feeling principle began at a certain level of a body's development than that it was present right from the beginning. We would also be unable to explain the body's development.

299. Experience is of little help in answering the question: `Is the term of animal feeling, in its extrasubjective manifestation, a solid, or a fluid, or a body formed by a mixture of both?'
Soemmering has proved to his own satisfaction that no solid part of the human body can be the seat of the common sensory,(138) and that only fluid is capable of receiving promptly and with the necessary variety the modifications of impressions. Thus, he regards the fluid in the brain ventricles as the common sensory, and says that most of the nerves terminate on the walls of the ventricles, or very close to them. The fluid is always present in living bodies and can be drawn off only at the cost of death, as Haller and others found.

300. Lamarck also claims that the awakening of feeling does not depend on the vibration or ruffling of the nerves, but on a certain modification of the nerve fluid analogous to the weightless electro-magnetic fluid. Cuvier says that this fluid `constitutes real animal essence, while all the rest seems destined to serve only the nervous system'.(139)

301. Other observations and experiments seem to indicate that the term of stimulated feeling is in the movement of a substance in the blood. For example:

1st. If red blood ceases to reach and permeate the brain, the brain is bereft of its sensitivity, and although the encephalic mass has suffered no lesion, it dies at once.

2nd. All the nerves are richly supplied by a large number of capillaries. As soon as the blood no longer permeates parts of the body, they become insensitive. This lack of feeling is followed by paralysis and gangrene.(140) Thus, a limb dies simply by the suspension of its blood supply.

3rd. All the organs which receive only white fluids but no blood, like the hair, nails, cartilages, etc., have no animal feeling.

4th. When inflammation increases the quantity of blood in a part of the body, sensitivity also increases in the same place.

5th. When inflammation makes the blood flow accidentally into the organs containing white fluids, the organs become sensitive. Is this perhaps the explanation of a phenomenon which causes so much difficulty for physiologists - a phenomenon in which sensation sometimes appears in places of the body entirely devoid of nerves?

6th. Another important observation concerns the passions of animal life. The movements called `passions' are accompanied by feeling, yet, according to Bichat, they affect only the organs that are per se devoid of feeling, not the brain and nerves. He says:

7th. Finally, Le Gallois, of Paris, observed in his experiments that when he had cut off the heads of many animals and tied the blood vessels, the trunks continued to live for some time. He also experimented on a human foetus and claims that after decapitation at the moment of birth, he stopped the haemorrhage by tying the vessels of the neck. Death did not follow at once in the trunk but only in the head, with the phenomena of impeded respiration. However, it seems improbable that the life of the trunk was truly animal life, endowed with an individual, comprehensive feeling, because the stimulated feeling lacked a dominant centre — unless the spinal cord could imperfectly supply for it.

All these observations, which would favour the opinion that `fluids are the term of feeling', seem to be confirmed by the work of Rolando, who posits fluids as the origin of all the solids in the animal body.(142)

302. These inductions and experiments deal with the quality of the fluid, or generally, of the elements that circulate with, and are part of the blood. This fluid is possibly the same nerve fluid suggested by other naturalists, some of whom — including particularly among the Italians, Fontana, Della Torre and, before them, Malpighi — claim to have seen the fluid through microscopes.(143) If the inductions and experiments are to be continued, the following facts must be the special focus of attention:

1st. In animals with red blood, especially the warm-blooded kind, feeling is not maintained by dark blood. Only red blood brings feeling and life wherever it circulates. Bichat, who clearly proves this fact by many experiments, doubts, however, `whether the insufficient, mortal action that dark blood exercises on the nerves and fibres is due to elements abundantly present in it (carbon and hydrogen) or to those it lacks (oxygen) but which are present in the red blood bringing life and feeling to the nerves and fibres'.(144)

2nd. The instinctive breathing of an animal which, while causing the reddening and warmth of the blood (to some extent at least), separates the hydrogen and absorbs the oxygen by means of contact of the air in the lungs.

3th. The acceleration of the respiration whenever an animal fears for its life. In sick people, close to death, respiration is accelerated and increases in volume, `boccheggiare', as it is called in Italy. Hales showed by many experiments that whenever a large quantity of blood is drawn from an animal, its rate of breathing increases in an attempt to hold on to the life it feels ebbing away. It is also a constant fact that great pain increases the rapidity of respiration. Weariness, which is the effect of a sluggish circulation, causes us to yawn and spur on the blood by deeper breaths. When the animal breathes, therefore, it is obtaining life, as it were, from oxygen which it incorporates in its blood, while the blood itself simultaneously separates other elements out from itself.

These facts are simply clues or indications that we need to follow in our investigation of unknown truths [App., no. 6].

303. It is very important to observe `whether the concept of the animal fundamental feeling (the feeling that constitutes it) requires a single, extended, continuous term'. I believe such a term is required by the fundamental feeling; otherwise I see no way of explaining how a feeling which by its nature has many separate, extended elements could be a single, simple feeling rather than substantially separate feelings constituting individual animals.

304. I am not saying that we cannot conceive a feeling principle which, while one and the same, perceives different things and even entirely separate spaces. But I think it is impossible to conceive this in a corporeal feeling which must be essentially indivisible from its matter whose limits it cannot exceed.

305. Nor can we begin with what is found in human consciousness in order to make a judgment about merely animal feeling. As human beings we are more than animal; we have more than animal unity. Our unity and individuality is founded in intelligence, which is something much more sublime. Intelligence enables us to turn back upon ourselves and perceive our person impersonally. We can perceive ourselves in the way we perceive any other being, that is, as objects and, as it were, individuals of the great `arch-category' of beings. We are able to distinguish ourselves from all other things, to compare ourselves with them and counter-distinguish our unity from their multiplicity.

306. The merely animal can do nothing like this. It does not perceive itself, nor reflect upon itself, nor distinguish itself from the things it feels, from what is feelable. What is felt and what feels can never be separated in the merely animal; they form a single feeling and cannot be thought as existing separately. We cannot say that the feeling element feels itself, because its feeling-act does not terminate in itself but in the felt element, where alone we could perhaps say that it feels itself (we cannot conceive totally passive feeling; although feeling is one, it must exhibit activity and passivity and hence some kind of duality, but without ceasing to be one). The purely animal could never say the word `I', which expresses so effectively not only the unity and individuality of the human being but also their causal unity and their consciousness of this unity. Consequently, it would be impossible to demonstrate the identity of what is purely animal if its feeling terminated in separate, extended elements. And I do not mean animal identity perceived extrasubjectively, which is demonstrated in the same way as the identity of material elements or brute bodies. I mean real animal identity, the identity of the fundamental feeling.

307. This identity can be founded in only one of two things: 1. the feeling principle, or 2. the matter which is the extended term of feeling.
The identity of the feeling principle is certainly necessary but insufficient for constituting animal identity, which is not something in itself. Neither the existence of the feeling principle nor a fortiori its identity can be conceived separately from matter. The identity of a thing clearly depends on that on which its existence depends. Thus, the identity of the feeling principle is a condition necessary for animal identity, but can arise only from the connection between the feeling principle and the matter of feeling, a connection from which the principle draws its life and origin. We must therefore examine the matter of feeling and note the kind of identity with which it can maintain the identity of the feeling principle.

I have already shown that the identity of the matter of feeling, a necessary condition for the identity of a feeling principle, is not the identity of absolute space.(145) Nor is it the identity of the material principles composing the term of feeling. The identity of the term of feeling must be found solely in all the conditions necessary for the continuity of animal feeling, without interruption in time and space. Continuity of time, which is clearly necessary, needs no further comment.(146) Continuity of space is also obviously necessary for the identity of animal feeling; a characteristic of this feeling is its self-diffusion in the extended element, which cannot exist without continuity.

Feeling, therefore, relative to the continuity of the space in which it terminates, can be identical in two ways: 1. through the stability and immutability of a portion of what is felt, even if the rest of what is felt changes; the identity in this case would be relative only to the unchanged part, not to the changed parts; 2. through the stability of the whole of the felt term, when change takes place only in the quality of the feeling. In this case the identity would be total. Thus, animal identity has its seat, relative to extension and its characteristic, dominant excitation, in the permanent term of the fundamental feeling. Variation consists in the qualitative modifications of this feeling.

In all these cases, any animal identity whatsoever would be found in the term, never the principle, of feeling. This identity, therefore, must be sited not in the `sameness' of the feeling element but in the `sameness' of the extended felt term and the characteristic excitation it produces.(147) The feeling element would follow whatever happened in the extended felt term and thus have its identity or mutability dependent on the term.

308. Even if we wished to place animal identity directly in the identity of the feeling principle rather than in the extended term, we would reach the same conclusion, provided we kept our mind firmly fixed on essentials without drawing on our imagination or arbitrary principles. The feeling principle either feels or does not feel itself as feeling. If it does not feel itself, it cannot in any way constitute the identity of animal feeling because it would be outside such feeling. If it does feel itself, the feeling principle cannot constitute animal identity unless everything it feels is simply modifications of itself. Felt things or, as we have called them, the felt, have an extension in animal feeling. If the extended felt element were a modification of the felt feeling principle, we would have to say that this principle itself is extended, because an extension can be only a modification of something extended. In the first place, this is absurd, since we have shown that the feeling principle can only be unextended. In the second place, the hypothesis would make the feeling principle a modifiable extended felt element, and thus simply the term of the fundamental feeling. The only reasonable explanation, therefore, for the foundation of animal identity is the identity of the extended term of the fundamental feeling.

Hence, the unity of feeling depends on the continuity and permanence of its term, in the same way that the identity of what is felt cannot be determined unless we suppose its continuity and the stability of its organism and rhythmic movements. For this reason I said that the term of the fundamental feeling in every animal must be continuous.

309. We must note, however, that continuity is not necessary for the various stimulations of the fundamental feeling. Nothing that we have said contradicts the fact that a pain in my hand has no continuity with a pain in my foot, or that I have surface sensations not extended in a solid space.

310. Moreover, although the term of animal fundamental feeling, in order to be one, must be an extended, continuous element, the continuity can result from the contact of many extended, continuous elements touching one another.
However, experience demonstrates that if the feeling parts of an animal are separated from each other, no matter how small the space between them, one of two effects result: either the parts lose their feeling and the animal dies, or, if they do not lose their feeling, two animals take the place of one, as happens with dissected worms and polyps; two totally separate and independent feelings exist, precisely because there is no continuity. But if we suppose the continuity of the parts in the term of animal feeling, a certain unity is imparted to what is animate, because what is continuous is by this fact one. We cannot assign parts in a continuum; we can divide it, but if we do, we produce several continua in the place of one.(148)

311. Granted, however, that the thing felt must be continuous in order to be one, and thus constitute a single fundamental feeling, a single animate being, we must ask: `Does it need to be of such a composition or homogeneous organisation that the feeling is also evenly and homogeneously diffused throughout the continuum?'

If the question means: `Are the external, extrasubjective characteristics of the compound which is term of the feeling sufficiently constant to allow us to believe that what is feelable is a single substance?', we must reply that generally this would not seem necessary, although experience shows it to be so in the higher animals relative to excitable sensitivity, because feeling is found, at least in the case of mammals, only where there is blood and nerves. Thus, the feelable substance which supposes the appropriate stimulation could be certain molecules found in and composing the blood; these penetrate, feed and, possibly, themselves produce the nerves and brain.

312. On the other hand, we may ask: `Is this excitable substance disposed equally everywhere and endowed with organs?' Experience clearly shows that this substance is not everywhere. Hence, feeling in the higher animals, particularly human beings, is not stable and homogeneous but various and multiple. To remove all doubt about whether the matter of sensation can in this sense be various and not homogeneous, it would be more appropriate to ask if it were possible for the matter to be fully homogeneous. If the homogeneity of a felt continuum is in fact found in nature, it must be found only in very simple organic beings. But because it is very difficult to carry out experiments on such beings, we cannot make definite statements about their excitable sensitivity, and consequently must remain doubtful about their being truly animals.

313. Granted, therefore, inequality in the composition and form of the matter of feeling, the most we can hope to investigate is its fundamental law, the explanation of which must lie deep in the intimate and entirely unknown nature of the act of feeling. This fundamental law must ultimately be as follows: `All these differences exist in feeling without destroying its unity.' Experience certainly tells us that a fundamental feeling, if granted, supposes only certain variations and modifications in its matter (in accordance with hidden laws), and excludes others. Just as the unity in the homogeneous matter consists in the perfect continuity of the parts, so in the varied matter, the unity must consist in a certain kind of harmony between the density, mobility and movements which gives rise to a single feeling. All the different parts are involved in producing this feeling, or at least all the feelings of the different parts are referred to it and, as it were, cling to it.

314. This perhaps explains why, in more perfect animals, there is a part essential for the production of every particular stimulated feeling. Although there are organs for producing particular sensations, their ability to exhibit the phenomena of these sensations depends on a principal organ with which they have a hidden relationship. This organ is more correctly called a common organ of feeling than the usual `common sensory'. For example, if Magendie's experiments were confirmed, the posterior cords of the spinal column would form part of this organ in mammals because all feeling would seem to cease when the cords had been cut. In the same way the fifth pair would be the common organ of facial feeling, if this feeling ceased when the nerves had been severed.

315. All these experiments generally support the presumption that in perfect animals an organ common to every kind and variety of feeling exists together with organs common to only some kinds of feelings. Hence there is a gradation of organs necessary for producing different kinds of sensations, entire classes of sensations, and classes that are variously limited; and finally, an organ necessary for producing all feelings. If, instead of this organ common to all the classes of feelings, there were simply organs for particular sensations, we could well imagine the possibility that an animal, when dissected, could multiply into many animals, or at least as many animals as there are independent organs of feeling.

316. And this seems to be the correct way to understand not simply the multiplication of polyps and worms but every kind of animal multiplication and generation. Ultimately all animal generation would consist in the production and development in living animal matter of a new common organ, independent of the previous organ, without any third organ superior to and encompassing the two of them. Clearly, a new fundamental feeling can detach itself from the animal element and constitute an animal of its own. The production, or at least the development, that gives activity to this new centre of organisation, is the formula of all generation in those animals whose continuum of felt matter is not homogeneous.

If, however, the continuum as term of feeling is homogeneous, having the same structure, as it were, throughout, and the continuum itself is the only centre and unity, then animal multiplication becomes much easier. Dissection is obviously indicated as the means of multiplication, provided we know that the even, homogeneous organisation necessary for the matter of that particular kind of feeling will not be altered or destroyed by mechanical or chemical forces as a result of the dissection. I shall, however, make further observations about this in a later article.

317. We have therefore the following results of our theory:

1st. It does not necessarily and absolutely follow that because we do not feel certain parts of our body, they lack feeling, but only that they do not form a part and term of our individual feeling, although they could possess feeling of their own.(149)

2nd. Some animals, born without some principal part, for example, the head, give signs of life; or signs of life can be seen in a trunk severed from its head, as we mentioned in the experiments of Le Gallois (cf. 301). But we cannot deduce from this that the head is not a necessary part of animal fundamental feeling. Even if the existence of only one feeling had been proved, we could not affirm that this feeling was identical with the feeling present in bodies with parts missing. If I turned a viola into a violin, I would no longer have the viola; I would have a new instrument, giving a different sound and played with a different technique.(150)

3rd. It is not absurd that some living molecules possessing feeling and composing our body change from not being felt to being felt and become part of our feeling by placing themselves in continuity with the same extension to which our feeling is propagated.

4th. Nor is it absurd that an animate being be formed of a single molecule, whatever the organisation of the molecule, or that atoms themselves have life, as we have already said (cf. 288, 289).

5th. Finally, although animal unity is founded in the non-extension of the feeling principle, its unicity rests on three foundations: i) the continuum of the felt space; ii) the harmonious unity in the action exercised by the felt body on the feeling principle so that it always produces a single feeling in which the body's modifications are virtually contained; iii) the identity relative to the duration of time, which is proper to the feeling principle and communicated by the principle to the term of its feeling.

318. While the concept of feeling in general requires no more than a feeling principle and a continuous, extended term, the concept of animal feeling undoubtedly requires an organised extended term, which is apparently more homogeneous in lower animals and more varied in higher animals. Hence the higher animals have a greater number of organs according to their kinds and classes of sensations, and in addition a single organ common to every kind of sensation.

But we have not determined whether the matter of stimulated sensation is a solid body, or a fluid, or a mixture of both. We have simply offered some observations which make us think that this matter could, at least originally, be a fluid, provided the living particles form a perfect continuum by contact. This is a necessary consequence of the principle that `the extension of feeling does not exceed the extension of the body which is its term'.

We must now deal very briefly with the last question: `Is a continual, vortiginous movement, or other kind of movement, required in the felt molecules in addition to their perfect proximity? Is the movement intrinsic, producing a kind of friction between the elements of each living particle or between the particles themselves?' The question does not concern feeling in general but animal feeling, a feeling that gives extrasubjective evidence of its existence. The following are some facts which have a general bearing on the question.

319. It is certain that in all living bodies, particularly in perfect animals, there are countless, continual movements. Are these incessant movements necessary terms of feeling, or is their purpose solely to prepare and produce continually the matter of feeling, maintain it in the act necessary for it to be term, replace unceasingly the particles it is continually losing, and increase it? Such functions are probably fulfilled by all or many of the movements of the animal body, but evidently we have to suppose movements in the term itself of feeling which, together with the movements that stimulate and animate the body, also become a necessary term of the feeling.

320. It is clear, however, that all particular, adventitious sensations need the application of stimuli to the sensory parts; and that the stimuli cause certain impressions or movements, in response to which feeling takes place. It also seems that, although particular, adventitious sensations are adapted to a particular organ and its movements, they are adapted only to determined movements, not all the movements.

Thus the sympathetic nerve and the pneumo-gastric nerves show signs of feeling in response to strong, unusual impressions. Various cervical and thoracic nerve ganglia can be removed without pain, but are found to be sensitive when irritated for a few days and then cut and torn. Perhaps these nerves, although unresponsive to external impressions, are the instruments of an internal, subjective feeling, or possibly they are rendered more sensitive by a greater influx of blood to the inflamed nerves, as we said earlier. These two suggestions, however, seem insufficient to explain fully the laws of sensitivity of the different organs and of the determined kinds of movements necessary to produce a feeling responding to their impression and capable of being adverted to.

The two suggested solutions would also seem insufficient to explain the phenomenon exhibited by the retina of the eye, as well as by all the nerves of the four external senses. These nerves, although insensitive to a sharp point, are highly sensitive when acted on by light, a movement of air, etc. The only satisfactory answer seems to be that the particular, proper stimuli of these organs cause a particular movement.

321. Experience therefore clearly shows that no special sensation exists which is not preceded by some movement in the animal organ. But it also seems probable that the fundamental feeling itself, by which the animal feels the mode of its own existence, is associated with innumerable movements taking place unceasingly in the bodily machine. Thus the nerves are everywhere accompanied by countless stimuli continually acting on and exciting the nerves. Principal among these incessant movements are those produced throughout the brain-mass by the stimulus of the blood carried by the large arteries at the base of the brain. The brain ceaselessly moves up and down, and if the movement stops, it dies. The same can be said about the other principal parts of the animal body supplied by blood.

`In both animal and organic life,' Bichat says, `the parts, in order to act, need an habitual movement which can support their action.' He notes that besides the principal action of the blood, which strikes and stimulates all the nerves, there is close to every organ `a large number of agents to supply for any heart-impulse they lack. Thus, in the chest we find that the ribs and diaphragm alternately rise and fall (this is in addition to the successive dilation and restriction coming from the heart and lungs). Respiration keeps the abdominal wall in continual movement while the stomach, intestines and bladder alternately expand and contract. The different positions we assume also continually displace the free organs. Finally, the limbs bend and stretch, move in and out, and up and down. These movements take place at every moment, both all together and separately.'(151)

It is also clear that all the molecules composing an animal body act internally with ceaseless movements to produce all the secretions and other animal functions to which the mechanical, chemical and animal forces also contribute their own continual action. Nor must we forget the extremely rapid movements of electric currents which certainly seem to be present in the different parts of a living body — relative to our question, they call for serious consideration.

322. These briefs remarks suffice to show that greater attention must be given to the solution of the two questions: `Is the term of animal feeling always an extended element in continual movement?' and `Are the alteration and movement found in the sensitive parts of a living body so governed by their own laws that they cannot be confused with either chemical affinity or simple mechanical movements, and must therefore correctly be called animal alteration or movement?'

Notes

(130) These questions are discussed more fully in my Psicologia.

(131) OT, 846 ss.

(132) Ibid.

(133) This kind of proposition in physiology always contains a double error: 1. the elements physiologists speak about are simply and solely external, extrasubjective elements — feeling does not terminate in any way in an external, extrasubjective element, because this element has nothing real except the property of acting as matter; 2. if atoms have life, they must receive it from a feeling principle of which they are the term — life cannot be one of their properties as matter is.

(134) `Matter of feeling' means the extended term of feeling, and should not be confused with corporeal matter whose concept has been given earlier (cf. 247-257).

(135) Bichat, Ricerche fisiologiche intorno alla vita e la morte, pt. 1.

(136) What has been said in this article removes the objection against the simplicity of the feeling principle. The limitation of the feeling indicated in this chapter concerns only the extended term of sensation. We do not deny, however, that the activity of the feeling principle can vary in intensity. In fact, the specific difference of animals must be principally sought in the degree of intensity, and in the nature and laws of this activity.

(137) Cf. Luigi Rolando's dissertation: Del passaggio dei fluidi allo stato di solidi organici, ossia formazione dei tessuti vegetabili ed animali, dei vasi e del cuore.

(138) The term `common sensory' is incorrectly applied to parts of the body. Any corporeal part can be a seat of its own feeling but never of the feeling of other parts of the body. It was shown in my Rinnovamento (bk. 2, c. 36) that the common sensory must be simple, and that to imagine it as a corporeal organ is absurd. Physiologists use `common sensory' inappropriately to name the organ considered necessary for all the sensations proper to an animal. These sensations are aroused sensations, not a feeling of continuity. — If, instead of the organ necessary for arousing these sensations, we seek `the term of feeling and whether this term corresponds to a solid or fluid', we find that the term cannot be limited to one part of the body (for example, to the fluid in the brain ventricles); it must be present wherever feeling is present in the body. - Before Soemmering, the Italian Fr. Toffoli had demonstrated that the nerves of different senses do not unite at one centre in the brain. He hardened a brain by soaking it for a time in alcohol, and was thus able to observe the line of the nerves more deeply within the brain than had been done previously. Cf. Opuscoli scelti sulle scienze e sulle arti, t. 13, p. 390 ss., and t. 15, p. 98 ss.

(139) Cuvier and other well-known naturalists who attribute sensitivity to zoophytes find only an homogeneous pulp in these beings, but no organs or nerves used for sensation. They say that `irritable and sensitive substances are mixed indistinctly' in the pulp. Judged a priori, this does not seem absurd to me, although other naturalists claim that sensitivity cannot be conceived without formed nerves. Cuvier's understanding of feeling would be confirmed by the fact (if proved) that molluscs smell with the whole surface of their body. All these investigations, however, depend solely on the verification of the fact: `Are there definite vestiges of sensations in beings commonly considered more imperfect and simple than animals?'

(140) Stenone, Albino, Vieussens and others showed that when the main blood vessels serving the nerves were tied, the nerves lost all their activity, and that the limbs they served became paralysed. — Bichat asked `which system, in the case of various asphyxiations, principally controlled the influence of the harmful substances mixed with the blood'. He concluded that `everything indicates that their action is generally effected on the nervous system, and in particular on the system regulating the functions of animal life, because the organic functions were disturbed only later' (cf. Ricerche fisiologiche intorno alla vita ed alla morte, pt. 2, art. 9, §1).

(141) Ricerche fisiologiche intorno alla vita e alla morte, pt. 2, art. 6, §2. — Among ancient writers, Empedocles and Critias located the common sensory in the blood (cf. Empedocles by Sturz, Leipzig, 1805, §15). Porfirio claims that Empedocles took this opinion from Homer (In Stobaei eclog. phys. c. 52). Tertullian (De anima, c. 15) goes further back, claiming that the opinion came from Egyptian thinkers. To hgemonikon, he says, is `not in between the brows, as Strato the Physician states, nor in the whole chest cage, as Epicurus says, but' (here we must understand "in the blood") `as the Egyptians, who seemed to be exponents of divine things, proclaimed it, and according to the line of Orpheus or Empedocles:

For the blood surrounding the human heart is feeling'.

The opinion that the soul and feeling are in the blood is a universal opinion of the earliest times. The oldest document containing the opinion is Leviticus, at the place where it says that `the life of the flesh is in the blood' (c. 17: [11]). Empedocles himself, it must be noted, did not accept that life and feeling were in every principal component of the blood but only in the element fire. Thus, according to Plutarch (De Pl. Phil. V, 24) and Galeno (Hist. Ph.), Empedocles defined sleep as `a diminution of heat', and death as `a privation of heat'.

(142) Everything Roland says about the tiny globules which form different patterns and organic systems should be related to what Fr. Della Torre states in his Nuove osservazioni microscopiche. He says he examined some nerve segments under very powerful microscopes and discovered that their filaments were composed of minute globules joined together, and that a great number of similar globules moved between the fibres (p.63). — It is well known that Monro located the origin of all the nerves in the arteries.

(143) Bogros has recently revived the opinion concerning the cunicular formation of the nerves and the fluid moving in them. But Breschet and Raspail disagree with him. They repeated Bogros' experiments and concluded that the nerve channels were not apparent. According to them, we still lacked the observations necessary for affirming that feeling is exercised through some particular nerve-fluid (cf. Nuovo Giornale de' Letterati, Pisa, no. 39, May and June 1828). In any case, the question of the cunicular formation of the nerves differs from, and must not be confused with the question of the existence of a fluid proper to the nerves as minister and term of sensations.

(144) Ricerche fisiologiche intorno alla vita e alla morte, pt. 2, art. 6.

(145) OT, 806, where I showed that our absolute movement is unfeelable and that absolute space cannot be the term of our individual feeling.

(146) The duration of the feeling principle, that is, its identity at different times, constitutes a kind of simplicity or unity. This unity, arising from the identity of the feeling principle during different, uninterrupted lengths of time, cannot be attributed absolutely to a purely material body but only to the body's relationship with the feeling principle itself. In fact the only way of conceiving the identity of a body at different times is to consider it in relationship to the subject perceiving it, that is, to attribute to it only a relative identity or unity of existence at different times. An extraordinary truth results from this: `Continuous duration has its seat in the feeling principle which communicates this duration to its term. Continuous extension has its seat in the felt term, which communicates the extension to its principle.' Kant glimpsed something of this when he said that space is the form of external sense, and time the form of internal sense. But this does not alter what I have said elsewhere, namely, that both time and space can be conceived only on the condition that spirits exist.

(147) This theory of excitation caused by internal movements will be discussed in my Psicologia.

(148) OT, 807, 808.

(149) This perhaps is the case with entozoas.

(150) Cases of human beings born headless or with an ossified brain are not at all rare. Haller notes, however, that such cases are found only in foetuses (Comm. in Boerh. II, 625). A recent case of anencephalia has been described in the Nuovo Giornale de' Letterati of Pisa, March and April 1829, Nr. 44. The author, Tommaso Biancini, apparently sees a contradiction between the fact of living anencephalics and the experiments of Charles Bell, Philippis, Magendie, Serres and others, which indicate that feeling depends on certain parts of the cerebral-spinal system. We must bear in mind, however, that the question `Are the parts of the cerebral-spinal system necessary for the feeling of the being that has them?' differs from the question `Are they necessary to the feeling of another, perhaps entirely different, living being that lacks them?' Interestingly, the Roman Ritual prescribes that the baptism of such horrifically deformed beings can be administered only under the condition `If you are human'. The Church therefore does not reject but rather presupposes the opinion that human generation can be so disordered that instead of a human being a non-intelligent being is generated. Le-Cat reports the constant observation that headless foetuses are very lively in their mother's womb and make violent movements during delivery, but when delivered seem to suffocate and soon cease all movement. He also cites the observations made by Denis and Vaissière (Dissertation sur la sensibilité des meninges etc., art. 3).

(151) Ricerche fisiologiche intorno alla vita ed alla morte, pt. 2, art. 2 and 4.