Text-book of physiological and pathological chemistry : in twenty-one lectures for physicians and students / by G. Bunge ; translated from the second German edition by ... L.C. Wooldridge.

  • Bunge, Gustav von, 1844-1920.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Text-book of physiological and pathological chemistry : in twenty-one lectures for physicians and students / by G. Bunge ; translated from the second German edition by ... L.C. Wooldridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of motion transmitted by the auditory nerve ; all our sensa- tions of taste and smell, of temperature and touch, are due to forms of motion. At least this is what physics teaches us; these appear to be at present the most fruitful hypo- theses. It would indeed be a lack of intelligence to espect, ■with the same senses, to make discoveries in living nature of a different order to those revealed to us in inorganic nature. But for the study of organic nature we possess one addi- tional sense, our internal sense; the power of studying and observing the conditions and processes of our own consciousness. To hold that this also is a variety of motion, is, in my opinion, an untenable doctrine. The simple fact that many conditions of consciousness have no relation to Space is opposed to such a view. Only what consciousness has acquired by certain senses, sight, touch, muscular sense,* is related to space. All other sensations, emotions, passions, and an unlimited number of ideas have no relation to Space, but only to time. We cannot here, then, speak of a mechanism. It might be suggested that this is only an apparent difference—that in reality these also have dimen- sional properties. But such an opinion cannot be sustained. We suppose that objects which we perceive with our senses have dimensional properties simply on the ground that, so far as we can ohserve them by means of our senses, touch and sight, they seem to possess them. But, for the whole World of our internal sense, we have not even this apparent reason, so that we cannot admit that there is any ground for such a supposition. * The ideas of space, which are connected with the sensations of sight and toueh, may be brought about by the complex muscular apparatus, which plays a pnrt in all tlie functions of the organs of sight and touch. This is also true of the so-called common sensations. The ideas of space may be due to the senaory flbres of the muscular nerves only. This view was first upheld by Steinbuch ( Beiträge zur Physiologie der Sinne: Nürnberg, 1811), and contested by Jol). Müller ( Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssinnes, p. 52: Leipzig, 1826), but, I consider, on unsatisfactory grounds. Joh. Müller was a supportor of Kant's doctrine of space, which likcwise appears to mc untenable.