Volume 4, Issue 4, page 7

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Chapter IV -- INWARD THE SENSES
Jj HAT WE SEE seems near or far. We see
it and possibly judge its distance
away. But we see the image because
something is projected from it to
our eyes; the far image is reflected in the depths of our eyes. The
distant image is actually seen within us.
We gather it in, as the mother gathers
clothing, husband, and children into her
arms. We send it to our vision by bringing it into focus. We turn our heads, the
better to see. We widen or squint in order to see more clearly. We funnel, or
channel, the object so that it shall fall
upon the heart of the eye and there be
"seen".

We touch something with our fingers and
something is transmitted to our "inner".
With our hands, our finger tips, we firm
an image in our minds of the thing touched. This touch, augmented by sight, causes
us to form images within our minds, somewhere within our bodies apparently. The
far object which we cannot touch until we
have undertaken the additional effort of
traveling to it, or by calling it to us,
is formed for us solely by what our eyes
tell something within us. Assisted by
touch, the form takes on tangible substance.

We smell something. If it is a new
thing we estimate it. We checkit mentally
for impressions. We know, generally,
whether the result is pleasant or the reverse, whether it makes for euphoria or
is offensive. There are many in-between
gradations. But when we smell something
we pass judgment on it in accordance with
the impression the odor makes on something within us. If we trace the fragrance
to a flower we can see and touch, our
inner impression of the fragrance takes
on association, becomes even more fully
rounded. But whatever influences us, takes
place within us. And thereafter that same
fragrance will remind us of the first
time we experienced it, and all of the
memory is repossessed on the instant, or
tantalizes us until we do repossess it.

We hear something, anything, a far-off
sound: a call, a whistle, a sigh, a whisper, a tune, a bird song, a wolf call, a
cat's meow, a dog's bark. The instant the
sound impinges on our hearing equipment,
enters into the ear as into a funnel receiving water, we have impressions inside
ourselves. We understand the call, identify the whisper, wonder about the sigh,
strain to understand the whisper, note the
familiarity or lack of it of the tune,
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relate the bird song to the proper bird
if we can, feel uncomfortable with the
wolf, smile at the cat's meow, snap mental fingers with the dog's bark. And all
of these reactions take place within us.

We taste something. We can taste it
only when it touches our taste buds, tho
the sense of smell has doubtless identified it for us if our eyes have not.
Taste has many after effects, for it metamorphoses so much of man's innerness,
his physical innerness. Taste is not entirely a mental experience. Eating diverts
even spiritual attention to the man's
digestive mechanism. It is possible tofocus the result of
all five senses in a single spot in man --
without being able exactly to name the
spot, or even to see it. It is there, and
it operates, and man is aware of it. Thru
his five senses he experiences the world.

But there is more. When man sees a
distant tree and knows it for what it is,
he is quite likely to make use of his
other four senses in relation to that
tree by bringing memory into play. The
tree whispers in the wind, too far away
for man to hear it, yet he hears it because in the past, many times, he has
heard such whispers. He does not see them
so far away, but he knows that apples bend
the limbs heavily, so he sees the apples
he can't actually see, smells their fragrance, holds them in his hand, tastes
them. All except sight is herein synthetic, a matter of memory, as man learns
when he attempts to eat the distant fruit
without going close enough to pluck it,
or somehow bringing it to his hands. Yet
his senses have all been operative.

Add this something important: the man
who sees the distant apple tree can close
his eyes and still see the tree, as surely
as if his eyes were open, not because the
image lingers on his retina, but because
he remembers how the tree looked when his
eyes were open. At this point he can do
something he couldn't, or at least didn't,
do while his eyes were open: He can, in
imagination and memory, go to the tree,
touch it, smell its fragrance, pluck the
fruit, taste it, hear the crunch as he
bites into the apple -- only to discover
that he hasn't, after all, bitten into
it. But has he not? Here man asks many
questions, all within himself, as to what
constitutes reality.

By the five senses man sees, hears,
smells, tastes, feels his world. Within
himself he sorts out and classifies the
impressions it makes upon him in its var