The
something which makes me walk into the shop and buy the rolls is
consciousness in the form of willing. The sensory appeal from the
outside world gained admission through the sense of smell; this
transmitted the message, and consciousness recognized the stimulus,
which immediately appealed to my hunger and incited action to satisfy
that hunger.
The ear of the operator in the telegraph office, again, might illustrate
consciousness. It must be able to interpret mere clickings into terms of
sense. To the operator the sounds say words, and the words are the
expression of the object at the other end of the wire. The brain is the
receiving operator for all the senses, which bring their messages in
code, and which it interprets first as sound, vision, taste, touch,
feel, smell, temperature; then more accurately as words, trees, sweet,
soft, round, acrid, hot.
The mind can know nothing except as the stimulus is transmitted by
sense-channels over the nerves of sense, and received by a conscious
brain. A baby born without sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch would
remain a mere bit of clay.
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