ABSTRACT
Our task is to examine introspectively a content of consciousness which includes what we have called discrete coexistence (or side-by-sideness) of sensations of touch, sight, hearing, smell, and so on; and we will begin by considering the different kinds of sensation, one by one. As regards tactile sensations (in the widest sense) the words “discrete coexistence” express literally the data of sensation. If I touch the tip of my forefinger with a compass, of which the two points are five millimetres apart, the double impression is absolutely coexistent. If I proceed to touch my finger-tip with one point and my palm with the other there is still coexistence, but different in nature and wider apart; and the same happens with all simultaneous sensations from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. And thus, while all simultaneous cutaneous sensations unite in a side-by-sideness which we feel as being the surface of our bodies, similarly our subcutaneous, tactile sensations, that is the inner, deeper ones, accompany and repeat their coexistence in other directions from outside inwards, and this series is added to the previous one, whereby the various sensations of our organs, and of posture, and movement, are constituted. And all, cutaneous and subcutaneous alike, whatever their nature, are directly referred to their respective bodily places. 1
