Page:Memory; how to develop, train, and use it - Atkinson - 1919.djvu/107



The sense of hearing is one of the highest of the senses or channels whereby we receive impressions from the outside world. In fact, it ranks almost as high as the sense of sight. In the senses of taste, touch, and smell there is a direct contact between the sensitive recipient nerve substance and the particles of the object sensed, while in the sense of sight and the sense of hearing the impression is received through the medium of waves in the ether (in the case of sight), or waves in the air (in the sense of hearing.) Moreover in taste, smell and touch the objects sensed are brought into direct contact with the terminal nerve apparatus, while in seeing and hearing the nerves terminate in peculiar and delicate sacs which contain a fluidic substance through which the impression is conveyed to the nerve proper. Loss of this fluidic substance destroys the faculty to receive impressions, and 101