Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/511

Rh of a tactual sensation should be regularly signalised by some striking occurrence in the visual field, and vice versâ. The simultaneous outcrop of the two disparate impressions brings about an association between them, so that each comes to mean the other much more rapidly than if the tactual or internal sensations occurred without any marked change in the visual experience. The dermal and internal sensations arising from the head and chest are accompanied by visual changes which are less striking than those associated with the kinsæsthetic variations in the feet and hands. The act of swinging the leg and planting the foot, of moving the arm and grasping, gives a lively impression for both sight and the motor-tactual sense. And these changes are, besides, more interesting and invite a more attentive supervision than do the movements of circulation and breathing and directing the eyes. What visible appearance there is of these latter movements generally passes with less heed; and a longer time is consequently required to develop intimate connexions and instinctive cross-references between touch and sight than in the case of the legs and arms.

As to the feeling of the directions up, down, and level, there was at first an utter rejection of the directions suggested by the view, then an occasional confusion for example, as I stood by a table handling something upon it, I seemed to be looking down on my hands and yet at the same time looking out horizontally (which was the actual fact)—and finally cases where the apparent plane of the ground was accepted as the true level, and my body was felt as upright upon it. More frequently, perhaps, there was a compromise, in that the new visual directions were not accepted, as final and yet I could not bring myself to feel that the true level was as different from the visible plane of the ground as I knew it must be. But even when for a time the apparent plane was accepted and things near by, but at the moment out of view, were represented in spatial accord with what I saw, more remote objects that had not been seen during the experiment refused to come into the new system and stood stubbornly on their old plane.

The whole experience was thus so similar to the one with the inverting lenses that I hesitate to present it even in this brief outline. But under the circumstances the very similarity is a distinct addition to the data from the previous experiment, since it shows that the introduction of the new factor—that of distance—does not prevent an ultimate spatial concord. In such brief trials as this, one must of course hope only for some indications of the course the