Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/14

 No. 45.] [JANUARY, 1887. MIND A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. I. THE PEKCEPTION OF SPACE. (I.) By Professor WILLIAM JAMES. 1. The Extensive Quality. IN the sensations of hearing, touch, sight and pain we are accustomed to distinguish from among the other elements the element of voluminousness. We call the reverberations of a thunderstorm more voluminous than the squeaking of a slate pencil ; the entrance into a warm bath gives our skin a more massive feeling than the prick of a pin ; a little neural- gic pain, fine as a cobweb, in the face, seems less extensive than the heavy soreness of a boil or the vast discomfort of a colic or a lumbago ; and a solitary star smaller than the noonday sky. In the sensation of vertigo, dizziness or sub- jective motion, which recent investigation has proved to be connected with stimulation of the semi-circular canals of the ear, the spatial character is very prominent. Whether the " muscular sense " directly yields us knowledge of space is still a matter of litigation among psychologists. Whilst some go so far as to ascribe our entire cognition of extension to its exclusive aid, others deny to it all extended quality whatever. Under these circumstances we shall better adjourn its consideration ; admitting however that it seems at first sight as if w T e felt something decidedly more voluminous 1