Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/821

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TUDENTS of psychology are familiar with the experiments of Weber on the sense of touch. He found that different parts of the surface differ widely in their ability to give information concerning the things touched. Some parts, which yielded vivid sensations, yielded little or no knowledge of the size or form of the thing exciting it; whereas other parts, from which there came sensations much less acute, furnished clear impressions respecting tangible characters, even of relatively small objects. These unlikenesses of tactual discriminativeness he ingeniously expressed by actual measurements. Taking a pair of compasses, he found that if they were closed so nearly that the points were less than one twelfth of an inch apart, the end of the forefinger could not perceive that there were two points: the two points seemed one. But when the compasses were opened so that the points were one twelfth of an inch apart, then the end of the forefinger distinguished the two points. On the other hand, he found that the compasses must be opened to the extent of two and a half inches before the middle of the back could distinguish between two points and one. That is to say, as thus measured, the end of the forefinger has thirty times the tactual discriminativeness which the middle of the back has.

Between these extremes he found gradations. The inner surfaces of the second joints of the fingers can distinguish separateness of positions only half as well as the tip of the forefinger. The innermost joints are still less discriminating, but have a power of discrimination equal to that of the tip of the nose. The end of the great toe, the palm of the hand, and the cheek, have alike one fifth of the perceptiveness which the tip of the forefinger has; and the lower part of the forehead has but one half that possessed by the cheek. The back of the hand and the crown of the head are nearly alike in having but a fourteenth or a fifteenth of the ability to perceive positions as distinct, which is possessed by the finger-end. The thigh, near the knee, has rather less, and the breast less still; so that the compasses must be more than an inch and a half apart before the breast distinguishes the two points from one another.

What is the meaning of these differences? How, in the course of evolution, have they been established? If "natural selection" or survival of the fittest is the assigned cause, then it is required to show in what way each of these degrees of endowment has advantaged the possessor to such extent that not infrequently life has been directly or indirectly preserved by it. We might