64 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
warmth; when they stimulate the optic nerve, I perceive
light and color. Light, color, and warmth are therefore
what my sense nerves create as responses to outside
stimuli. Even the sense of touch presents me not with ob-
jects of the external world, but only with my own states.
Following modern physics, we might think that the body
consists of infinitesimal particles—molecules—and that
these molecules do not border one another immediately
but are a certain distance apart. Between them, then, is
empty space. They affect one another through this space
by means of forces of attraction and repulsion. When I
bring my hand near a body, the molecules of my hand
never touch those of the body immediately. There always
remains a certain distance between body and hand. What
I feel as the resistance of the body is nothing more than
the effect of the repellent force that its molecules exer-
cise on my hand. I am completely outside the body in
question and merely perceive its effect on my organism.
To complete these considerations, we have the teaching
of the so-called specific sense energies proposed by J.
Müller.^8 According to this theory, our senses have the pe-
culiar quality that each sense responds to all external
stimuli in only one specific fashion. If a stimulus is ap-
plied to the optic nerve, then the percept of light arises,
- Johannes Peter Müller (1801–1858), Physiologist and comparative
anatomist, introduced concept of specific energy of nerves; explained
color sensations produced by pressure on retina; studied blood,
lymph, chyle, the voice, and embryology. Author ofHandbuch der
Physiologie des Menschen (1833–40).
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