It is not the object of my writings to repeat what has been said by
others, and therefore I only make here some special remarks of my own on
the subject of the senses.
The senses are merely the channels through which the brain receives from
without (in the form of sensations) the materials which it works up into
ideas of perception. Those sensations which principally serve for the
objective comprehension of the external world must in themselves be
neither agreeable nor disagreeable. This really means that they must leave
the will entirely unaffected. Otherwise the sensation _itself_ would
attract our attention, and we would remain at the _effect_ instead of
passing to the _cause_, which is what is aimed at here. For it would bring
with it that marked superiority, as regards our consideration, which the
will always has over the mere idea, to which we only turn when the will is
silent. Therefore colours and sounds are in themselves, and so long as
their impression does not pass the normal degree, neither painful nor
pleasurable sensations, but appear with the indifference that fits them to
be the material of pure objective perception. This is as far the case as
was possible in a body which is in itself through and through will; and
just in this respect it is worthy of admiration. Physiologically it rests
upon the fact that in the organs of the nobler senses, thus in sight and
hearing, the nerves which have to receive the specific outward impression
are quite insusceptible to any sensation of pain, and know no other
sensation than that which is specifically peculiar to them, and which
serves the purpose of mere apprehension. Thus the retina, as also the
optic nerve, is insensible to every injury; and this is also the case with
the nerve of hearing. In both organs pain is only felt in their other
parts, the surroundings of the nerve of sense which is peculiar to them,
never in this nerve itself. In the case of the eye such pain is felt
principally in the _conjunctiva_; in the case of the ear, in the _meatus
auditorius_. Even with the brain this is the case, for if it is cut into
directly, thus from above, it has no feeling. Thus only on account of this
indifference with regard to the will which is peculiar to them are the
sensations of the eye capable of supplying the understanding with such
multifarious and finely distinguished data, out of which it constructs in
our head the marvellous objective world, by the application of the law of
causality upon the foundation of the pure perceptions of space and time.
Just that freedom from affecting the will which is characteristic of
sensations of colour enables them, when their energy is heightened by
transparency, as in the glow of an evening sky, in painted glass, and the
like, to raise us very easily into the state of pure objective will-less
perception, which, as I have shown in my third book, is one of the chief
constituent elements of the æsthetic impression. Just this indifference
with regard to the will fits sounds to supply the material for denoting
the infinite multiplicity of the conceptions of the reason.
_Outer sense_, that is, receptivity for external impressions as pure data
for the understanding, is divided into _five senses_, and these
accommodate themselves to the four elements, _i.e._, the four states of
aggregation, together with that of imponderability. Thus the sense for
what is firm (earth) is touch; for what is fluid (water), taste; for what
is in the form of vapour, _i.e._, volatile (vapour, exhalation), smell;
for what is permanently elastic (air), hearing; for what is imponderable
(fire, light), sight. The second imponderable, heat, is not properly an
object of the senses, but of general feeling, and therefore always affects
the _will_ directly, as agreeable or disagreeable. From this
classification there also follows the relative dignity of the senses.
Sight has the highest rank, because its sphere is the widest and its
susceptibility the finest. This rests upon the fact that what affects it
is an imponderable, that is, something which is scarcely corporeal, but is
_quasi_ spiritual. Hearing has the second place, corresponding to air.
However, touch is a more thorough and well-informed sense. For while each
of the other senses gives us only an entirely one-sided relation to the
object, as its sound, or its relation to light, touch, which is closely
bound up with general feeling and muscular power, supplies the
understanding with the data at once for the form, magnitude, hardness,
softness, texture, firmness, temperature, and weight of bodies, and all
this with the least possibility of illusion and deception, to which all
the other senses are far more subject. The two lowest senses, smell and
taste, are no longer free from a direct affection of the will, that is,
they are always agreeably or disagreeably affected, and are therefore more
subjective than objective.
Sensations of hearing are exclusively in _time_, and therefore the whole
nature of music consists in degrees of time, upon which depends both the
quality or pitch of tones, by means of vibrations, and also their quantity
or duration, by means of time. The sensations of sight, on the other hand,
are primarily and principally in _space_; but secondarily, by reason of
their duration, they are also in time.
Sight is the sense of the understanding which perceives; hearing is the
sense of the reason which thinks and apprehends. Words are only
imperfectly represented by visible signs; and therefore I doubt whether a
deaf and dumb man, who can read, but has no idea of the sound of the
words, works as quickly in thinking with the mere visible signs of
conceptions as we do with the real, _i.e._, the audible words. If he
cannot read, it is well known that he is almost like an irrational animal,
while the man born blind is from the first a thoroughly rational being.
Sight is an _active_, hearing a _passive_ sense. Therefore sounds affect
our mind in a disturbing and hostile manner, and indeed they do so the
more in proportion as the mind is active and developed; they distract all
thoughts and instantly destroy the power of thinking. On the other hand,
there is no analogous disturbance through the eye, no direct effect of
what is seen, _as such_, upon the activity of thought (for naturally we
are not speaking here of the influence which the objects looked at have
upon the will); but the most varied multitude of things before our eyes
admits of entirely unhindered and quiet thought. Therefore the thinking
mind lives at peace with the eye, but is always at war with the ear. This
opposition of the two senses is also confirmed by the fact that if deaf
and dumb persons are cured by galvanism they become deadly pale with
terror at the first sounds they hear (Gilbert’s “_Annalen der Physik_,”
vol. x. p. 382), while blind persons, on the contrary, who have been
operated upon, behold with ecstasy the first light, and unwillingly allow
the bandages to be put over their eyes again. All that has been said,
however, can be explained from the fact that hearing takes place by means
of a mechanical vibration of the nerve of hearing which is at once
transmitted to the brain, while seeing, on the other hand, is a real
_action_ of the retina which is merely stimulated and called forth by
light and its modifications; as I have shown at length in my physiological
theory of colours. But this whole opposition stands in direct conflict
with that coloured-ether, drum-beating theory which is now everywhere
unblushingly served up, and which seeks to degrade the eye’s sensation of
light to a mechanical vibration, such as primarily that of hearing
actually is, while nothing can be more different than the still, gentle
effect of light and the alarm-drum of hearing. If we add to this the
remarkable circumstance that although we hear with two ears, the
sensibility of which is often very different, yet we never hear a sound
double, as we often see things double with our two eyes, we are led to the
conjecture that the sensation of hearing does not arise in the labyrinth
or in the cochlea, but deep in the brain where the two nerves of hearing
meet, and thus the impression becomes simple. But this is where the _pons
Varolii_ encloses the _medulla oblongata_, thus at the absolutely lethal
spot, by the injury of which every animal is instantly killed, and from
which the nerve of hearing has only a short course to the labyrinth, the
seat of acoustic vibration. Now it is just because its source is here, in
this dangerous place, in which also all movement of the limbs originates,
that we start at a sudden noise; which does not occur in the least degree
when we suddenly see a light; for example, a flash of lightning. The optic
nerve, on the contrary, proceeds from its _thalami_ much further forward
(though perhaps its source lies behind them), and throughout its course is
covered by the anterior lobes of the brain, although always separated from
them till, having extended quite out of the brain, it is spread out in the
retina, upon which, on stimulation by light, the sensation first arises,
and where it is really localised. This is shown in my essay upon sight and
colour. This origin of the auditory nerve explains, then, the great
disturbance which the power of thinking suffers from sound, on account of
which thinking men, and in general all people of much intellect, are
without exception absolutely incapable of enduring any noise. For it
disturbs the constant stream of their thoughts, interrupts and paralyses
their thinking, just because the vibration of the auditory nerve extends
so deep into the brain, the whole mass of which feels the oscillations set
up through this nerve, and vibrates along with them, and because the
brains of such persons are more easily moved than those of ordinary men.
On the same readiness to be set in motion, and capacity for transmission,
which characterises their brains depends the fact that in the case of
persons like these every thought calls forth so readily all those
analogous or related to it whereby the similarities, analogies, and
relations of things in general come so quickly and easily into their
minds; that the same occasion which millions of ordinary minds have
experienced before brings them to _the_ thought, to _the_ discovery, that
other people are subsequently surprised they did not reach themselves, for
they certainly can think afterwards, but they cannot think before. Thus
the sun shone on all statues, but only the statue of Memnon gave forth a
sound. For this reason Kant, Gœthe, and Jean Paul were highly sensitive to
every noise, as their biographers bear witness.(13) Gœthe in his last
years bought a house which had fallen into disrepair close to his own,
simply in order that he might not have to endure the noise that would be
made in repairing it. Thus it was in vain that in his youth he followed
the drum in order to harden himself against noise. It is not a matter of
custom. On the other hand, the truly stoical indifference to noise of
ordinary minds is astonishing. No noise disturbs them in their thinking,
reading, writing, or other occupations, while the finer mind is rendered
quite incapable by it. But just that which makes them so insensible to
noise of every kind makes them also insensible to the beautiful in plastic
art, and to deep thought or fine expression in literary art; in short, to
all that does not touch their personal interests. The following remark of
Lichtenberg’s applies to the paralysing effect which noise has upon highly
intellectual persons: “It is always a good sign when an artist can be
hindered by trifles from exercising his art. F—— used to stick his fingers
into sulphur if he wished to play the piano.... Such things do not
interfere with the average mind;... it acts like a coarse sieve”
(_Vermischte Schriften_, vol. i. p. 398). I have long really held the
opinion that the amount of noise which any one can bear undisturbed stands
in inverse proportion to his mental capacity, and therefore may be
regarded as a pretty fair measure of it. Therefore, if I hear the dogs
barking for hours together in the court of a house without being stopped,
I know what to think of the intellectual capacity of the inhabitants. The
man who habitually slams the door of a room, instead of shutting it with
his hand, or allows this to go on in his house, is not only ill-bred, but
is also a coarse and dull-minded fellow. That in English “sensible” also
means gifted with understanding is based upon accurate and fine
observation. We shall only become quite civilised when the ears are no
longer unprotected, and when it shall no longer be the right of everybody
to sever the consciousness of each thinking being, in its course of a
thousand steps, with whistling, howling, bellowing, hammering,
whip-cracking, barking, &c. &c. The Sybarites banished all noisy trades
without the town; the honourable sect of the Shakers in North America
permit no unnecessary noise in their villages, and the Moravians have a
similar rule. Something more is said upon this subject in the thirtieth
chapter of the second volume of the “Parerga.”
The effect of music upon the mind, so penetrating, so direct, so
unfailing, may be explained from the _passive_ nature of hearing which has
been discussed; also the after effect which sometimes follows it, and
which consists in a specially elevated frame of mind. The vibrations of
the tones following in rationally combined numerical relations set the
fibre of the brain itself in similar vibration. On the other hand, the
_active_ nature of sight, opposed as it is to the passive nature of
hearing, makes it intelligible why there can be nothing analogous to music
for the eye, and the piano of colours was an absurd mistake. Further, it
is just on account of the active nature of the sense of sight that it is
remarkably acute in the case of beasts that hunt, _i.e._, beasts of prey,
while conversely the _passive_ sense of hearing is specially acute in
those beasts that are hunted, that flee, and are timid, so that it may
give them timely warning of the pursuer that is rushing or creeping upon
them.
Just as we have recognised in sight the sense of the understanding, and in
hearing the sense of the reason, so we might call smell the sense of the
memory, because it recalls to us more directly than any other the specific
impression of an event or a scene even from the most distant past.