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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
mind becomes luminous when vibrating at a certain pitch, and thus feels colours. When the sensory excitation reaches the mind, it encounters and challenges the will in the centres of perception. The shock, i.e., the sensation, caused by the disturbance, then rouses attention, which, summoning to its aid the powers and forces residing in the sub-conscious region of the will, proceeds to tackle the situation. Of the elements wbich appear on the threshold of consciousness, those that bave the same rhythm with those in the arrested sensation vibrate in sympathy with the external stimulus, as if welcoming their brethren from the outside, and thus give rise to perception.
These elements exist in the mind not in the form of ready-made images, but as a heterogeneous mass of seething active potentialities, or forces, held, as it were, in solution. They are not separable from one another like things juxtaposed in space, but interpenetrating. Hence, when a certain number of them are thrown into vibration, the rest become, as it were, suppressed. The result is that the vibrating elements stand out in the field of consciousness as illuminated outlines in an unilluminated field. Thus is formed the image which is projected outwards in the direction of the stimulus. Hence the statement that mind itself assumes the form of the object which it cognizes. The awareness of the internal reaction on the external stimulus is what is called perception. It will be seen that general, or detail-less, perception precedes the knowledge of particulars, for detailed cognition is an intellectual process and begins with the isolation of parts from the undivided
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