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CREATION
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a function of sense-organs, but of the soul, as we maintain, then there is no escape from the conclusion that the death of the body would not mean the destruction of the perceptive faculties of the soul,
Dr. Dods suggested the following experiment to prove the existence of a visual power independent of the eye : 'If you take a shilling and a piece of zinc of the same size, put the shilling against the gums under the upper lip, and then open the mouth and lay the piece of zinc upon the tongue ; by moving the tongue up and down you will touch the pieces together, and every time they come in contact you will see a flash of light. This flash is seen directly by the mind and independently of the natural organ of sight, the eye ; and the proof of it lies in the fact that you may enter the darkest room, in the darkest night, and might close or even bandage your eyes, still, whenever the pieces of zinc and silver come in contact with each other in your mouth, you will see the flash, even when one from the heavens could not be
seen.'
The somnambulist, surely, does not see with his eyes during the 'fit,' and yet he performs, at times, the most difficult and dangerous feats and exceedingly fine work. The wonderful phenomena of the psychic type, e.g., the perception of invisible, distant objects, also prove that the organs of sense--the ear, the eye, and the like, are not the only means, or channels of perception.
So long as these phenomena remain unexplained, it is not competent to us to declare that all forms of perception are possible only with the aid of the brain, or of a central nervous system. Careful observation will show that the
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