________________
ever
the most fundamental organ of sense. All the living beings, it is true, do not possess all the organs of sense, but none found to be bereft of the organ of touch. It is the sense of touch, says the Jain philosophers, that distinguishes the living from the non-living. If responsiveness, as lately demonstrated by Dr. Bose be the criterion of life, then every living being must at least be possessed of the organ of touch without which 'response' becomes impossible. The reason why any and every jiva, having its being within the relativity of causes and conditions, must at least be possessed of the sense of touch is this: a jiva cannot exist alone, aloof and by itself anywhere in the vacuous space without anything there for the jiva to come in contact with. With a jiva to be, means not only to exist somewhere but to be in contact with something else as distinct from itself; and this consciousness in the living being of being in contact with something other than itself, upon which it acts and re-acts, would be impossible, if it were devoid of the sense of
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The sense of
touch is the
most funda
mental of the
senses.
