it? Well, you will find that the dictionary tells us that a sense is a
"faculty, possessed by animals, of perceiving external objects by means of
impressions made upon certain organs of the body." Getting right down to
the roots of the matter, we find that the five senses of man are the
channels through which he becomes aware or conscious of information
concerning objects outside of himself. But, these senses are not the
sense-organs alone. Back of the organs there is a peculiar arrangement of
the nervous system, or brain centres, which take up the messages received
through the organs; and back of this, again, is the ego, or soul, or mind,
which, at the last, is the real KNOWER. The eye is merely a camera; the
ear, merely a receiver of sound-waves; the nose, merely an arrangement of
sensitive mucous membrane; the mouth and tongue, simply a container of
taste-buds; the nervous system, merely a sensitive apparatus designed to
transmit messages to the brain and other centres--all being but part of
the physical machinery, and liable to impairment or destruction. Back of
all this apparatus is the real Knower who makes use of it.

Science tells us that of all the five senses, that of Touch or Feeling was
the original--the fundamental sense. All the rest are held to be but
modifications of, and specialized forms of, this original sense of
feeling. I am telling you this not merely in the way of interesting and
instructive scientific information, but also because an understanding of
this fact will enable you to more clearly comprehend that which I shall
have to say to you about the higher faculties or senses.

Many of the very lowly and simple forms of animal life have this one sense
only, and that but poorly developed. The elementary life form "feels" the
touch of its food, or of other objects which may touch it. The plants also
have something akin to this sense, which in some cases, like that of the
Sensitive Plant, for instance, is quite well developed. Long before the