Sensations and ideas are themselves only phenomena, and not entities. It is impossible therefore, for a sensation to be the subject of its own states; there is absolutely required an entity for this purpose. Nor can any reason be given why motion should become sensation. It is not a product of evolution. As pointed out by Prof. Ladd:

"That I am affected with a certain sensation of color, lying at the bottom of the spectrum's scale, when several billion vibrations of ether strike the retina, and with a qualitatively different sensation when the number of vibrations is increased by several billions more, cannot be explained as an evolution. The same remark holds within the limits of each of the other senses. Their scales of quality are not such that experiences at one place of the scale can be evolved from those at other places of the scale. Some of them, such as smell and taste, do not admit of being referred to any form of a scale diagram representing relations of quality. The feeling of heat is not another phase of the feeling of cold; neither of the feelings of temperature is to be explained as arising out of feelings of pressure or motion.' ' *

It is quite evident, too, that the senses restrain and limit the powers of the Ego. As observed by Plato, "the soul reasons best when least harassed by the senses." There are evidently more "things" than senses, as is shown in many ways; notably, in the world of effects lying just outside the colors of the spectrum, and of which our senses afford us no intimation. Finally, if the sense organs were the result of outer stimuli there could never happen, as is the case with every organized being now, the construction of sense organs in entire absence of the stimuli held to be a necessary antecedent to their appearance. Every child at birth comes into the world with perfectly formed eyes which have never known the stimulus of light; and so on, although in a lesser degree, with all its sense organs. It is no explanation to say that these have been primarily so organized, and are now transmitted by heredity; for the very first step in their acquirement, no matter how small, has always and necessarily been taken in the silence and darkness of subjective being.

The outer stimuli have only aroused the inner response; they have not created, nor can they create, evolve, nor even modify, this.

* Loc. Cit.

Of course, we shall be met here with the materialistic assertion that, as the vegetable kingdom, even, shows traces of nerve functions, and as this proceeds upward through the apparently structureless amceba to the highly complex system of man, increasing in conscious functioning with each increase of specialization, sensation is thus plainly a product of evolution. Yet the functions of the simplest nervous system are unique. Nothing in the whole curriculum of physical science affords even a working hypothesis by which to explain or account for the appearance of the conscious factor. Until some reasonable attempt is made to explain how motion becomes sensation, occult theories must take precedence; especially as these are in full accord with the facts. These teach that the outer sense organ is constructed by and because of the inner impulse of consciousness seeking expression in form, in order to bring about sense relations on the material plane - the only relation possible at the present stage of the soul's becoming; and that so far from consciousness arising mechanically out of these sense organs, they actually limit and inhibit conscious manifestations.

There is a continuous effort for more consciousness to function than the sense organ affords opportunity for, which fact is the very base and causal antecedent of all so-called evolution, were science not too blind to perceive it. But he who starts in the wrong direction travels a weary journey; and until scientists cease to seek in material phenomena for the origin of consciousness they can only increase their distance from the truth by any apparent progress they may make.

To return: Of ideas arising out of sensations it can only be affirmed that they are modes of activity of the Ego, not of any conceivable physical juxtaposition of molecules. The laws governing the association of ideas are to be found in the nature of the soul itself. They can not be derived from any known behavior of so-called physical atoms. They are sui generis; and, while undoubtedly correlated with, do not nor can not arise out of, the molecular activities of the brain because of the impassable gulf shown to exist between motion and sensation. Their origination is inexplicable unless we admit the presence of an observing entity, or soul. Ideas can not associate themselves; and while they may arise semi - mechanically in an idle brain, the case is quite different when the aroused Ego, through its will, asserts not only what ideas shall arise in the mind, but the manner of their association as well.

All the material ideas having their root in sensations are conscious relations of the Ego to the material plane, conditioned upon its material organs. They are in no way similar to the Ego's consciousness of self, or of its own being. The mind or thinking Ego never applies the terms of sensation arising out of its relations with external nature to its own being; it never thinks of itself as "large" or "small," or as "hot" or "cold." Nothing could be more definite than the line drawn between its own native and proper functions and those arising out of its association with the sense organs of the body. And so entirely dependent is sensation upon the soul that clear vision and acute hearing, etc., depend for their nicety not upon perfect sense organs - though these are necessary accessories, - but upon a clear mental interpretation of what is seen or heard.