ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

416 Jour11al of the American Society for Psychical Research.
primitive organ ( 14), the skin which exercises still in our day the
combined functions of the touch, sensibility and temperature.
" It is to be supposed that in lower species the specific organs may
have close affinity between themselves."
What the Professor of Leipsic considers as very probable, I believe
I have demonstrated as positive facts, in the experiments which
are the subject of this article, and it is only necessary to add the
, following consideration in order to give my opinion a concise
clearness.
Once the human race was endowed in the course of its evolution
with the specific organs, with a direct communication (very probably
much shorter) with the cerebral centres of perception, there
followed a general disuse of the original lines of communication
(which were probably more complicated) which proceeded from the
exterior tegument and which gradua:tly atrophied, precisely from lack
of use, this happening generally with the human race. But a few
exceptionally hypersensitive humans have preserved in a useful state
these original lines of communication directly from the external
tegument to the cerebrum, and these faculties through methodical
and scientific training have been able to develop to such a degree as
to allow a scientific demonstration of the still-existing lines of original
communication. This is the explanation in the case of the
medium, Mrs. Z.
As regards the explanation of the intricate mechanism through
which this phenomenon (until now ignored), is performed, I adhere
in the strictest manner to the opinion of Grasset: ·
"In studying the occult phenomena, it is necessary before all, to
separate at present, the discussion of real, solid facts from the merely
theoretical. When the existence of a fact has been positively proved,
it will be an easy matter to find the theory of its explanation; meanwhile,
until this is accomplished, there is not the slightest benefit to be
gained in discussing theories, nor will they be missed."
Having made this confession of faith, I shall limit myself to propose
with due right as claimant to the title of inventor, the following
idea to those future experimenters, who are better qualified than I,
in physics and physiology.
MAY NOT ALL OUR SENSORIAL IMPRESSIONS, BE
14. Until today, no specific organs have been found, in spite of all researches,
which transmit the perception of cold, heat and pain. (Wundt, p. 47.)
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