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16 DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM §4142in the substance and form of the skin. That is the subject, and the senseitself is simply the way it is affected by contact.It is the same with taste. This sense is simply the way a substance andform, this time of the tongue, are affected. The tongue is the subject. It isthe same with smell. We recognize that odors affect the nostrils and arein the nostrils, and that smell is the way impinging aromas affect them. Itis the same with hearing. It seems as though hearing were in the placewhere the sound originates, but hearing is in the ear and is the way itssubstance and form are affected. It is only an appearance that hearinghappens at a distance from the ear.This is true of sight as well. When we see objects at a distance, itseems as though our sight were where they are. However, sight is in theeye, which is the subject; and sight is the way the eye is affected, too. Distanceis simply what we infer about space on the basis of intervening objectsor on the basis of reduced size and consequent loss of clarity of anobject whose image is being presented within the eye according to its angleof incidence. We can see from this that sight does not go out from theeye to the object, but that an image of the object enters the eye and affectsits substance and form. It is the same for both sight and hearing.Hearing does not go out of the ear to seize on the sound, but the soundenters the ear and affects it.It stands to reason, then, that the affecting of substance and formthat constitutes a sense is not something separate from the subject. It issimply the effecting of a change within the subject, with the subject remainingthe subject throughout and thereafter. It then follows that sight,hearing, smell, taste, and touch are not things that go floating out fromtheir organs. They are the organs themselves, in respect to their substanceand form. Sensation happens when they are affected.It is the same with love and wisdom, the only difference being thatthe substances and forms that are love and wisdom are not visible to oureyes as are the organs of our external senses. Still, no one can deny thatthose matters of love and wisdom that we call thoughts, perceptions, andfeelings are substances and forms. They are not things that go floatingout from nothing, remote from any functional and real substance andform that are their subjects. There are in fact countless substances andforms in the brain that serve as the homes of all the inner sensation thatinvolves our discernment and volition.What has just been said about our external senses points to the conclusionthat all our feelings, perceptions, and thoughts in those substancesand forms are not something they breathe out; they themselves