Will the Sixth Sense Come?

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 175, 20 April 1929, Page 17

Will the Sixth Sense Come?

R - RUFUS JONES, Professor of Philosophy, ftaverford College, I in his new book, “The New Quest,” deals with a side of life that | I even practical philosophers are inclined to overlook. “We always | J used'to suppose that there , are five senses—five and no more,” writes Dr. Jones. “This belief is as old as the hills, older in fact than, some hills. Every now and* then someone mysteriously, alludes to a possible ‘sixth sense.’ Well, this sixth sense is much.morp real and much more commonplace than any . . . unusual psychic powers.

“We all have a sixth sense which we use every hour and every minute of dur waking life, probably also of our sleeping life. Without it we should be unable! to walk, to move about; or to get on in our world at all.

, “This sixth sense, which has been in operation ever since there have been men at all, is called the kinaesthetic sense. It has to do with the position and movement of the limbs and joints. It is by this sense that we know where the different parts of the body are at. any given time. We locate by it the crook of our knee, the bend of our elbow, the turn of our eyeball in its socket. It is by this sense that we know the weight of what we 1 are lifting, the resistance of what we are pushing.

“Every one of our senses has a special organ by means of which the world makes itself known to us. The end.-organs of sight are infinitesimal rods and cones in the retina. For hearing, it is the organ of Corti in the inner ear. For the end-organ of taste, there are numerous papillae on the tongue and in other parts of the mouth cavity. The end-organs for this sixth sense are located in the muscles, in the tendons and in the linings of the joints. There are multitudinous tiny spindles imbedded in the muscles which report the contraction and pull of the muscles. There are also little spindles in the tendons which enable us to register the strain and tension ■when we lift or when we move.

“There are, too, minute sensitive corpuscles in the synovial membrane that lines the socket and covers the ball of each joint. The slightest movement of rotation or tension is felt at these sensitive surfaces. These three sets of end-organs unite to give us our sense of joint motion, of limb position, of lifting or pushing strain.’ We cannot move any part of. our body in the least degree without a report of it through this far-flung kinaesthetic system. . . e . •

“When it is out of gear we have hysteria and other troubles of a sad aud serious sort. It is, too, the physical basis of our emotions. We see a dangerous object, a robber or a bandit, or a bear, and instantly there is a commotion throughout the entire body. 1

1 “The heart changes beat, the tension of the. arteries alters, the breathing is affected,. the glands are thrown into function, the capillaries change their size, the muscles become tense. Reports from all these outposts pour into headquarters and there follows that mental condition which we call an emotion or fear. Whenever we experience any emotion, something like that happens. The kinaesthetic and organic systems are always supreme factors in the internal upheaval of the emotions. Joy and sorrow, peace and fear, make use alike of, the millions of strings of this important sixth sense. “Even when we oply imagine things we still use it. Think'of a circle ten feet in diameter and you feel your eyes roll round the circumference or across the diameter. Imagine the gable of a house and you at once feel your eyes go toward the peak of the angle and down the other side. There is nothing you can do, or see or think that does not involve the sixth sense. It is surely odd that it was not discovered until a few years ago! “It has a great deal to dp with what we call ourself, our personality, our character. If we lost our sense of strains and pulls and tensions—the feel of our corporeal bulk—we should hardly know ourselves. And yet how much more are we as living persons than the sum total of all reports from our kinaesthetic sense! “Billowing light strikes our retina and we see not merely light, but a beautiful sunset harmoniously ordered and artistically appreciated. We are aware of sounds beating through the complicated system of the ear, but we do not stop with noises. We rise to the enjoyment of music and feel its meaning and significance. So we get our sixth-sense reports of what is happening with joints and muscles, with strained arteries and beating heart, and we find ourselves living out beyond space and time, absorbed in some • love of truth or reality which fingers do not touch or eyes see. "We know now that even six senses do not exhaust our capacities of perceiving. We shall' probably eventually count up ten senses. But even with ten avenues of approach we are always living beyond our senses, we are essentially sense-transcending beings. We are not satisfied to be efficient, to 1 perceive and re-act. We want something more than the kind of information which senses bring.

“Our real life lies deeper. We have intimations of wider scope, ‘hints of realities with which senses cannot deal. What we want most are light and leading which will link us up with this deeper Life of our life. What we need more than we need a new sense is an irfner vision by which we become assured of Love and Purpose at the heart of things. “I am going to stand for the inalienable powers and capacities of ’of the soul, whatever happens. Given a soul with unmeted range and unplumbed depth, we shall eventually find the deeper World we seek.”