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(43) it appears to survive the loss of perception, they conclude that perception is localized in the nervous
elements termed sensory. But the truth is that perception is no more in the sensory centres than in the motor
centres ; it measures the complexity of their relations, and is, in fact, where it appears to be.
In perception we travel
Psychologists who have studied infancy are well aware that our representation is at first impersonal. Only
from the periphery --
little by little, and as a result of experience, does it adopt our body as a centre and become our
the aggregate of
representation. The mechanism of this process is, moreover, easy to understand. As my body moves in
images, to the centre --
space, all the other images vary, while that image, my body, remains invariable. I must therefore make it a
the body; not vice
centre, to which I refer all the other images. My belief in an external world does not come, cannot come,
versa
from the fact that I project outside myself sensations that are unextended : how could these sensations ever
acquire extension, and whence should I get the notion of exteriority ? But if we allow that, as experience
testifies, the aggregate of images is given to begin with, I can see clearly how my body comes to occupy,
within this aggregate, a privileged position. And I understand also whence arises the notion of interiority
and exteriority, which is, to begin with, merely the distinction between my body and other bodies. For if
you start from my body, as is usually done, you will never make me understand how
(44) impressions received on the surface of my body, impressions which concern that body alone, are able
to become for me independent objects and form an external world. But if, on the contrary, all images are
posited at the outset, my body will necessarily end by standing out in the midst of them as a distinct thing,
since they change unceasingly, and it does not vary. The distinction between the inside and the outside will
then be only a distinction between the part and the whole. There is, first of all, the aggregate of images ;
and then, in this aggregate, there are 'centres of action,' from which the interesting images appear to be
reflected thus perceptions are born and actions made ready. My body is that which stands out as the centre
of these perceptions ; my Personality is the being to which these actions must be referred. The whole
subject becomes clear if we travel thus from the periphery to the centre, as the child does, and as we
ourselves are invited to do by immediate experience and by common sense. On the contrary everything
becomes obscure, and problems are multiplied on all sides, if we attempt, with the theorists, to travel from
the centre to the periphery.-Whence arises, then, this idea of an external world constructed artificially,
piece by piece, out of unextended sensations, though we can neither understand how they come to form an
extended surface, nor how Llicy arc subsequently projected outside our body ? Why insist, in spite of
appearances, that I should go from my conscious self to my body, then
(45) from my body to other bodies, whereas in fact I place myself at once in the material world in general,
and then gradually cut out within it the centre of action which I shall come to call my body and to
distinguish from all others ?-There are so many illusions gathered round this belief in the originally
unextended character of our external perception; there are, in the idea that we project outside ourselves
states which are purely internal, so many misconceptions, so many lame answers to badly stated questions,
that we cannot hope to throw light on the whole subject at once. We believe that light will increase, as we
show more clearly, behind these illusions, the metaphysical error which confounds the unbroken extensity
with homogeneous space, and the psychological error which confounds `pure perception' with memory. But
these illusions are, nevertheless, connected with real facts, which we may here indicate in order to correct
their interpretation.
Objection derived from
The first of these facts is that our senses require education. Neither sight nor touch is able at the outset to
the so-called
localize impressions. A series of comparisons and inductions is necessary, whereby we gradually
'education' of the
coordinate one impression with another. Hence philosophers may jump to the belief that sensations are in
senses. -- Real meaning
their essence inextensive, and that they constitute extensity by their juxtaposition. But is it not clear that,
of such education
upon the
(46) hypothesis just advanced, our senses are equally in need of education,-not of course in order to
accommodate themselves to things, but to accommodate themselves to each other ? Here, in the midst of all
the images, there is a certain image which I term my body, and of which the virtual action reveals itself by
an apparent reflexion of the surrounding images upon themselves. Suppose there are so many kinds of
possible action for my body there must be an equal number of systems of reflexion for other bodies ; and
each of these systems will be just what is perceived by one of my senses. My body, then, acts like an image
which reflects others, and which, in so doing, analyses them along lines corresponding to the different
actions which it can exercise upon them. And, consequently, each of the qualities perceived in the same
object by my different senses symbolizes a particular direction of my activity, a particular need. Now, will
all these perceptions of a body by my different senses give me, when united, the complete image of that
body ? Certainly not, because they have been gathered from a larger whole. To perceive all the influences
from all the points of all bodies would be to descend to the condition of a material object. Conscious
perception signifies choice, and consciousness mainly consists in this practical discernment. The diverse
perceptions of the same object, given by my different senses, will not, then, when put together, reconstruct
the complete image of the
(47) object ; they will remain separated from each other by intervals which measure, so to speak, the gaps
in my needs. It is to fill these intervals that an education of the senses is necessary. The aim of this
education is to harmonize my senses with each other, to restore between their data a continuity which has
been broken by the discontinuity of the needs of my body, in short to reconstruct, as nearly as may be, the
whole of the material object. This, on our hypothesis, explains the need for an education of the senses. Now
let us compare it with the preceding explanation. In the first, unextended sensations of sight combine with
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