Editorial February 7, 1948 Issue

FEELING SOUL'S LOVELINESS

L. Ivimy Gwalter

As we rode through the country on a beautiful autumn afternoon, all nature aflame with glory, the thought-provoking remark was made: "Have you ever heard the theory that there is but one sense, that of feeling? The other four senses, according to this theory, represent varying degrees of feeling; in much the same way that one keyboard represents the entire compass of a piano and includes low, middle, high, and intermediate registers. Thus tone and color are felt rather than heard or seen."

Even our common parlance recognizes this to a degree, for we speak of music as rich in color and of nature as a grand symphony. The great Beethoven was totally deaf when he composed some of his most soul-stirring masterpieces, and almost everyone, be he artist or not, experiences moments when he feels a beauty too sublime for any canvas to portray.

A dictionary defines the verb "feel" in part as, "To perceive by sensation... To be conscious of (a subjective state)... To be conscious of an inward impression, state of mind, etc." Thus if feeling is acknowledged to comprise all sense impression, existence is wholly mental, a state of mind rather than a state of sentient physicality. Mary Baker Eddy, in her little volume "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 6), quotes with evident approval the assertion of Professor S. P. Langley that color is in us, not in the rose. According to this, not what we see or hear—or even what we eat—but rather what we feel determines what we see and hear and the harmony of our being.

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