Ies brought me luxuries, and fed
me; and, save that I was helpless to a degree which was humiliating, I was as comfortable as kindness could make me. I amused myself, at this time, by noting in my mind all that I could learn from other limbless folk, and from myself, as to
the peculiar feelings which were noticed in regard
to lost members. I found that the great mass of men who had undergone amputations, for many months felt the usual consciousness that they still had the lost limb. It itched or pained, or was cramped, but never felt hot or cold. If they had painful sensations referred to it, the conviction
of its existence continued unaltered for long periods; but where no pain was felt in it, then, by degrees, the sense of having that limb faded away
entirely. I
think we may to some
extent explain this. The

knowledge we possess of any part is made up of the numberless impressions from without which affect its sensitive surfaces, and which are transmitted through its nerves to the spinal nerve-cells, and through them, again, to the brain. We are thus kept endlessly informed as to the existence of parts, because the
impressions which reach the brain are, by a law of our being,
referred by us to the part from which they came. Now, when the
part is cut off, the nerve-trunks which led to it and from it, remaining capable of being impressed
by irritatio