549. We see from this papillary organ, that the papillae that rise through the foramina of the corpus reticulare, represent the unites of our touch; and that by the mutual apposition of these unities, and their orderly association, an organic form is produced, which is the organ, or as it is commonly called, the sensorium of touch. The scales of the epidermis regulate and temper the sense to suit every use that can possibly be intended in these extremes. Every viscus and organ has its proper unities (n. 532); which are either glands, or cells, or fibres of some kind, or papillae (n. 532). These unities are the essential determinations that construct the form of the whole, or the common form (n. 539); for compounds are aggregates of unities (n. 541). In the skin, the corpus reticulare collects the papillae that would otherwise fall asunder and be scattered, bridges them over, gives them distinctness, reduces them to form: thus causes everything to refer itself to a general (n. 499). The scale of the epidermis puts together the individual modes of sensation proper to the papillae, into a bind of common mode that is termed the sense of touch; and regulates, sharpens, and blunts this sense, so as exactly to produce the varieties that nature requires of it in the different parts of the body (n. 494). To which we may add, that the scale blunts the sharpness of the sense, and so mitigates its poignancy as to convert it into titillation; thereby changing pain into pleasure: for itself devoid of feeling, it enables the organ to feel according to the softness of the surface that it applies to the organ: but where it dips down into the furrows, and is more thin, there the sense is sharp again.
