Atomic Sensation

The lesson extends something resembling sensation into inorganic substance, using chemical response and quotations attributed to Haeckel to bridge material reaction and mental life. It describes attraction and repulsion through language of pleasure and revulsion.

The next page labels unconscious sensation aethesis and the responding unconscious will tropesis. It then treats chemical affinity, electricity and magnetism as signs of this supposed elementary sensitivity, placing ordinary physical behaviour within a mental model of substance.

These terms document a historical attempt to interpret matter through feeling and inclination. A chemical reaction does not by itself establish that an atom experiences pleasure, pain or awareness, and the source's appeal to science is not independent verification.