The Five Windows of The Soul or Thoughts On Perceiving by E. H. Aitken

John Murray, 1899. First edition. 257 pages. Bookplate of the International Co- Freemasonry Federation, remnants of library sticker on front-end paper. Edges worn, some foxing present, internally clean. A very good copy of a scarce work. 

'This text consists of a series of clear, attractive, and suggestive explanations of the mechanism and the functions of the five senses.'

"Speculate by all means on the philosophy of ethics, if that is the bent of your mind, and study the laws of acoustics and the principles of art ; but remember that, before man knew anything about acoustics, he tuned his 'horded shell' by his ear, and when the theory of music has done all it can for him, it is to his ear that the last appeal must lie in every question of harmony or discord. And so it is not by creeds and catechisms, not by books and teachers, but by the moral sense that the knowledge of good and evil enters the soul of a man. The function of moral philosophy is to follow reverently and find the reasons for the judgment of that sense if they can. The present age is drunk with too much information. No previous age in this world's history was ever so filled with intoxicating knowledge about all manner of things as we are. But to know all about a thing falls very far short of knowing the thing itself, and this knowledge science is powerless to impart. It ought not to be necessary to say that there is no intention of opposition to science in all this ; only to the glorification of science at the expense of common-sense and individual experience."