pain is not in my finger.

And yet nothing is more certain than that it is not, and cannot be, in
the spot in which I feel it, nor within a couple of feet of that spot.
For the skin of the finger is connected by a bundle of fine nervous
fibres, which run up the whole length of the arm, with the spinal
marrow and brain, and we know that the feeling of pain caused by the
prick of a pin is dependent on the integrity of those fibres. After
they have been cut through close to the spinal cord, no pain will be
felt, whatever injury is done to the finger; and if the ends which
remain in connection with the cord be pricked, the pain which arises
will appear to have its seat in the finger just as distinctly as
before. Nay, if the whole arm be cut off, the pain which arises from
pricking the nerve stump will appear to be seated in the fingers, just
as if they were still connected with the body.

It is perfectly obvious, therefore, that the localization of the
pain at the surface of the body is an act of the mind. It is an
_extradition_ of that consciousness, which has its seat in the
brain, to a definite point of the body--which takes place without our
volition, and may give rise to ideas which are contrary to fact. We
might call this extradition of consciousness a reflex feeling, just
as we speak of a movement which is excited apart from, or contrary to,
our volition, as a reflex motion. Locality is no more in the pin than
pain is; of the former, as of the latter, it is true that "its being
is to be perceived," and that its existence apart from a thinking mind
is not conceivable.

The foregoing reasoning will be in no way affected, if, instead of
pricking the finger, the point of the pin rests gently against it, so