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           THE SENSES
               AND
            THE MIND.


         _PHILADELPHIA_:
  AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,
    NO. 146 CHESTNUT STREET.

           _LONDON:_
    RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.




NOTE.--The _American Sunday-school Union_ have made an arrangement
with the _London Religious Tract Society_, to publish, concurrently
with them, such of their valuable works as are best suited to our
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As they will be, substantially, reprints of the London edition, the
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and not to us; and we may add, that the republication of them, under
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--> The present volume is issued under the above arrangement.




CONTENTS.


                                                       Page
  CHAPTER I.                                              5

ON THE GENERAL RELATIONSHIP OF MAN TO THE WORLD AROUND HIM,
AND HIS ADAPTATION TO THE PLANET HE TENANTS


  CHAPTER II.                                             45

MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE QUALITIES OF MATTER OBTAINED THROUGH
THE MEDIUM OF THE SENSES


  CHAPTER III.                                            69

THE SENSES, AS THE INLETS TO KNOWLEDGE--SIGHT AND HEARING


  CHAPTER IV.                                            153

OBSERVATIONS ON THE AGENCY OF THE SENSES, RELATIVE TO
THE UNION BETWEEN MIND AND MATTER; AND ON THE OCCASIONAL
IMPERFECTION OF THE BODILY ORGANS OF THE SENSES, WITH THE
RESULTS DEPENDING THEREUPON




THE SENSES AND THE MIND.




CHAPTER I.

     ON THE GENERAL RELATIONSHIP OF MAN TO THE WORLD AROUND HIM, AND
     HIS ADAPTATION TO THE PLANET HE TENANTS.


There are few, at least among the reflecting portion of society,
who have not either mentally or verbally asked the question: Is the
sun--is the moon--are the planets, with their satellites--are the
stars, those suns of other systems, tenanted, as is our planet, the
earth, by living beings, which declare the omnipotence of God? This
is one of many questions which cannot be answered. The probability,
to judge from analogy, is, that some, if not all, are inhabited;
that some are in a course of preparation for beings which God will,
in his own time, call into existence; and that in all, changes have
taken place more or less similar to those which have occurred on the
globe we tenant, and which have been connected with the extinction of
races, and the creation of others adapted and organized for an altered
condition of the earth's surface, and of the circumambient atmosphere.
But, granting these suppositions, it must be evident, that the living
beings in the sun, the planets, and the asteroids, must not only be
differently constructed from those which inhabit our planet, the earth;
but, also, that in different worlds, the living inhabitants must be
very diversely constituted, not only as regards their senses, but also
their organization and their powers of locomotion.

We cannot conceive of beings unlike ourselves, and the animals,
terrestrial and aquatic, which, called into existence by Almighty
Power, people the surface of our earth; that, however, is no reason
why such beings should not exist, for what is impossible with God?
Nay, as it is, the senses, the operations, the powers, and economy
of insects confound us, and lead us to suspect that they possess a
sense, or senses, which, because denied to us, we cannot appreciate. In
our world, atmospheric air, in which oxygen prevails, or water, also
oxygenated, is essential to the maintenance of animal life. But cannot
the Almighty construct organic beings, independent of our air or our
water--vitalized, in fact, on principles of which we can form no idea?
Undoubtedly. If, for example, no aquatic water-breathing animals, as
fishes, crustacea, etc., existed on our earth, could we conceive of the
possibility of their being? or, were our race, and all other animals
furnished with gills instead of lungs, and ordained to a sub-aquatic
life, making the wide ocean our home, could we form any idea of what
creatures could be constituted for living in the thin atmosphere, and
actively enjoying life under its pressure? Again, let the attractive
force of this earth be altered, the organization of every living thing
must (granting its existence to be guaranteed) be altered accordingly.
We take the following from Miss Somerville's "Connexion of the Physical
Sciences," p. 73:--"The densities of bodies are proportional to their
masses, divided by their volumes. Hence, if the sun and planets be
assumed to be spheres, their volumes will be as the cubes of their
diameters. Now, the apparent diameters of the sun and earth, at their
mean distance, are 1922", 8, and 17", 1552, and the mass of the earth
is the 354,936th part of that of the sun, taken as the unit. It
follows, therefore, that the earth is nearly four times as dense as
the sun; but the sun is so large that his attractive force would cause
bodies to fall through about 335 feet in 1"; consequently, if inhabited
by human beings, they would be unable to move, since their weight would
be thirty times as great as it is here." A man of moderate size would
weigh about two tons at the surface of the sun; whereas, at the surface
of the asteroids, (the clusters between Mars and Jupiter,) he would be
so light that he could not stand steadily, since he would only weigh a
few pounds.

The densities, that of water being 1, as far as can be satisfactorily
explained, are as follow:--Sun, 1-2/15; Mercury, 9-1/6; Venus,
5-11/15; Moon, 4-1/2; Mars, 3-2/7; Ceres, 2; Pallas, 2; Jupiter,
1-1/24; Saturn, 13/32; Herschel, 99/100.

Similar observations apply to the influence of the atmosphere, in
whatever point of view we consider it, that is, whether we regard its
weight, its electrical condition, its illumination, its temperature,
its dryness, or humidity.

1. _Its Weight._--The weight of the atmosphere (an elastic,
compressible, and expansible fluid,) is calculated to be from fourteen
to fifteen pounds avoirdupois on every square inch, (pure water,
taking bulk for bulk, being about 828 times as heavy.) Now, reckoning
the surface of a middle-sized man to be fourteen feet, he sustains
the pressure of eleven tons. Many of our readers have seen the
philosophical experiment of placing two hollow metallic hemispheres
rim to rim, the rims being nicely adjusted and smeared with lard;
this being done, the air, by means of a stop-cock on the lower
hemisphere, screwed into a powerful air-pump apparatus, is drawn out
or exhausted--the stop-cock is turned--the globe is unscrewed from the
air-pump, and placed in the hands of those who may consent to try their
strength in pulling the two hemispheres asunder. Enormous is the force
required; if the diameter of the circle be fourteen inches, the least
force that will separate them will be equivalent to half a ton.

Such, then, being the pressure of the atmosphere, as is clearly proved
by simple experiments, it may at first create some surprise that the
human body is capable of sustaining it without being crushed; that
the tiny insect, with its delicate wings--and in some these amount to
several square inches of surface--is not reduced to atoms. But the
wonder will cease, when we reflect that this pressure, or a pressure
little short of it, is essential to the existence, not of man only, but
of all terrestrial organic beings.

Dr. Robinson justly observes, that "the human body (he might have said
every organic body) is a bundle of solids mixed with fluids, and there
are few or no parts of it which are empty. All communicate either by
vessels or by pores, and the entire surface is a sieve, through which
the insensible perspiration is performed. The whole extended surface
of the lungs is open to the pressure of the atmosphere; everything,
therefore, is in equilibrio; and if free or speedy access be given
to every part, the body will not be damaged by the pressure, however
great, any more than a wet sponge would be deranged by pressing it to
any depth in the water."[1]

[1] Mechanical Philosophy, vol. iii. p. 54.

On this we would remark, that the human body, and that of terrestrial
animals in general, is not adapted for the pressure of water at great
depths; even could man by any contrivance breathe, such a pressure
would destroy life; and, indeed, few aquatic animals are constituted
for oceanic existence in the depths of the sea. While the surface is
alive with its myriads, the depths are still and untenanted; while
bays, shores, reefs, and sandbanks, covered by many fathoms of water,
are teeming with shelled mollusks, fishes, and thousands of wondrous
creeping things, the profundity of ocean is a comparative desert;
whatever lives there must be so constituted as to sustain a tremendous
amount of aqueous pressure. Indeed, whales, which often plunge to a
considerable depth, and remain submerged for twenty minutes, during
which time respiration is suspended, are provided by their coating of
blubber, and by the peculiar arrangement of their arterial and venous
systems, for the pressure they then undergo; but this pressure often
repeated, as it is when the animal is wounded and hard driven, soon
produces great exhaustion. Captain Scoresby, for example, harpooned a
whale, which, on receiving the weapon, descended four hundred fathoms,
at the rate of eight miles an hour; but these animals, when suffering
from the torture of the harpoon, often descend to a much greater depth,
and sometimes strike so violently against a hard bed of the ocean as
to fracture their jaws. At the depth of eight hundred fathoms, captain
Scoresby calculates the pressure at 211,200 tons. On the other hand,
the organization of man (and other animals) is as ill calculated for a
much lighter pressure than that of our atmosphere at sea-level, as it
is for great pressure in the depths of ocean.

In proportion as we ascend the alpine elevations of our globe, or
mount upwards in a balloon, we find the air more and more rarefied.
These elevations are, however, but trifling; nevertheless, trifling
as they are, what an effect the decrease of pressure produces on the
human frame! The heart beats with violence, the lungs gasp for more
air, they have not pressure enough; the blood begins to ooze out of the
minute vessels ramifying through the tissue of their delicate cells;
blood issues from the nose, the eyes, the ears; the slightest exertion
becomes oppressive--a mile or two higher, and death is inevitable. The
difficulties attendant upon the ascent of Mont Blanc, the vast Himalaya
chain, and the heights of the Cordilleras, are quite as much connected
with the state of the air as with the terrible ravines and precipices
which obstruct the way. Indeed, as is well known, on the elevated
plateaus of South America or Thibet, men and animals accustomed to
low plains, or even to gently undulating grounds, are for a long time
distressed for breath, and incapable of bodily exertion. Time alone
habituates them to the rarer and lighter atmosphere. But what is an
elevation of 13,000 or 14,000 feet, nay of 15,668 feet, (Mont Blanc,)
of 25,747 feet, or 28,077 feet, (Jewahir and Dhawalagiri, peaks of the
Himalaya,) to that of twenty or thirty miles? At an elevation of twenty
miles, the heart of a human being would burst, his lungs become gorged
with blood, from every pore of his body a sanguine stream would gush
forth--he would immediately die. Is not, then, the pressure of the
atmosphere necessary for the existence of man, constituted as he is for
the planet which he inhabits? But the atmosphere, with regard to its
relationship to the solid globe it environs, demands a few words.

This elastic fluid must be considered as a body of air revolving with
the earth, whence it must be evident that the velocity of the strata of
air, if we may use the word, increases as we recede from the earth's
axis; for example, at the equator, that stratum of air, (if such there
be,) which is twice as distant from the centre of the earth as the
surface is, must revolve with twice the actual velocity of the air at
the surface. Taking this fact into consideration, it results that,
however attenuated, however rarefied, the atmosphere cannot extend
beyond 20,000 miles from the surface of the earth; far above that
elevation the centrifugal force would counteract the centripetal,
or, in other words, the tendency of the particles to the earth would
cease, and, consequently, unless air pervaded the universe, which is
not the case, 20,000 miles are within the utmost range of possibility.
The fact, however, appears to be demonstrated, that the limits of our
atmosphere do not exceed an elevation of above forty-five or fifty
miles, and that beyond this there is no refraction or reflection of
the solar rays--that, in fact, air ceases. The finite extent of the
atmosphere has been ably discussed by Dr. Wollaston,[2] his arguments
being based upon the _Atomic Theory_ of matter. We may thus condense
his train of reasoning, as far as it bears more immediately upon the
present subject.--If air extend throughout the universe, we shall be
obliged to admit that every planet must collect an atmosphere around
itself proportionate to its attractive power. In this case, as he
argues, Jupiter, at whose surface the force of gravity must be much
greater than that of our earth, would certainly collect a large and
dense atmosphere around him. The effect of the refraction of light
through this atmosphere would become visible on the approach of the
satellites to the planet, when they disappear behind his disc, and
would cause a sensible retardation in their rate of approach. Now, it
is allowed that no such retardation, even in the minutest sensible
degree, can be observed, and hence it follows that Jupiter has no
such atmosphere as that of our earth, nor the means of collecting
it; consequently, air, such as that composing our atmosphere, is not
diffused in any degree of rarefaction through the solar system. This
finite character of our atmosphere is, as Dr. Wollaston contends,
more conformable to the atomic theory than to that of the infinite
divisibility of matter; since, in the first case, a boundary is
possible, and will exist at the point where the weight of a single atom
is as great as the repulsive force of the medium; while, in the latter
case, it is difficult to see the possibility of any boundary.

[2] Phil. Trans., 1822.

By way of note we would here add, that the theory of the _infinite_
divisibility of matter, which all the laws of chemistry seem to deny,
has no good grounds for our acceptance. God made matter, and, as we
may humbly conceive, in the form of ultimate atoms, which, however
inconceivably minute, must be definite--otherwise what is meant by
creation? That which is created must have definite figure, size, etc.,
else it is nothing; and to talk of a creation where size of figures
is absent, is absurd. We know that atheistical philosophers advocate
the theory of the infinite divisibility, and infinite, essentially
infinite duration of matter, for these points are steps to the theory
of non-creation, or rather involve it. Infinite duration, infinite
divisibility, infinite extension, and the plastic power of infinite
time, together with the innate, ungiven laws of this infinite matter,
form the key-stones to their unholy temple entrance. On this theory,
worlds formed themselves, and harmonized with each other; living
microscopic monads called themselves into being, and by voluntary
exertion became developed through various phases into man. Thus, then,
he owes no Creator thanks! Impious, irrational, debasing doctrine!

Supposing, then, that our atmosphere is not continued to an altitude
exceeding fifty miles, forming a sort of circumambient ocean, at
the bottom of which we live, and which is created for our peculiar
organization, still it is not altogether improbable that some subtle
ethereal fluid, altogether different from our atmosphere, may extend
itself throughout space--a fluid of extreme attenuation, the nature of
which is to us unknown in fact--a fluid so impalpable as to cause no
sensible retardation to the rate of motion in the planets.

We do not positively assert that such a subtle fluid exists, though
many astronomers are in favour of this hypothesis; and, indeed, we
believe that Encke's comet appears in successive revolutions to show
in some slight degree the effect of some medium resisting its motion,
and that the same observation applies to the comet of Biela. But when
we consider the great tenuity of the substance of these comets, through
which even faint stars may be seen, we shall be justified in regarding
this resisting medium as being more subtle, attenuated, and elastic,
than can be well expressed in words.

To revert now to our atmosphere, there is another interesting point
which requires our notice; namely, are the constituents of this
atmosphere chemically united together, or only simply mixed in certain
proportions? We believe that it consists of a simple mixture only of
two essential gases, or elements, namely, oxygen and nitrogen, with
a small and variable quantity of carbonic acid, and also with water
in a state of vapour. We may consider the last two as accidental
ingredients, essential as the vapour of the atmosphere may be to the
necessities of animals and plants, to luxuriance of scenery, and
fertility of soil. The essentials of air are united in the following
proportions, namely, one part of oxygen and two of nitrogen, or one
atom of oxygen and two atoms of nitrogen; but as the atomic weights
of oxygen are as 8 to 14, the proportion of the weights of the two in
any given quantity of air will be that of 8 to 28, or two to seven; in
other words, nine grains by weight of air will contain two grains of
oxygen, and seven of nitrogen, supposing the air to be pure.

But, as we have said, a portion of carbonic acid gas is usually
contained in air; this gas is exhaled from the earth, and collects in
certain localities, rendering the air more impure than it otherwise
would be; as a rule, however, the quantity of this gas in intermixture
with the air we breathe--its lower strata--varies from three to eight
parts out of a thousand in weight; in its pure state, it is immediately
destructive to animal life; but thus diluted is in this respect
innoxious, while to the vegetable kingdom it is necessary. With respect
to water in a state of viewless vapour, the quantum in any given weight
of air seldom exceeds 1-1/2 per cent.

Now if, as most philosophers of the present day seem to consider, there
is no chemical union of the gases constituting the atmosphere, it may
be supposed that, according to their respective weights, a partial
separation and subsidence of the heavier will take place, while the
lighter will chiefly compose the upper portion--thus, for example,
a stratum of nitrogen will surmount a stratum of mixed nitrogen and
oxygen, and this a stratum of mixed nitrogen, oxygen, and carbonic
acid. The following passage from the Penny Magazine will illustrate
this theory: "A law is found to prevail in the mixture of gases and
vapours, as universal as is that relative to their expansion arising
from temperature, namely, that two gases in a state of mixture exercise
no influence one upon the other, except communication of temperature,
but that each is disposed in exactly the same way as it would be if
the other were not present. Thus it is found, entirely contrary to
all previous notions, that no pressure of dry air upon water exerts
the least influence in preventing the formation of steam, which goes
on exactly as if the space above were a vacuum, and continues until
further evaporation is stopped by the pressure of the steam already
created. It is found that no pressure of one gas can confine another
in water; but that, supposing a bottle partly full of water, the gas
confined in the water will escape to the surface, and distribute itself
in precisely the same way as if the other gas were not present. By this
it is not meant that the action, commonly called mechanical, cannot
take place, or that a stream of hydrogen would not trouble the air;
but only that the permanent settlement of one gas is not affected in
any way by the presence of another, so long as no chemical action is
excited.

"From this principle, Mr. Dalton,[3] taking into consideration the
presumptions which exist against the chemical union of the ingredients
of the atmosphere, infers, that the atmosphere does not altogether
consist of the compound called air, but that the nitrogen atmosphere
is higher than the oxygen atmosphere. In fact, if there be no chemical
union, the above law of the mixture of gases requires us to allow that
each is an atmosphere independent of the other, and that the two are
most probably of unequal heights. From some considerations into which
we cannot here enter, Mr. Dalton thinks that the actual pressures
exerted by the oxygen and nitrogen are in the proportions of the
volumes occupied by them, that is, as one to four; and concludes that
the oxygen atmosphere extends to thirty-eight miles in height, that of
nitrogen to fifty-four miles, that of carbonic acid to ten miles, and
that of aqueous vapour to fifty miles. It must be observed, however,
that the state of the carbonic acid of the atmosphere is very variable;
that there is not the same quantity by night as by day, in moist
weather as in dry; and that the higher strata of the atmosphere contain
more of it than the lower, which may arise from a rapid absorption by
the earth.

"Against the hypothesis just described, it might, perhaps, be asserted,
that the air which Gay-Lussac brought down from a height of more than
four miles was not found to differ from that of the earth's surface in
the proportion of its oxygen to its nitrogen, which would be the case
if the oxygen atmosphere diminished in density more than in proportion
to the diminution of that of the nitrogen, or _vice versa_."

[3] Phil. Trans., 1826.

Without attempting to settle the question as to whether the component
parts of the air are in a state of chemical union, or only in a state
of simple mixture, of this we are sure, that the air is essential to
the existence of all organic beings which live on the surface of our
planet, that is to animals and plants, though the relationship of each
to the air is diverse. The following comparison between the two great
groups of organic creation, which we copy from an admirable paper on
the Progress of Organic Chemistry in the "Companion to the Almanack,
1849," shows the respective relationships of animals and plants to the
elements around them, as well as their mutual balance and dependence:--

  An Animal is an Apparatus       A Vegetable is an Apparatus
       of Combustion.                 of Reduction.
  _Burns_      Carbon             _Reduces_     Carbon
       "       Hydrogen               "         Hydrogen
       "       Ammonium.              "         Ammonium.
  _Exhales_    Carbonic Acid      _Fixes_       Carbonic Acid
       "       Water                  "         Water
       "       Oxide of Ammonium      "         Oxide of Ammonium
       "       Nitrogen, or           "         Nitrogen, or
                 Azote.                           Azote.
  _Consumes_   Oxygen             _Produces_    Oxygen
       "       Proteine               "         Proteine
       "       Fats                   "         Fats
       "       Starch                 "         Starch
       "       Sugar                  "         Sugar
       "       Gum.                   "         Gum.
  _Produces_   Heat               _Absorbs_     Heat.
       "       Electricity.       _Abstracts_   Electricity.
  _Restores_   Its elements to    _Derives_     Its elements
                 the air or                       from the air or
                 earth.                           from the earth.
  _Transforms Organized_ matter   _Transforms Mineral_ matter
                 into _mineral_                   into _organic_
                 matter.                          matter.

Is not the wisdom of God here manifest?--The vegetable kingdom is made
auxiliary to the animal, and _vice versa_.--Yet, how? by mysterious
changes, appropriations, productions, and consumptions, upon which
modern researches are from time to time throwing new light; or, in
other words, unfolding to us new revelations of the power and wisdom
of the Great Eternal, who has condescended to give us a _spiritual_
directory, a guide to our feet, and a lamp to our path, by means of
which we, who at best only see through a glass darkly, may be led
into that glorious world where there are no clouds--where there is no
night--where there is "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to
shine in it: for the glory of God" doth "lighten it, and the Lamb is
the light thereof."

2. _Its Electrical Condition._--With the electrical changes in the
state of the atmosphere are connected various transitions from heat
to cold, dew, rain, hail, snow, clouds, winds, thunder-storms, aurorae
boreales, haloes, parhelia, etc. In this point of consideration the
atmosphere bears upon organic life. The solid globe itself may be
regarded as a vast electrical or galvanic apparatus, and all the vital
functions of animal bodies involve electric or galvanic phenomena.
Magnetism appears to be essentially identical with electricity;
both are most intimately connected with light and heat; and not
only electric sparks, but all the phenomena of electricity, can be
obtained from a common magnet. It is not here our purpose to enter
into a philosophical treatise on electricity and galvanism; a little
consideration, however, will lead us to infer that the general
diffusion of this subtle electric fluid, if the term fluid be at all
applicable, is essential to the maintenance of organic life, and that
electrical changes are perpetually taking place in organic bodies.
This fluid is derived from the earth, or its circumambient atmosphere,
and its currents obey definite laws, which have been elucidated by the
experiments of some of the most profound philosophers of modern times.

After what we have briefly said respecting the electric condition of
our globe, and the electrical phenomena which are involved in the
processes of the vital functions, to say nothing of electro-magnetism,
it must surely be apparent, that even as the air is in itself necessary
to our existence, so the diffusion of that subtle matter, now quick,
now slowly acting, now energetic, and now darting from the clouds
to the solid earth a vivid flash, creating a momentary light in
darkness--is equally essential; this is a point which, by the world at
large, is but slightly taken into consideration. Remove this subtle
element from the earth, and what would be the result? Perhaps the globe
would deviate from her course; perhaps an alteration in her polar axis
would take place. Perhaps--but why enter into such speculations? This
is certain--animal and vegetable life, as at present constituted, could
not exist: but all is ordered aright; the organization of matter,
and the senses of living beings, are involved in the presence of an
element, variable, it may be, in its phases, but mighty in its effects.
Here animals and plants play their part transversely, for each other's
benefit; animals produce electricity, by means of the vital operations
of their organization, and this produce, given to the earth and air,
is abstracted by plants. They antagonize each other, and the result is
harmony.

3. _Its Illumination._--Light is evolved by and during the combustion
of various bodies, as wood, coal, tallow, and spirits, or alcoholic
fluids; it is the result of electricity--that is, of the electric spark
or flash; it is evolved during many chemical experiments, and by the
attrition of two quartz pebbles. The percussion of flint and steel
produces luminous sparks; these sparks consisting, as the experiments
of Mr. R. Hook have proved, of minute ignited globules of iron, struck
off at the moment of percussion. These, and many other sources whence
light proceeds, need not here be detailed; our object is with that
general light, the light of day, which results from the influence of
the solar rays. For the reception of pictures on the retina by means
of the rays of light reflected from all things within the scope of
vision, the eyes of animals are especially constructed. To some animals
a dim twilight suffices, so far as regards their personal maintenance
and their enjoyment of life; to a few the little light, which even
in the darkest night is not absent, is all that is required for
their ordained habits and economy. In such instances, the retina is
exquisitely susceptible, and the iris dilates to admit the entrance
of every feeble ray reflected from the objects either of their search
or avoidance. Often have we seen the owl, when twilight has melted
into darkness, skimming over the fields, along the lane, and around
the barn, quartering the ground in search of mice or moles, which, had
they been at our feet, would to our eyes have been invisible. On the
other hand, they would have been nearly, if not quite invisible to
the owl in the full glare of sunshine. Yet, be it understood, light
is as essential to the night-bird as to men, or the giraffe of the
glowing wilds of Africa. We know not what _total darkness_ is, unless
perhaps we be walled up in a deep dungeon underground, to which light
is utterly denied access; such living tombs have been contrived by
the diabolical minds of tyrants, pagan and papistical. In the darkest
night, even our eyes dimly discern the "form of things obscure"--things
which, to a nocturnal animal, would be boldly conspicuous.

Light is a stimulus both to the animal and vegetable worlds. It is
when daylight breaks that "man goeth forth unto his work and to his
labour until the evening;" it is when light breaks that the feathered
songsters of the grove join in one chorus of--why may we not say
so?--instinct-urged thanksgiving. O man, gifted with reason! O man, the
heir of immortality! utter, then, thy song of praise, of gratitude,
that the light of another day is bestowed upon thee: and then be
diligent in all that God has called upon thee to perform, seeing that
"the night cometh, when no man can work."

Light is a stimulus, more or less grateful to every living creature.
Reader, have you ever wandered along the sea-shore, and explored the
masses of rock left uncovered when the tide is fully out; there,
adhering to the surface of the stone, in little ponds, mimic bays, may
be seen scores of sea-anemonies (_actinia_.) If the sky be bright,
there will they be, with their painted tentacles all expanded, animal
flowerets feeling the influence of light; but let the sky change, let
clouds obscure the day, and they retract their tentacles and shrink
into repose. These animals have no eyes, but yet they are sentient of
light. We mention these sea-anemonies merely by way of example; other
eyeless, and we may say, apparently nerveless creatures evidently enjoy
the influence of light, as the hydra, the medusa, and the polyps of
corals.

If light waken up some animals from their repose--if it rouse the cock,
and bid him sound his "clarion shrill," it warns others to retire to
their obscure dormitory, and slumber till twilight recalls them into
activity. The moth now flits abroad, and the bat and the fern-owl are
on the wing, giving chase to their insect prey. The hedgehog is all
alert, searching for slugs, worms, and various creeping things, which
revel in the dews of sunset. It is then, too, that the fierce prowlers
of the forest issue from their lair, eager for blood; but when "the sun
ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their
dens."

Light is not only a stimulus to animals, in the sense above noticed; it
appears to be essential to health and vigour. Of this we are the less
aware, because, under ordinary circumstances, we are always subject
to its influence. Men have been confined for years in dark dungeons,
and have reappeared upon the stage of life, pallid, meagre, weak, and
emaciated beings, like breathing corpses; confinement, bad food, ill
ventilation, and mental agony, had no doubt done their work; but want
of light also had part in the sad devastation of the animal frame.
Look, for example, at those parts of our bodies which are usually
clothed, and compare the colour of the skin with that of the hands
and face; strip the arm bare--the skin is acted upon by atmospheric
air, but yet how much whiter than that of the hand, delicate as that
hand may be. It may be said that heat, that is, solar heat, produces
the difference. Partly so, no doubt, but not altogether. The face and
hands of the Esquimaux are darker than his chest; moreover, suppose a
severe and extensive cut happens, and that the wound thus inflicted
is bound up for weeks by adhesive plaster, what do we see on removal
of the straps and bandages?--a singular whiteness of the skin, the
result, as it appears to us, of the exclusion of light from the
covered portion. Plants, as all must have noticed, have their leaves
and flowers drawn towards the light, and become pallid when kept in
dark places. Thus, for example, some flowers open only when the sky is
clear, as the little pimpernel, the index of fair weather; others, as
the sunflower, turn to the sun in his course from east to west; the
eyes, or germinating stalk of the potato, though they shoot vigorously
in the dark, are blanched; so are the covered leaves of endive, and
the covered stalks of celery and sea-kale. Light is a chemical agent;
light, as the apothecary well knows, greatly impairs the activity of
the dried and powdered leaves of foxglove, and blanches castor oil.
Light, therefore, is found to effect both chemical combination and
chemical decomposition.

In nothing, perhaps, is the chemical agency of light more clearly
shown than in the photogenic drawings, which are the fac-simile
representations of objects delineated by the action of light on a thin
sensitive layer of ioduret of silver. The following is the mode of
preparing the plates for the reception of photogenic drawings, given
in the Penny Cyclopaedia:--These drawings "are produced on plates of
copper, coated over with silver, which are found to answer better than
such as are entirely of the last-mentioned metal. After being washed
with a solution of nitric acid, the plate is put into a well-closed
box, where it is exposed to the action of iodine, a small quantity of
the latter being placed at the bottom of the box, with a thin gauze
between it and the plate. A layer of ioduret of silver is thus formed
on the surface of the plate, and manifests itself by the yellow hue
produced on the silver, which shows that the process of giving the
plate the sensitive coating on which the action of the light delineates
objects is completed. Thus prepared, the plate is placed within a
camera obscura, of particular construction, and the delineation of
the object is then effected in a very short space of time; but has to
be afterwards brought out and rendered distinct by another operation,
namely, submitting the plate to the action of vapour of mercury. Even
then the process is not completed, for the plate has to be plunged into
a solution of hyposulphate of soda, and afterwards washed in distilled
water, which being done, the impression is fixed, and the plate may be
exposed to light with perfect safety."[4] With reflection, refraction,
and polarization of light, we have here no concern; therefore,
interesting as the subjects are, we must pass them by.

[4] For further details, see the Handbook of Heliography, London, 1840;
and (for preparing-paper) the Visitor, 1839, p. 290.

Light radiates from the sun with almost inconceivable velocity; that
is, at the rate of nearly 200,000 miles in a second. Hence it is about
eight minutes in traversing the intermediate space between our globe
and its starting point or origin. But here comes a question not easily
answerable. What is light? Is it matter? It is imponderable--can
we conceive of matter without weight? Again, whence does it derive
its velocity? The term radiation from the sun is convenient; but,
then, what is radiation? Is there light, (and is there heat,) above
the limits of our atmosphere? We cannot tell what the nature of the
mysterious emanation of light and heat from the sun is, nor whether
there are such phenomena as light and heat in empty space. Again, by
what process is this enormous manufactory of solar emanation kept up?
We may here lose ourselves in vague conjectures: He alone knows who
said, "Let there be light: and there was light."

The few details which we have thrown together, bearing upon the natural
light of our planet, derived from the sun, will suggest to the mind
of the Christian those apt comparisons, of the broad light of day to
the light of the gospel, transmitted to our souls from the Sun of
righteousness. Till illuminated from above, man wanders in spiritual
darkness; he sees neither the dangers that encompass him, nor the
road by which he should go; he may have the light of nature and the
light of science within him, but in spiritual affairs he is blind, and
will be chosen only by the blind as a leader. Let, however, the light
of revelation begin but to dawn upon him, and he learns to discover
more and more clearly his real position, his true character, and the
impossibility of his finding acceptance before God upon his own
merits. He feels himself to be a sinful creature, and is led to rest
upon the merits and atonement of the Son of God, who died for our sins,
and rose again for our justification. Thus enlightened, he receives
strength to pursue his journey to that bright and glorious kingdom of
which God himself is the Sun, and where there shall no more be night,
where "everlasting day abides," and all is glory and refulgence.

4. _Its Temperature._--Heat and light are distinct from each other,
though in many cases one accompanies the other, and is produced by the
same cause, as, for instance, by combustion, electricity, percussion,
the sudden condensation of air, etc. Heat without light, however, is
developed by the physical or chemical changes of bodies, as by the
condensation of steam, and the admixture of water with sulphuric acid.
It results, moreover, from the vital and mysterious operations which
are constantly taking place in organic beings, and especially in the
classes of mammalia and birds. But the great source of heat--that upon
which the temperature of our atmosphere mainly depends--is produced by
the influence of the solar rays.

There is, indeed, heat in the body of the globe itself; to say nothing
of volcanoes, we may state, that the deeper we penetrate into the
earth, the higher does its temperature become--a circumstance which
has led many philosophers to infer, that the centre of our globe is in
a state of incandescence. It is not here that we ought to moot this
theory, neither shall we enter into any speculations relative to the
intrinsic nature of heat; like light, it is a mysterious agent or
product, imponderable, yet subject to certain laws--laws which belong
to a branch of philosophy into which it is not now our province to
enter.

It may, however, be permitted us to state a few simple facts relative
to the atmospheric temperature of our globe, and the adaptation
of organic beings to the different degrees of heat within the
inter-tropics, in the temperate and in the polar latitudes. Climate
varies not only according to latitude, but also according to elevation,
the relative proportions of land and water, the nature of the surface
of the land, the extent of forests, etc. An island, for example,
like England, surrounded by the sea, destitute of mountains of vast
elevation, or of extensive morasses or forests, though lower in
atmospheric temperature during the summer months than the parallel
portions of the continent, has a milder atmospheric temperature during
winter. The cold of North America during winter is greater than in the
same parallels of latitude in the old world. Canada, for example, lies
parallel to the northern half of Spain and France, (between 40 deg. and 50 deg.
N. lat.) The severity of a Canadian winter is well known. At Quebec,
the summer is that of Paris, the winter that of St. Petersburg. At New
York, the summer is that of Rome, the winter that of Copenhagen. The
same observations apply to the eastern portions of Asia. At Pekin, the
scorching heat of summer is greater than at Cairo, while the winters
are as rigorous as at Upsal.

To the different climates of the globe certain plants and animals are
especially adapted; organic existence ranges from the poles to the
equator. How varied, how multitudinous, how wonderful, are the forms
and structures of organic creation, from the moss or lichen, which
creeps upon the surface of the rock, to the towering palm or gigantic
oak--from the microscopic animalcule or puny insect, to the ponderous
elephant or enormous whale! But, as we have said, every distinct region
has, in a general sense, its own _flora_ and its own _fauna_. It is
in tropical countries, beneath a fervid sun, that vegetation presents
us with its utmost magnificence. There we see forests of evergreen
trees, palms, and arborescent ferns--there bloom flowers of gorgeous
hue, and luscious scent--there ripen fruits of most exquisite flavour,
attractive both to the sight and the taste.

It is there, too, that the elephant, the hippopotamus, and the
rhinoceros, the largest of terrestrial quadrupeds, roam the plain, or
wander in the dense forest; there are the birds conspicuous for the
gorgeous splendour of their metallic colours, and the insects for their
singular forms, their lovely painting, or dazzling effulgence. Receding
from the inter-tropics, we find vegetation on a less magnificent scale;
the trees are for the most part deciduous, various species of corn
are cultivated, the meadows are clothed with grass, and the vine and
the olive flourish. Beautiful are the flowers, richly tinted are the
insects; some few birds are splendid, but there are no sun birds, no
humming birds, no birds of paradise. Receding further, we come to
the extreme limits of the vine, and pass from temperate to colder
latitudes, latitudes in which pines and firs form woods and forests,
in which a scanty flora greets a tardy sun, in which the animals are
covered with fur, increasing in thickness on the approach of winter.
Beyond this territory the arctic regions open upon us. Yet even here
vegetable and animal life meet us; but the species are few in number:
the reindeer, the leming, the white hare, the musk ox, the polar bear,
and arctic fox, are among the most remarkable. The birds are chiefly
piscivorous, and all are migratory, passing southwards on the approach
of winter. Coarse herbage, lichens, and mosses, vegetate during the
fleeting summer, and lie buried beneath the snow during the winter. Yet
are these animals and plants as well adapted for their dreary realms of
snow and ice, as are the animals and plants of the rich inter-tropics
for their luxuriant region. Take the elephant, the hippopotamus, the
bird of paradise, or the glittering boa constrictor to Greenland, and
they perish; take thither the graceful palm, palmetto, or pandanus, and
they cease even to struggle for life. On the contrary, transport the
polar bear and the reindeer to the torrid plains of the inter-tropics,
and their fate is sealed. The hardy plants, indeed, which endure the
arctic regions, are, in many instances, at least identical with those
that flourish in more temperate latitudes, but they are not to be found
in the low sultry plains of the inter-tropics. They constitute the
outskirts of northern vegetation.

The inter-tropical, the temperate, and the high northern regions of
the globe, are characterised, then, by their own _flora_ and _fauna_;
but there is a distribution of organic life exclusive of latitude,
which cannot but claim the attention of the naturalist. For example,
the marsupial animals are distributed between Australia and central
and southern America; but the American forms, very few in number,
are essentially distinct from those of Australia. Again, it is to
the warmer regions of the old world that the larger pachydermatous
animals are confined, such as several species of rhinoceros, the
hippopotamus, a tapir, two species of elephant, wild equine animals,
as the dziggetai, wild ass, quagga, zebra, etc., and various species
of wild hog. The living indigenous pachydermata of America consist of
two species of tapir, and two of peccary. On the contrary, America is
rich in the edentata, namely, sloths, ant-eaters, armadilloes, etc. The
pangolins, however, (_manis_,) are found only in the warmer parts of
the old world, and the aard-vark (_orycteropus_) is a native of South
Africa. We might enlarge greatly upon these observations, and extend
them to birds and reptiles, etc., were it our design to enter upon the
question; we shall only add, that in all regions animals are expressly
suited to the climate of the countries in which they respectively live;
they are constituted for the endurance either of heat or of cold, for
self-protection against all extremes of atmospheric temperature, and
for the enjoyment of existence, some under the equinoctial line, others
within the arctic circle.

The foregoing observations do not apply to the human race. Man was
ordained to replenish the earth; hence the pliability and energy of
his physical constitution, which enables him to endure the heat of the
inter-tropics, and the cold of Lapland or Nova Zembla--to dwell in the
deep valley or on the lofty mountain. When we say this, we look at
man as a species; we do not apply our remarks to individuals, or, in
other words, we do not assert that a Samoiede would enjoy the heat of
Ceylon or Sumatra, or that the Ceylonese would endure the rigours of
arctic Siberia; we only mean, that the fact of hot and cold climates
being inhabited by our race, proves that the physical condition of man
can accommodate itself to every extreme of natural temperature upon
our globe. It is true, that as a general rule man modifies his food,
his clothing, and even the nature of his habitation, according to the
temperature and products of the climate. The Laplander clothes his body
in warm furs, the Ceylonese in a scanty vesture of thin cotton. Yet the
wild Indians of some parts of North America, and the natives of the
dreary regions of Patagonia, are but loosely defended from the severity
of the cold, either as it respects dress or their huts. The Scottish
Highlander of the olden time, wrapped in his tartan, could sleep on
the heather of the mountain side during a bitter sleety night without
injury. After all, however, in the arctic regions the maintenance of
life is a struggle; the depressing influences of cold, cheerless skies,
and scanty food, tend to render the powers of the mind and the bodily
frame alike stunted and undeveloped. Nature here holds out the means of
life with a niggard hand, and it is from the sea principally that the
supply of food and other necessaries are obtained.

On the other hand, within the tropics the means of existence are
lavishly bestowed, the stimulus of animal food is not required, while
the earth yields its vegetable productions in abundance; but in these
regions, no strong motive stimulating to active exertion, the mental
powers become enfeebled, and all those vices inseparable from habitual
indolence are engendered. It is in the temperate regions, where nature
is not lavish, but liberal, and yet requires the hand of labour and the
head of thought, that the human race is presented to us in its highest
form, whether bodily or mentally considered. It is in such regions
that arts attain to perfection; that science walks hand in hand with
religion. A thousand necessities urge to exertion and enterprise, and
these are followed by a due reward.

Thus, then, are organic bodies, plants, the lower animals, and man,
affected by atmospheric temperature; but man has called in heat,
artificially produced, if we may use the word in a certain sense, to
his aid. Without heat, ore could not be smelted, or instruments of
metal made; glass and earthenware could not be manufactured; houses
could neither be built, nor furnished with articles of utility; the
operations of agriculture could not be successively carried on, nor
ships built, nor steam engines or machinery be constructed, nor could
man clothe himself or cook his food. In short, were it to please the
Almighty to suspend the laws of caloric, man would be rendered at
once helpless, and his senses useless; he must necessarily become a
completely altered being, granting even that his continuance as a
species upon the face of the earth were guaranteed.

With what wisdom, then, are the laws of the Almighty framed! How
happily do they all conjoin to fit this world for the exercise of our
senses and our reason! Yet, how mysterious they are! We know not even
what light and caloric really are; they are incomprehensible, and
yet we experience their influence, and daily test their laws. Who,
then, can wonder that the fall of man, the decrees of God, the advent
of Christ, his Divine and human nature conjoined, his death as an
atonement of inestimable value, his intercession for all who come to
him with faith, and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, are each and
all mysteries? "Canst thou by searching find out God?" Yet the believer
knows _that_ God to be his Father and his Friend; he walks by faith and
not by sight, "by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe," and are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus." When we reflect upon the mysteries of nature,
let us also think upon the mysteries of grace; let the consciousness of
our own ignorance lead us to throw aside presumption, and trust to the
words dictated by Him, to whom all mysteries are open, and whose wisdom
and goodness have no bounds.

5. _Its Dryness or Humidity._--Evaporation from the waters of the
globe, from seas lakes, rivers, etc., is perpetually taking place,
the ratio of evaporation being determined by the temperature of the
atmosphere; that is, it increases as the temperature increases. Hence
the actual quantity of water in a state of invisible vapour in the
atmosphere will be the greatest when the temperature of the latter
is the highest. Speaking according to our feelings, we then call the
air dry, although, in fact, the quantity of water in solution in the
atmosphere may balance the demands of the temperature.[5] But this
invisible vapour is liable from a thousand causes to condensation,
dependent upon one law, namely, that when a portion of air, saturated
with invisible vapour, is cooled below the point of saturation, a
portion of the vapour becomes condensed, according to the degree of
cold, so as to leave a due balance of vapour in the air, according to
its altered temperature. Who has not seen the window-panes of a heated
room in cold weather bedewed with trickling moisture? The vapour of the
room is in abundance, although invisible; but certain strata of the air
thus charged come in contact with the cold panes, and lose a portion of
their caloric, and with their caloric a portion of their vapour, (to
which, perhaps, the respiration of a large party has contributed,) and
this becomes condensed in the form of a visible fluid. If we breathe
against a cold pane of glass, we soon render it dim by moisture. On a
hot summer's day, we do not perceive the vapour of our breath; but on a
cold, clear, frosty day, a visible vapour or little mist is exhaled.

[5] The quantity of water in solution in the atmosphere can never be
greater than the quantity proper to the temperature; but it may be less.

From electric changes, from currents of air, from sudden or gradual
depressions of atmospheric temperature--be the cause what it may--the
condensation of invisible vapour in the atmosphere is perpetually
taking place. But the extent and degree of condensation is very
variable. Sometimes, or rather very commonly, the quantity of water
separated is small, and condensed into such minute particles that
they float in the air, higher or lower, forming wreaths of mist,
or clouds of various patterns, density, and extent; sometimes they
appear at a great altitude, like silvery waves, or snowy fleeces;
sometimes at a lower altitude they take the shape of dense irregular
masses, presenting to fancy's eye the outline of monstrous animals, of
mountains, and castellated rocks; and sometimes the whole horizon is
beclouded and dark; we then know that the condensation is increasing.
What is the result? A fall of rain, snow, or hail, in which latter
case the water is not only condensed into its ordinary form, but into
pellets of ice. The water has passed through a stratum of air at the
freezing point. Sudden hail-storms in summer may, we think, be classed
among phenomena dependent on electric changes and operations in certain
atmospheric strata.

We have here, then, two processes--one of evaporation, another of
condensation; and these, by an express and admirable provision, have
a constant tendency to limit each other's operations. Evaporation is
increased by heat, but it produces cold in proportion to the rapidity
with which it is carried on. Condensation is produced by cold, and at
the same time heat is liberated.

How happens it that clouds and rain are formed in the higher regions
of the air, and not closely round about us? In consequence of certain
laws, the air incumbent on the earth's surface, especially in the
hotter latitudes, is always under the point of saturation, the air
being really dryer than it is at a great elevation. These laws
depend on the difference in the tension or elastic force of vapour
at different temperatures; this elasticity increases rapidly from
the temperature of 32 deg. to 212 deg., the increase being in a geometrical
progression, while the increase of the temperature of the air from a
high altitude to the earth is in arithmetical progression. Now the air
of our mixed atmosphere is the ingredient which controls the whole
mixture. The result is, that the quantity of vapour present in a mixed
atmosphere will, at any successive diminution of height above the
surface of the earth, become successively less and less than that which
would be required to saturate the air. The consequences of this result
are most important, and are connected with our general well-being, and
the due exercise of some at least of our senses.

The following passage from Dr. Prout's Treatise is so pertinent,
that we beg leave to transcribe it: "Over the greater portion of the
earth, the air which, during the day at least, is warmed by contact
with the earth's surface, and thus becomes lighter, has a constant
tendency to rise into the higher atmosphere. Now if this air were
saturated with vapour, of course, whenever by rising it became mixed
with colder air, its vapour would be more or less condensed, and a
cloud would be formed. Hence, if we lived in such an atmosphere, we
should be always enveloped in a mist, through which the sun would
not be visible. But, by the benevolent arrangement we enjoy, this
consequence is so entirely prevented, that, unless under peculiar
circumstances, and always for beneficial purposes, the air at the
earth's surface is hardly ever saturated with moisture. The air which
has been warmed by contact with the earth can, therefore, rise from the
surface without any condensation of its moisture within the limits of
its point of saturation. Thus, at the equator, before the air reaches
the temperature of 61 deg., the presumed point of its saturation, it must
ascend to the height of 6,000 or 7,000 feet. At this height its vapour
will be condensed, and a cloud will be formed, which may either be
precipitated on the spot from which its constituent vapour had risen,
or may be transported by the currents of the atmosphere, similarly to
refresh a distant country, or may again be dissolved in the air; while,
under all these contingencies, the whole of the lower portion of the
atmosphere is exempt from mist, and continues perfectly transparent.
These operations are unceasing; moreover, the very clouds, by giving
out their latent heat, and shielding the earth's surface from the
direct influence of the sun, have a still further effect, and have a
constant tendency to modify their own formation and existence."

We might here enter largely into other points of high interest
connected with the science of meteorology, did the nature of our
subject allow it. We do not forget that it is upon the senses that
we have to write, and accordingly we can go no further here than
to show, in a brief and succinct manner, a few of the principal
arrangements instituted by Almighty wisdom and power, which render
our solid globe and its circumambient atmosphere the fitting abode
of such forms of organic life as we are acquainted with, and for
which, in fact, the world was created. To this world all the senses
of animals are expressly accommodated. If there were no air, there
could be no organs of hearing--granting the existence of living beings
without respiration. If there were no light, or the laws of light were
otherwise than what they are, our eyes would be useless. Were our lower
stratum of atmosphere always enveloped in a dense mist, obscuring the
rays of the sun, the sphere of our vision and its accuracy would be
greatly circumscribed--nay, sounds would fall more dully on our ears.
Suppose the globe closely shrouded by an oppressive fog; and then
imagine the condition of plants, animals, and man. Yet, did it please
our great Creator, it is in his power to call into existence plants and
animals fitted for so moist and obscure an atmosphere.

Again, the atmospheric temperature, the varying degrees of heat and
cold, according to latitude and to the characters of land--that is,
its elevation, its depression, the nature of its surface, and the
arrangement of adjacent seas, etc., are in harmony with the development
of life, and the due exercise of animal functions. Then, intimately
connected with this subject, are the laws of caloric, the suspension of
which would lead to the annihilation of all organic beings at present
constituted. Neither can we forget the weight of the atmosphere, its
varying electric conditions, nor the density and attractive force of
our planet. To these, and many other laws impressed upon matter, and
the results of those laws, are the physical organization of plants and
animals adapted, each in its own way, but yet with a mutual relative
bearing, conducive to universal order.

To the constitution of this earth are plants, living forms destitute of
feeling, hearing, sight, or indeed any sense known to us, adapted--yet
according to their kinds they know what nutriment to refuse or reject;
they are subject to the influence of temperature and of light and
darkness; some court the broad glare of the sun, others flourish only
in the shade. The same observations apply to certain of the lowest
forms of animal organization, which lead a vegetable life, and appear
not to be aware of their own existence. Nor, indeed, is it until we
ascend high in the scale of animal being, and arrive at a point at
which the senses are more or less developed, and in accordance with
this development, that of mind also, (for we can use no other term,)
that we discover a decided consciousness of existence, as manifested by
anger, fear, and other passions; by watchfulness, sensibility to pain
and pleasure of a mental kind; a recourse to artifice or to force as a
means of gaining certain ends; and other proofs of a something--call
it mind, or any other name--to which the senses appeal.

For, let us remember, it is only in a certain sense that the eye sees,
or the ear hears; in the former instance, nothing more than an image
of objects is inversely reflected on the retina, and yet the mind
recognises these objects in their proper position; and what is more,
not double, though the same object is figured on the retina of each
eye, or, in the case of insects, on the retina of scores of eyes. In
hearing, the minute auditory nerves merely receive an impulse from the
vibrations or wavelets of the elastic atmosphere, and this constitutes
what we call noise, tones, music, voice. But these tones or noises are
in the mind only; they are not appreciated by the exercise of any other
sense.

Having thus briefly endeavoured to show the harmony of the general
order of nature, as far as our globe and its animal and vegetable forms
are concerned, we shall proceed to the consideration of another portion
of our subject, and commence with it a fresh chapter.




CHAPTER II.

     MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE QUALITIES OF MATTER OBTAINED THROUGH THE
     MEDIUM OF THE SENSES.


If we reflect upon man, beginning with the savage, and ending with the
philosopher, we shall find, that although the mental difference, or
rather the extent of acquired knowledge possessed by each respectively,
is very great, that the little the one possesses, and all that the
other may boast of, are based upon certain simple principles, seized
upon by the mind through the medium of the senses, and made more or
less the subjects of consideration and research.

If the philosopher can display a mass of knowledge of which the savage
is ignorant, the savage can show to the philosopher that his mind in
some things is more ignorant than his own. Both have used their senses;
both have examined and reflected; both have accumulated a store of
information, which they turn to account: but the savage cares only
for that which enables him to enjoy animal existence. He, therefore,
investigates the habits of the animals around him, and the nature of
the plants; he tames some of the former, he cultivates some of the
latter; he stores up provisions, he invents rude weapons; he builds
kraals, or huts; he fashions boats, kajaks, or proas; he employs
fire; and though he cannot discuss the laws of caloric, he knows
many of them practically. In fact, his senses are to him the inlets
of ideas, without any abstruse cogitation. He cannot but acquire
knowledge through his senses, but he labours to acquire no more than
is subservient to his present interest. To the philosopher, the senses
are also the inlets of ideas; but then he is thereby led to abstruse
cogitation, to experiments, and reiterations upon these, forming
theories to be rejected or adopted, as laborious investigation may
determine.

And wherefore?--Not contented with the vacuity of mere animal
enjoyments, he antedates his spiritual existence, and while yet on
earth soars to other worlds, or dives into the profound mysteries
of nature. Between the rude savage and the philosopher there are
innumerable gradations; yet the rude savage, if cultivated, might
become the philosopher--and why?--Because, though mental powers, like
bodily powers, differ, the mental anatomy, like the corporeal, is on
the same plan; and, figuratively speaking, the muscles of the former
may become by exercise as developed as the muscles of the latter. To
what fields, then, of knowledge are the senses avenues--and avenues,
because they are adapted to the condition of the globe we inhabit,
and because the impressions which they receive are seized upon by
the mind, being there alone made palpable; and because the mind, by a
reflex action, thence derives ideas, and combines and analyzes them.

The higher animals possess the same senses as man; and, it may be
asked, Why do they not gain a similar knowledge to that which man
acquires? We have already said, that the higher animals possess
something which cannot but be termed mind, since they have passions
and affections, memory, etc., which are qualities of mind, and not of
matter. But, then, their mind is not only inferior in degree to that
of man, but different in its anatomical construction. Certain animals,
moreover, are inferior to others, and among animals of the same species
there are different degrees of mental as well as of bodily force.
Here, however, we can only generalize. Let it suffice, then, that we
adduce for the purpose of illustration an animal with which we are all
familiar--a domesticated animal, capable of a high degree of education,
and which man has trained to the most various and opposite purposes--we
allude to that attached servant of our race, the dog. Let it stand as a
type of the higher quadrupeds.

That the dog remembers, and even to a certain extent reasons, cannot,
we think, be contradicted. A shepherd's dog not only obeys its master's
directions, but of its own accord will keep the sheep together,
prevent them from wandering out of the right track, search for them
when buried in the snow, watch over them at night, and defend them
against the incursions of the wolf. The sportsman's dog, when he
sees his master take down his fowling-piece, examine the locks, and
equip himself for the field, is quite aware of the result of these
proceedings, and manifests unequivocal symptoms of pleasure. Dogs,
moreover, may be taught to beg, to fetch and carry, to feign themselves
dead, and continue motionless until the word of command be given, and
to take their part in a scenic representation. There are, indeed,
numerous authentic instances on record of dogs having acted with
astonishing sagacity, and which prove not only memory, but a train
of reasoning carried out with singular precision. In such instances,
we cannot say that the animals are instinct-directed, because the
actions performed are out of the common course of events, and are only
occasional; every dog, under the same circumstances, would not act in
anything like the same manner.

There are, however, bounds beyond which the most intelligent dog
cannot pass; and why?--the anatomy of his mind is different from that
of man. His senses, that of touch excepted, are as acute as those of
man, some far more so, but his reasoning powers are confined within a
small circle. For example, education does not really elevate the dog
over the wild packs of his own species--it rather rivets the chain
which binds him to man as his lord; it enfeebles his instinct, and
renders him at once more dependent and more useful; it places him in
many different, and in a certain sense, unnatural spheres of action; it
renders him a shepherd, a guard, a hunter, but it adds not positively
to his information; he has no ideas of the beautiful or the sublime--of
truth, of virtue, and vice--of humanity, pity, charity; he reflects
not that death is his doom, even though he sees from time to time his
companions expiring around him. It is, in fact, first, because the most
elevated ideas or reasonings of the dog are merely simple, and those
within a narrow compass; and, secondly, because the dog is utterly
incapable of forming any abstract idea that education cannot elevate it
above itself. It has not man's mental anatomy. The rudest savage can
devise the bow, and the spear, and various other implements; he can
fashion them because he has hands, but his hands are only the servants
of his mind; had not his mind been what it is, his bodily organization
would have been otherwise, but still in just harmony. In the savage lie
the dormant germs of lofty intellect, and in his line, at some future
generation, may a Milton, a Shakspere, a Newton, arise; sage poets,
statesmen, and philanthropists, men of whom England boasts--England,
whose children are the descendants of a semi-barbaric horde, which
spread ruin in its westward progress.

But what the dog was in the earliest ages, what it was in the times
of classic history, that it continues to be; on the contrary, man can
emerge from a savage to a civilized state; acquire new wants and supply
them; improve upon first principles, and take step after step in the
pursuit of knowledge; add improvement to improvement; begin by building
a frail coracle, and then launch his steam-ship on the water--begin by
erecting a low kraal, and then erect the palace of Caesar, or the temple
of Athens.

Reflex operations of the mind are denied to brutes--even to the dog,
an animal which the Almighty evidently created for the special service
of man: hence, though the avenues to their minds are the same, reason
has but a feeble grasp upon the sensations which there enter; and
that mysterious power, quality, or impulse, which we term instinct,
rises predominant, and leads to operations which in man could only be
the result of reflection and experience. Yet, as we have said, the
actions of the dog, and we may add of the elephant, the horse, and
other animals, are not all instinctive, neither do all the actions
of man proceed from a train of reasoning, for some of his, even,
are instinctive: the love of offspring on the part of the mother is
entirely instinctive in its source.

It is, then, easy to see how it is that even the highest brute,
with a mind limited as we have described, and with instincts which
guide in the place of mind, can never improve or add to any store of
knowledge, can never conceive one abstract idea--such as eternity,
infinity, matter, space, etc.--and can never investigate the laws
of creation--can, in fact, be only what it is. The utmost extent of
something like knowledge which the most intelligent and sagacious
dog acquires, dies with it, and its successor has to learn all for
itself. As for language, in the true meaning of the word, of what use
would it be to brutes? Among the highest, as far as the necessity of
communication extends, cries or modulations of tone and certain actions
suffice to convey a distinct meaning; among the lowest, there is no
necessity even for utterance, and there is no sense of hearing, nor
even of vision. Language supposes a mind constructed like that of man,
and as he emerges from a rude to a cultivated state, in like proportion
will his language increase in copiousness and perspicuity, if not in
force.

Let us here, without bewildering our reader in a maze of metaphysics,
just glance at a few of the characteristics or faculties of mind,
briefly anatomizing them, in order that we may clearly exhibit the
mental distinction between man and the higher orders of beasts, by way
of showing what the mind in each case derives from the inlets of the
senses.

1. _A Knowledge of Self-existence, or Personality._--This knowledge
appears to us to be rather instinctive than the result of reflection,
as some believe; we know intuitively that we exist, because we feel,
because we see and hear, because we move, because we hope and fear;
nor will all the arguments which Berkeley or his disciples can adduce,
convince any person that he exists only in idea.

That animals of the higher grades, at least, have this knowledge is
very evident; gregarious habits, mutual recognition, the watch and
ward system, characteristic of so many species both among mammalia and
birds--a thousand circumstances which our readers may call to mind,
prove it. We need not insist upon the subject. It is a feeling rather
than a portion of knowledge; it is intuitive, and experienced alike
by the ploughman at his work, by the horses who labour in the furrow,
and the busy rooks which follow in their track. Where there is fear,
or pleasure, or pain, or desire, there must self-consciousness be--a
feeling of self-existence. We have no reason to believe that plants
possess this feeling.

2. _Memory._--Memory is a mental exercise, or faculty, of the greatest
importance to man; it is in constant requisition; without it our
intellectual improvement would be confined within very narrow limits.
Our acquirement of language, and of the rules of sciences and arts,
depend upon this faculty, and it is strengthened by habitual exercise.
Between memory and recollection, there is a slight shade of difference.
A man may say, "I remember the events of the year 1848"--"I recollect
such an event, now that you mention it." Events may be recollected
after being forgotten, and often are so in illness--nay, forgotten
languages have sometimes been fluently spoken. It often happens--why
so, we cannot say--that circumstances or events, long passed from
the mind, present themselves suddenly to it with extreme vividness,
and are thenceforth remembered; but oftener does it happen, that
the sight of some object, or that a sound, a note, a tune, a word,
recalls to the mind forgotten events, bygone circumstances, hopes
passed away, pleasures long fled, feelings long quiescent. This
species of recollection has been called by some writers the "power
of association." It certainly depends upon an association of ideas,
which, on the key-note being struck, pass involuntarily through the
mind; a sight or sound will often call to mind, with singular rapidity,
a vision of other years, or of scenes far distant, towards which the
heart intently yearns. Witness the effects of the air of the Ranz de
Vache upon the Swiss soldiers in Napoleon's army. Recollection is often
the result of attention. We remember a certain event, but forget the
year in which it occurred; we direct our thoughts to the subject, we
compare circumstance with circumstance, date with date, until at last--

    "It breaks upon the mind, and all is clear."

That brutes possess memory is indisputable; indeed, we might fill
pages with instances of the power of memory in animals, some rather
startling; but as common every-day observation enforces the fact upon
almost every one, we need not insist upon it. However, by way of
adding interest to a disquisition some may deem dry, we will introduce
the following anecdote, related by Mr. Corse, in his Observations on
the Natural History of the Elephant:[6] "In June, 1787, Fattra Mungul,
a male elephant, taken the year before, was travelling in company with
other elephants towards Chittagong, laden with a tent and some baggage
for our accommodation on the journey. Having come upon a tiger's track,
which elephants discover readily by the smell, he took fright and ran
off to the woods, in spite of the efforts of his driver. On entering
the wood, the driver saved himself by springing from the elephant,
and clinging to the branch of a tree under which he was passing. When
the elephant had got rid of his driver, he soon contrived to shake
off his load. As soon as he ran away, a trained female was dispatched
after him, but could not get up in time to prevent his escape. She,
however, brought back his driver, and the load he had thrown off, and
we proceeded without any hope of ever seeing him again. Eighteen months
after this, when a herd of elephants had been taken, and had remained
several days in the inclosure, till they were enticed into the outlet,
there tied and led out in the usual manner, one of the drivers, viewing
a male elephant very attentively, declared he resembled the one which
had run away. This excited the curiosity of every one to go and look at
him; but when any person came near, the animal struck at him with his
trunk, and in every respect appeared as wild and outrageous as any of
the other elephants. At length, an old hunter coming up, and examining
him narrowly, declared he was the very elephant that had made his
escape about eighteen months before. Confident of this, he boldly rode
up to him on a tame elephant, ordering him to lie down, and pulling him
by the ear at the same time. The animal seemed quite taken by surprise,
and instantly obeyed the word of command, with as much quickness as the
ropes with which he was tied permitted; uttering at the same time a
peculiar shrill squeak through his trunk, as he had formerly been known
to do, by which he was immediately recognised by every person who had
ever been acquainted with this peculiarity." The same observer informs
us, that another elephant, a female, taken in 1765, was turned loose in
1767, and retaken in 1782. She then recollected the customs and words
of command learned during her former bondage; she laid herself down at
the command of her driver, he fed her from his seat, gave her his stick
to hold, which she took with her trunk, put it into her mouth, and
returned it as she was directed, and as she had been accustomed to do.

[6] Phil. Trans., 1799.

3. _Attention._--Attention is an abstraction of the mind from a
multifarious variety of trifles, or circumstances, and an energetic
direction of it to one subject, or object. In attention many, if not
all, the senses may be engaged. For example, a botanist gathers a
flower; its beauty, the form and substance of its petals, their colour,
its aroma, the honey-dew of its nectary, the peculiarity of its calyx,
and other qualities, appeal to the mind through the senses of sight,
smell, taste, and feeling. He has to describe this flower--he fixes his
mind upon it, and puts forth a graphic delineation in apt and concise
language. The ploughman is at work, and the sower of grain follows
him--both give their whole mind to their duty. The critic (oh, word of
fear!) gives his attention to the matter under his revision; and so
does the cook, when preparing a _recherche_ dish on the composition
of which he prides himself. And does not the tiger, crouching in
ambush, give attention to his object, stimulated in the meantime by
hope? Who has not observed multitudes of cases, affording examples of
attention in brutes? In fact, attention is a faculty displayed by all
brutes, especially by those which lead a life of rapine, for upon its
exercise depends their daily support. But man alone can direct his
attention to things intellectual, abstruse, or religious. The reason
is evident--the brute is incapable of abstract ideas, but quite awake
to its own present necessities. The high realms of thought belong to
man alone, of all terrestrial beings; but in how far higher a degree to
those spiritual existences, those angels of light, which surround the
throne of God, and who, contemplating with amazement the finished work
of salvation, exclaim, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive
power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory,
and blessing!" nay, till we mingle with these transcendent beings, the
powers of our mind will be pressed down beneath a load of clay; then
all that was dark shall be made clear, and with angels we shall join
in saying, "Amen: blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and
honour and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever!"

But we are told that there are angels "which kept not their first
estate," and which are reserved "unto judgment of the great day;"
namely, Satan and his apostate subordinates. Fallen though they be,
their brightness "has not lost all its original splendour;" but they
exercise their high powers in tempting and seducing to his eternal ruin
man, whom Satan by his wiles has already crushed, and robbed of his
original innocence. Let us strive against the tempter, the deceiver,
who lays luxury, licentiousness, gold, fame, power, before his willing
slaves, trying them on every point, and inducing too many to fall
irrecoverably. But God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, or
than the thoughts of man's crafty adversary; and in wisdom he devised
that mighty scheme, through which rescue and pardon are freely granted
to all who accept the invitation of the Redeemer, "Come unto me, all
ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" "All,"
he says, "that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out," John vi. 37. Jesus is the
Conqueror, and death is swallowed up in victory. Flee, then, from the
city of destruction; and though the slough of despond or the valley of
humiliation be before, press forward, awakened sinner, to the heavenly
Jerusalem! on that let your thoughts be placed.

4. _Comparison._--The direct comparison of one object with another,
with a view towards the acquisition of information, is exercised
by man alone of all animals; but that superficial and involuntary
comparison which leads to the simple _distinction_ of things, as of
land from water, or trees from houses, is common both to animals and
man. _Choice_ supposes the exercise of comparison, in a low degree, and
this a bird displays in the selection of a spot for its nest, and the
beaver in that of a site for its dam and village. In both these cases,
however, _instinct_ impels to the labour, and supplies the place of
experience.

5. _Knowledge of Cause and Effect._--A knowledge of the connexion
between cause and effect is the result of experience alone. We thus
accumulate a number of facts, and by reasoning upon those facts, can
infer with certainty what would be the result under such or such
contingencies. That brutes gain information to a certain extent by
experience is very plain. We have seen a monkey break nuts by hammering
them upon a stone--we have seen the orang try to pick the lock of its
door with a bit of stick--we know instances of horses disengaging
themselves from their headstall, unbolting the stable door, and making
off to the pasture; a cat in our possession was accustomed to leap up
and open the latch of the kitchen door, whenever she wished to enjoy a
stroll. We might multiply examples, but so many will suggest themselves
to the reader's mind, that we may spare ourselves the task.

With a knowledge of the connexion between cause and effect is
associated that of _power_. Give me where to stand, said Archimedes,
and I could move the world. Man's natural powers are very limited, but
his comprehensive mind enables him to overcome the most formidable
obstacles; to bore through the mountain, to uproot it from its base,
and scatter its fragments over the plain; to over-arch rivers and arms
of the sea with iron pathways; to travel as rapidly as most birds
fly; to upheave ponderous masses of stone, and to compress light
and flocculent materials until they become solid and heavy. But man
accomplishes all this and far more, not by his own bodily powers, but
by machinery of various kinds, and of various degrees of simplicity or
complexity; nay, he cannot even cultivate the soil, except by the aid
of implements, that is, simple machines.

Brutes entirely depend upon their own bodily powers, and gain a
knowledge of the extent of those powers by experience. An old hunter
will never attempt a leap which he knows he cannot accomplish--a
young, fiery horse will make a dash at it, and perhaps fail; if he
succeed, his dependence upon himself will be confirmed; on the other
hand, should he not succeed, it is more than probable that he will lose
all self-confidence, and therefore be henceforward useless for the
chase.

The elephant skilfully uses its tusks as levers, in the uprooting of
trees; and when the megatherium and mylodon wrestled with the noblest
productions of their primeval forests in South America, they applied in
the best manner their forces and the means at their command. What is
this but a knowledge (limited, we allow) of the relationship between
cause and effect? The camel, when overladen, utters loud cries,
and refuses to rise at the command of the driver; this was also a
peculiarity of the llama, when that animal was exclusively the carrier
of the Andes.

With respect to a knowledge of power, as regards ourselves personally,
or as displayed by brutes, we cannot help thinking that much depends
on an _instinctive perception_, added to, no doubt, by experience.
All animals, from man downwards, apply their force according to their
conformation; the horse kicks--the lion strikes with his terrible
paw--the hyena seizes with his jaw--man uses his arms; but man also
brings art to aid him in his bodily exertions. Hence the strongest
man falls under the skill of the trained wrestler; but the contest of
brutes is that of force. Hence it is that man invents weapons which
render the weak and the strong on a level, and which give to skill
the predominance over force. This, too, implies a knowledge of the
relationship between cause and effect, but a knowledge which brutes,
if we except the chimpanzee, do not display. The chimpanzee, it is
asserted, uses a club as a weapon, but we do not advance this as a fact
positively established; indeed, we doubt it; we have never seen this
animal use a stick, as we should use it in striking.

6. _Time._--Man alone can invent artificial methods of measuring time;
in an uncivilized condition he avails himself of the sun and moon,
of the changes of day and night, of the tides, of the seasons, using
them as natural chronometers. The higher brutes evidently possess
some knowledge of time, as evidenced by the migration of birds, the
relief of each other, as in the case of pigeons, at stated intervals on
the nest, and, perhaps we may add, the storing up of food for future
consumption. On this latter point, however, we will not insist, for
most probably it is the result of an entirely instinctive impulse;
we have known a caged squirrel make a hoard. The dog, says M. Ebzear
Blaze,[7] "reasons, calculates, knows how to count the days of the
week, and even those of the year. Thus, for example, a dog belonging
to M. Roger went every Saturday, at two o'clock precisely, from
Locoyarne to Hennebon, (a distance of three kilometres;) it set off
in a straight line to the butcher's, because that was their day for
killing, and he was certain of having a good regale upon tripe. He was
capable, then, of counting the days, since he never left home except on
the Saturday. At the house of the same M. Roger, family prayer was kept
up every evening, and the dog listened to the service tranquilly, but,
as may be supposed, impatiently, for as soon as the last _paternoster_
was commenced, he rose up and placed himself near the door, in order to
make his exit immediately on its being opened."

[7] Histoire du Chien.

We do not pretend to say that all animals calculate time, or that any
have the power of calculation which man has; and as for any abstract
idea respecting time or eternity, it is out of the question. Hence they
neither look back upon time, nor forward into the future. Their measure
of knowledge is wisely allotted to them; it is in due accordance
with their animal wants, and final destiny; but man, the heir of
immortality, destined to exist throughout eternity, is so mentally
gifted as to be able to think and reflect upon the past, the present,
and the future. Were he not immortal, he would never, perhaps, have
been endowed by his Maker with the idea of a future life. However this
may be, the Holy Scriptures assure him of a life to come, and for which
he must prepare himself only by one way. The hopes of the idolater are
false. Oh, then, how desirable it is that a knowledge of the true
way of salvation should be spread throughout the world; that error
and superstition should be banished; and that the light of the gospel
should cast its heavenly radiance over the benighted regions of the
earth!

7. _Locality._--A knowledge or perception of locality, that is, of one
place as distinct from another, is regarded by some as a result of the
agency of an exclusive mental power; but for ourselves, we see in it
only the exercise of attention, leading to distinction, and involving
the aid of memory. To attempt to prove that man is endowed with this
capability is useless; so is the dog, so is the cat, so are all our
domestic animals. Attention, distinction, and memory, are exercised
by the carrier-pigeon; when let free, at a long distance from home,
it returns, and rests on its old abode. But what are we to say in the
case of other animals, as the dog, the cat, and the horse, travelling
back from a great distance to their home, without having gained the
experience of the pigeon by soaring aloft, and surveying a wide extent
of land below? It is well known that year after year the swallow and
the martin, and other migratory birds, return to the same spot, in
order to rear their brood. Swallows and martins have been marked,
so that there could be no possibility of mistake. These birds take
their departure in autumn, journeying southwards; they then traverse
Europe, and cross the Mediterranean; they winter in the warmer regions
of Africa, and on the return of spring they commence their northern
flight. What directs the course of a particular pair of swallows from
central Africa, over land and sea, to a particular cottage or barn
in Middlesex, Surrey, or Berkshire? Again, with respect to the bee,
which wanders miles away from its hive, visiting fields and gardens in
quest of honey--how is it guided in its outward and homeward flight?
Has it landmarks?--does it know each wall, each hedge-row, each
tree, each garden and field over which it passes? If so, how do the
bees find their way to and from the floating apiaries on the rivers,
through various parts of the European continent, and also in Egypt,
the resting-place being continually changed according to the judgment
of their owners? In Egypt it is the practice to transport the apiaries
to distant places, in order to take advantage of the succession of
flowers. "In Lower Egypt, for example, about the end of October, the
bee-keepers embark on the Nile, and migrate with them to Upper Egypt,
calculating to arrive there when the inundation is rapidly subsiding,
and the flowers are beginning to bloom. Having stayed a short time in
one place, till they suppose that the bees have collected all the honey
and wax of the district, they remove two or three leagues lower down,
and so on, as the plants come into bloom. Thus gradually returning
homewards, they collect the honey of the adjacent country; and about
the beginning of February, having travelled the whole length of Egypt,
arrive at the spots whence they had set out, and at their habitations.
Niebuhr saw, between Cairo and Damietta, a collection of four thousand
hives, in their transit from Upper Egypt to the Delta."[8] How do
the bees, their locality being thus changed from time to time, find
their way, not only to the boat of hives, but to their own peculiar
hives respectively? There are points in the economy of animals which
we cannot fathom, and it is better to confess our ignorance than to
attempt a puerile theory. To speak truly, we cannot answer the question.

[8] Nat. Cyclop.

8. There are certain qualities of mind, certain principles which,
whatever doubt may be held respecting our previous observations, at
once distinguish man, and elevate him far above the highest brute. In
fact, they take him out of the pale of the brute creation, and isolate
him amidst the living creatures by which he is surrounded. He is the
only animal being who can form any idea of God and his attributes, of
eternity, of virtue and vice, of justice and mercy; in his breast alone
are implanted conscience, faith and hope, repentance and spiritual
peace. Herein have we an argument, to prove that man is not made to
begin and end his career on this world, beautiful as it is, and fitted
to meet all his animal powers, senses, and enjoyments. Why, indeed,
should these principles be implanted in man--principles immediately
bearing upon a future state of existence, if that future state were
not ordained? Where in creation can a similar anomaly be demonstrated?
Every brute is gifted with vital functions and organization fitted to
its destined mode of life, and with a kind and degree of mind (where
this is needed) in exact accordance thereunto. Beyond this all is
blank; indeed, the most wonderful works which brutes perform, and
which in man would argue great thought and experience, are in them the
result of instinct alone. The beautiful corals and zoophytes, which we
so much admire, are instinct-built tenements. Instinct teaches the bee
how to arrange her waxen cells, and load them with honey as a provision
for the winter, and the bird how to build her nest. On the contrary,
the operations of what may be called mind, in contradistinction to
instinct, are displayed only by the higher brutes, and, more over, are
limited within narrow bounds.

We have heard persons assert, that a dog manifests the workings of
conscience, because it often betrays itself by its timid, irresolute
manner after pilfering, as if conscious that it had done wrong. The
fact is, that the dog is conscious of no moral guilt; it has been
previously punished for a like offence, and fears a repetition of the
punishment; this is the solution of the whole affair.

We have so far shown the great superiority of the mind of man above
that of even the highest brutes, and not this only, but its essential
differences, thereby rendering its possessor, indeed, the paragon of
animals. Let us now endeavour to explain what information is gained by
him from the exercise of the senses.

In speaking of God, and of celestial beings, we always use, and
cannot but use, language drawn from the properties, qualities, and
appearances of things around us, or from the passions of our own minds,
or from the configuration and actions of our own bodies. We cannot, in
fact, conceive of God except figuratively--hence to the limit of our
intellect is the language of Scripture adapted. Though written under
inspiration, it was written by men, and for men; and, therefore, the
personification of the Almighty is unavoidable. It is said, "Thy way
is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps
are not known;"[9] we talk of the "work of his hands," of "the arm of
God," etc., and we know that we are speaking figuratively, and it is
because we know this, that we turn with disgust from the pictures,
however elaborate, which, painted by Roman Catholics, represent the God
of heaven and earth under the similitude of an aged man, with a long
beard, and white hair, looking down from the clouds. We know that "God
is a Spirit," but we have no conception of what a spirit is; we know
nothing of spirit--nay, we know nothing of matter essentially; it is
only of some of its properties that our senses afford us information,
and it may have many properties, for the discernment of which no senses
have been bestowed upon us. Well, then, may it be written, "Canst
thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto
perfection?"[10] We cannot, however, doubt, that the Almighty has given
to us a mind and senses quite adequate, not only to our animal wants,
but to our spiritual pilgrimage through this transitory scene, until we
arrive at those realms of bliss, where ignorance shall be exchanged for
knowledge, and every difficulty cleared away.

[9] Psa. lxxvii. 19.

[10] Job xi. 7.

Considerations like these add interest to the inquiry--What variety and
extent of information do we, as intellectual, immortal beings, gain
through our senses? A little thought will convince us that, without
the reflective agency of our minds on the impressions received by
the senses, and the power of conceiving abstract ideas, the simple
impressions of colour, solidity, weight, sound, flavour, or odour,
would be but meagre sources of knowledge. As it is, they are the broad
inlets of knowledge. Let us take them in succession, commencing with a
new chapter.




CHAPTER III.

     THE SENSES, AS THE INLETS TO KNOWLEDGE--SIGHT AND HEARING.


1. _Sight._--The information acquired by the mind through the sense of
sight is more varied than that communicated through any other sense,
singly taken; but it is less accurate. The sense of sight requires
education and assistance, and both are given through the sense of
touch. We have already said, that light radiates from bodies, and
forms a picture on the retina, (a reversed picture,) conveying to the
mind certain qualities of matter, and, first--colour. By variations in
the shades of colour, and by contrasts of colour, our eye, aided by
experience from the sense of touch, determines the form of objects; and
the boundaries of these forms we term outlines. All that we perceive
is the limits of differently  spaces. Where, however, colours
blend gradually into each other, the limits of each space, and,
consequently, its outline, are indefinite; we do not see matter, but
a quality of matter. There are circumstances under which the eye is
deceived respecting colour, two or more different colours producing
a similar effect on the retina, and being undistinguishable from each
other. Moreover, when the retina is fatigued by a prolonged impression
from one colour, its sensibility to colour is diminished, and we cease
to judge accurately; in these instances, the retina receives those only
which are termed _accidental_, namely, which do not enter into the
colour steadily gazed at previously. For example, "if we look steadily
at a white spot, and afterwards turn the eye towards white bodies, a
dark spot will be perceived by the eye. If we look at a red spot on
a white ground, and then direct the eye to another part of the white
ground, a green spot approaching to blue will be perceived. In the
first case, the retina was fatigued by the white colour, and could not
be excited by any other colour having the rays which constituted it in
its composition. The _accidental_ colour, therefore, was black. In like
manner, after looking at the red spot, the retina was insensible to the
impressions of a compound colour, having red rays in its composition.
Hence, the accidental colour consisted of the other rays of the
prismatic spectrum, forming a colour destitute of red."

The eye is subject to deception, or illusion. Sometimes we mistake the
shadow for the substance. The rays of light, passing through media
of different densities, are refracted at different angles; hence the
direction or nearness of different bodies becomes apparently altered,
and experience alone corrects the error. On putting a pole or stick
obliquely into clear water, the submerged portion seems to be bent
at the surface of the water, and to rise higher in the water than it
actually is. The bottom of a deep, clear river, or pond, seems to be
nearer to the surface than it is in reality; in other instances, the
water deceives by an apparent shallowness, the truth of which the
inexperienced bather should always test before venturing in. If a gold
or silver coin be put at the bottom of a basin, and the basin be then
filled with water, and the eye be obliquely directed, so as not to
see the coin, hidden by the rim of the basin, it will become apparent
when the basin is filled. In spearing fish, allowance is made by the
experienced for the difference of refraction of the rays of light in a
rare and more dense medium. It is probable that birds which prey upon
fish, by darting at them while at a certain distance under the water,
as, for example, the fish-hawk, or osprey, and the gannet, are taught
by _instinct_ to correct an apparent error of sense, or rather, an
illusion, which man corrects by practice and experience.

The eye is deluded by the mirage. The mirage (a French word, adopted
into our language) is "the name given to a phenomenon of unusual
attraction, for which we have no specific appellative, unless it be the
sea-term _looming_. As a general definition, we may say, the mirage is
an optical illusion, occasioned by the refraction of light through
contiguous masses of air of different density, such refraction not
unfrequently producing the same sensible effect as direct reflection.

"The illusions of the mirage differ according to circumstances, but
they may be all arranged under one or other of the three following
classes: _vertical reflection_, _horizontal_ or _lateral reflection_,
and _suspension_."

In hot, flat regions, as certain portions of Arabia, Egypt, Persia,
the western deserts of India, etc., the _vertical mirage_ is extremely
common; it presents the illusive appearance of a wide, clear lake, or
sheet of water, in which trees, buildings, and other objects, seem to
be reflected, and in a reversed position. On approaching this deceptive
lake, it keeps receding as we advance, the reflected images vanish,
to be succeeded by others, as they come in rotation into sight. And
thus the wayworn and thirsty traveller across the desert is first
cheated into hope, and at length mocked into despair. During the
French campaign in Egypt, under Napoleon, the soldiers, who suffered
extremely from the torments of thirst, were cruelly tantalized by the
deceptive mirage. M. Monge, one of the savans who accompanied the army,
thus comments upon this phenomenon: "The soil of Lower Egypt," he
observes, "is a vast plain, perfectly horizontal, its uniformity being
interrupted by a few eminences, on which, in order to secure them from
the inundations of the Nile, the villages are built. In the morning
and the evening the aspect of the country presents nothing remarkable,
all objects appearing in their natural positions, and at their proper
distances; but after the soil has become heated by the rays of the
sun, the prospect seems bounded by a general inundation. The villages
at a little distance appear as islands in the midst of an expansive
lake, and the image of each village is seen invertedly reflected, as
if the water were real. As we advance, the mimic water retires, still
reflecting image after image;" so that in this illusion the classic
fable of Tantalus is represented; might not the fable have had its
origin in the phenomenon of the mirage?

It is not, however, exclusively on sandy plains or in very hot
climates, that this mirage occurs. It has been observed by Biot over
the sandy beach of Dunkirk, and is not unfrequent along the coast of
Calvados. A strange and beautiful effect of the mirage was seen by
captain Maundy, at the Shallout Pass in India, and is thus described:
"A deep precipitous valley, at the bottom of which I had seen one or
two miserable villages in the morning, bore in the evening a complete
resemblance to a beautiful lake. The vapour which played the part of
water, ascended nearly half-way up the sides of the vale, and on its
bright surface the trees and rocks were distinctly reflected."

How like the vanities and pleasures of earth is the mirage! Bright,
sparkling, illusive--an appearance without a substance--a mockery
which deceives, attracts, and vanishes away! He who pursues the
pleasures of this world, and all its tinsel gratifications, resembles
the fevered traveller in the burning desert, who pursues the mirage,
which recedes as he presses eagerly towards it, till at length,
discovering its nothingness, he perishes.

We may next consider the mirage produced by _horizontal_ or _lateral
reflection_.

"In the horizontal or lateral reflections, the mirage represents the
reflected image sideways. Thus, on the 17th of September, 1818, M.
Jurine and Soret observed a lateral mirage on the lake of Geneva. A
bark, about four thousand toises distant, was seen approaching Geneva
by the left bank of the lake, and at the same moment there was seen
above the water an image of the sails, which, in place of following the
direction of the bark, receded from it, and seemed to approach Geneva
by the right bank of the lake, the image sailing from east to west,
while the bark was sailing from north to south. This lateral mirage
is known to the inhabitants of Meroa, who call it _Si-kote_, (castle
of the cold season;) by those who live on the plains watered by the
Chumbul and the Jumna, it is termed _Dissaser_, (prognostic.)

"In particular situations, both the _vertical_ and _lateral_ mirage
may be observed together. Thus the late Mr. Blackadder has described
some phenomena, both of vertical and lateral mirage, as seen at king
George's Bastion, Leith, which are very instructive.

"The phenomenon called _suspension_, which is the third kind of
mirage, and to which the term _looming_ is most strictly applied, is
the picturing of an object immediately over it in the air, frequently
without reversion of the image. Sometimes the objects are merely raised
above the height at which, under ordinary circumstances, they would
appear. Thus sir R. K. Porter mentions a phenomenon of suspension, or
_looming_, in the plains near Bagdad. 'A little before morning,' says
he, 'I observed an elevated stream of water, which, from its situation,
must be the Tigris. Its surface was brilliantly illuminated by the
moon, but the longer I kept my eye fixed on this noble river of many
interests, the more my surprise became excited at the extraordinary
height of its waters above the level of the desert, till at length
I began to suspect that some optical illusion from refraction was
assisting the apparent elevation of the stream; but I had not conceived
the extent of the deception, for as the dawn advanced the phantom
river totally sunk from my sight.' The phenomenon of _looming_ is most
generally observed at sea, or near the shore. At Reggio, in Calabria,
the _Fata Morgana_ (Fairy Morgana) is visible, which for many centuries
astonished the vulgar and perplexed philosophers.

"It frequently happens that the phenomenon of the _vertical_ mirage is
combined with that of _suspension_, so as to show in the air both a
direct and an inverted image of the subject, the latter being undermost.

"Now all these phenomena, and their various modifications, depend on
the different density of the lower strata of the air; and as this
difference of density may be occasioned both by heat and moisture,
and as heat may be reverberated from the mountain's side as well as
from the horizontal surface of the plains, from the sea as from the
land--and, further, as contiguous columns of air, as well as horizontal
strata, may be of different densities, it is easy to conceive why
the mirage may be seen in very different situations, as also why it
presents such varied appearances. It will also be evident that any
cause which re-establishes the equilibrium of density in the different
portions of the air, must cause the illusions of the mirage to
vanish."[11]

[11] Penny Cyclopaedia.

It cannot be doubted that those appearances, which sailors call _Cape
Fly-away_, the _Enchanted Island_, and the _Flying Dutchman_, etc., are
the effects of the mirage. They are the objects of superstition, and
thus has an illusive appearance caused many a heart to beat with fear,
which never so beat in the tempest or the sea-fight.

The eye assists us greatly, indeed almost exclusively, in determining
the _motions_ of bodies; yet in this we require experience, and after
all we are frequently deceived. When a body moves in a straight line
from us, we cannot tell whether it moves or not, and then only come
to the conclusion that it recedes in consequence of its becoming more
obscure, and from a change in its relative position to other objects
which we know to be stationary. When we travel in a railway carriage,
the banks, the hedge-rows, and the fields, seem as if gliding with
extreme velocity away from us. It is only by a course of reasoning that
we know such is not the fact; it is true that the course of reasoning
is very short and simple, yet still that reasoning is requisite;
indeed, it has been acknowledged only in modern times that the sun
is stationary, and that the world moves. Bodies moving with extreme
velocity produce a continuous impression on the eye; thus, for example,
if a stick burning at one end be rapidly whirled, the burning end
produces the appearance of a fiery circle. The spokes of a coach-wheel,
rolling round very rapidly, present the appearance of an indistinct
expansion. On the contrary, bodies moving with extreme slowness appear
to casual observation as stationary; thus the act of growing, in
ordinary plants and animals, is not appreciated, though the result is
demonstrated in due time.

The eye, moreover, may be deceived by artificial representations, as
by painting (take the Diorama as an example) or by models. We have
seen flowers so truthfully modelled in wax that, by the eye alone, no
distinction between them and natural flowers could have been detected.

The same observations apply to _magnitude_ and _distance_. Objects of
gigantic magnitude, as, for instance, the pyramids of Egypt, at first
appear less than they are in reality; and it is only by admeasurement,
examination, and comparison, that the mind becomes impressed with
the idea of their immensity. A building, the details of which are
in just harmony, always appears to be smaller than it is, because
no discordance betrays the vast preponderance of certain parts over
the littleness of others. Habit, or, in other words, education, is
essentially requisite to aid the eye in its appreciation of magnitude.

We may say the same with respect to _distance_. An infant does not
distinguish between near and distant objects; its eyes have yet to
become educated, and so have those of adults placed in circumstances to
which they are unaccustomed. For example, the walls of a city, reared
in a vast level plain, and descried at a distance, appear to be far
nearer than the traveller will find them to be; again, when standing on
the beach, we look at a ship in the distance, we are apt to think it
closer to the shore than we should prove it to be were we to traverse
the distance in a boat. A sailor would judge of the distance accurately.

How much the accuracy and utility of the eye depend upon practice or
education may be illustrated by the case of a boy, who, as described by
Cheselden, was born quite blind, but was suddenly restored to sight, at
the age of twelve, by the skilful removal of the cataract. At first,
he was impressed with the idea that all the objects which he saw around
him touched his eyes, in the same manner as in the act of touch they
came in contact with the skin. He could neither estimate distance, nor
distinguish one object from another, until he had applied the test of
touch as a corrective and assistant.

It may here be asked, how the fact is to be explained that, though
images are pictured on the retina inverted, we do not see them as such,
but in their true position? When we say that the eye sees, we use
popular, but not strictly correct language; the eyes are the organs
or instruments of vision--that is, for transmitting certain qualities
of matter to the mind; it is not the image on the retina which the
mind contemplates, for we are utterly unconscious that such an image
exists--it is the object itself. "To expect that the impression from an
inverted image on the retina should produce the perception of a similar
position in the object viewed, is to commit the error of mistaking
these images for the real objects of perception, whereas they are only
the means which suggest the true perceptions. It is not the eye which
sees; it is the mind." "The analogy which the optical part of the eye
bears to a camera obscura has perhaps contributed to the fallacy in
question; for in using that instrument we really contemplate the image
which is received on the paper, and reflected from it to our eyes; but
in our own vision nothing of this kind takes place."

We scarcely know whether we can place among optical illusions those
strange apparitions of departed persons, of friends at a distance,
or of singular and grotesque faces or figures, of which we have many
authentic narratives. These we take to be strong impressions on the
mind alone, (for no image can there be on the retina,) the result of
some morbid condition of the brain and nervous system. Such was the
evil genius which Brutus saw in his tent before the battle of Philippi,
and such the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth--such also were the phantoms
seen by Nicolai, the philosophic bookseller of Berlin, who has given
an admirable account of his mental visions, referring them to their
true source, at the very time that the illusions visited him. In some
states of body, we see grotesque and ludicrous objects, while our eyes
are shut, and, as we can testify, often not before we have shut our
eyes, and thereby closed the door of access through those organs to the
mind. What horrible phantasms terrify the unhappy sleeper labouring
under night-mare! What strange things does the delirious sufferer
mentally behold, and through what strange scenes, real to him, does he
pass! We see, we converse, we laugh, we mourn, we feel pleasure and
anguish, even in our dreams. These, then, are not optical but mental
illusions--no figure is made upon the retina appealing to the mind,
but the mind itself sees things which are not, and is delighted or
terrified by its own involuntary creations.[12]

[12] See "An Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions," by John Ferriar,
M.D., 1813; and "Sketches of the Philosophy of Apparitions; or, An
Attempt to trace such Illusions to their Physical Causes," by Samuel
Hibbert, M.D., 1824.

In former times, craft, under the name of religion, availed herself of
these mental illusions, and extorted gifts of lands and gold from the
terrified, perhaps most guilty sufferer, in order that his peace with
the church (so miscalled) might be made, and masses said for the repose
of his soul. He was taught to buy his entrance into heaven--not with
the Pearl of great price--not by presenting before the Judge of all
mankind the merits and the atonement of the Messiah, but by founding
a monastery, or by adding to its treasures and domains. His faith was
placed, not on the promises of God in Christ, but on the promises of a
mere mortal at best--yes, a mortal, who knew that while he promised he
was weak as other men; In concluding our observations upon the sense of
sight, we may refer to a few striking passages in Scripture, of great
force, and well calculated to excite reflection. "He that formed the
eye, shall he not see?"[13] No secrets are hidden from God; no, not the
secrets of the heart, for these are written on a tablet which he, and
he alone, can read. May our prayer be, "Let the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer!"[14]
"Enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall
no man living be justified."[15] In the sight of God, we speak
figuratively, all men are sinners, and as sinners condemned; but God
will not enter into judgment with those who, by faith in the atonement,
looking to the Saviour, as the Israelites looked to the brazen serpent
in the wilderness, turn away from their wickedness, and become examples
"of the believers, in word, in conversation, in faith, in purity."

[13] Psa. xciv. 9.

[14] Psa. xix. 14.

[15] Psa. cxliii. 2.

2. _Hearing._--What we call sound, noise, or tone, is a mental
appreciation of the effects of the tremulous or vibratory motions
of the particles of an elastic fluid, such as air or water, on the
auditory or acoustic nerves of the internal ear. Sonorous vibrations
are produced by the concussion of hard bodies, by the bolt of
lightning, by the vibrations of stringed instruments of music, by the
forcible current of air thrown into the tubes of wind instruments,
and by the air driven from the lungs through the organs of voice in
reptiles, birds, and mammalia. There are, indeed, few movements, few
collisions, few atmospheric disturbances, which do not excite those
tremulous wavelets of atmosphere, those oscillations, which produce
in us the sensation of sound. In fact, during the day, the sense of
hearing is as perpetually employed as is that of sight; yet, strange to
say, from the impressions made through the medium of both these senses,
we can so far abstract the mind, and throw it upon its own internal
reflections and operations, as to see without discrimination, and to
hear without attention or notice.

As sound is the result of the tremulous fluctuations of air, it will
not surprise our reader to know, that no sound is conveyed from
the percussion of bodies in a vacuum. The experiment of suspending
a bell in the exhausted receiver of the air-pump, and causing the
clapper to strike it as when rung, has been very often repeated; no
sound is communicated to the listener, although the vibrations of
the bell are clearly perceived; should a little air be now admitted,
a faint tinkling is heard, which becomes stronger in proportion to
the admission of air, until it is natural; on the contrary, if the
receiver be filled with greatly condensed air, the tinkling of the bell
is louder than it is when in an atmosphere of the ordinary degree of
density.

Sound, or, rather, the wavelets of the atmosphere producing this
sensation, radiate from the sound-causing object in all directions;
these wavelets, however, extend only to a certain distance, according
to the violence of the central agitation; they become gradually feebler
and feebler, and at last die away. Thunder, the firing of cannon,
and the clang of trumpets, are not heard beyond a certain distance,
and even at that distance, whatever it may be, the ear only faintly
distinguishes the report, for the vibratory action and reaction on each
other of the atmospheric particles, become feebler and feebler in
proportion to the aerial distance of the listener.

If we stand on an eminence commanding a view of a number of cannon,
say a mile distant, which the soldiery are from time to time firing,
a decided difference of time will be perceived between the flash and
the report; the same observation applies to lightning, a considerable
interval often occurring between the flash and the thunder. Hence,
light is said to travel faster than sound. Sound travels at the ratio
of about twelve miles and a half in a minute, but its velocity is
greater in a denser than in a rarer medium, as is also the distance to
which it is propagated. These points are illustrated by a comparison
of water with atmospheric air. All aquatic animals are not constituted
for hearing; myriads, indeed, have neither sight nor hearing. By the
cuttle-fishes (_cephalopoda_) both these senses are enjoyed as well
as by fishes, aquatic reptiles, and we need not say by such aquatic
mammalia as whales, grampuses, porpoises, etc. To them the water is
the medium of sound, and granting that their auditory nerves have the
same sensibility as those of man, they will hear sounds not only more
quickly, more distinctly, but at greater distances. This is accounted
for by "the greater elasticity of the constituent particles of water,
within the minute distance required for their action in propagating
sound. Stones struck together under water are heard at great distances
by a person under water. Franklin found, by experiment, that sound,
after travelling above a mile through the water, loses but little of
its intensity. According to Chladini, the velocity of water is about
four thousand nine hundred feet in a second, or between four and five
times as great as it is in air."

Different bodies conduct sound to the ear with more or less
distinctness, according to their susceptibility for vibrating, and
also with more or less rapidity. Ice, for example, conveys sound
more speedily than water, and far more rapidly than air; thus, if a
cannon on the edge of a frozen lake be fired, a person on the opposite
side will find the flash to be followed by two reports, the first
conducted to him by the ice, the second by the air. If a long steel
rod be applied to the orifice of the ear, the gentlest jar given to
its further extremity, and which, but for the intervention of the
metal, would not have been audible, produces a strong and distinct
impression. Cotton wool, sheeps' wool, and soft stuffs, generally are
bad conductors of sound. The frozen earth conducts sound from great
distances; the approach of a horseman in clear, frosty weather, will be
heard at a far greater distance than when the ground is moist, or not
hardened; in the former case, indeed, a double sound may sometimes be
heard, one produced by the vibration of the ice-bound earth, the other,
if distance allow, by that of the air.

The distance to which sound can be conveyed through the
speaking-trumpet is very surprising. The invention of the modern
speaking-trumpet is generally accorded to sir Samuel Moreland, (1670,)
and some of the large brass trumpets, made under his direction, carried
the human voice from a mile and a half to between two and three miles
distance. The efficiency of this instrument has been attributed to
the repeated reflection of the sound, or waves of air, (like rays of
light,) from side to side along the course of the tube, their ultimate
efflux from the mouth of the instrument being in such a way, as either
to cause the rays of sound to be collected into a focus at a distance,
or to be projected forward in parallel lines, instead of allowing
them to diverge in all directions, and on these principles various
modifications in the form of the speaking-trumpet have been suggested.

The views, however, of professor Leslie do not coincide with this
theory. "The performance of the speaking-trumpet," he says, "does
certainly not depend upon any supposed repercussion of sound; repeated
echoes might divide, but could not augment the quantity of impulse."
His idea is, that "the tube, by its length and narrowness, detains
the efflux of air, and has the same effect as if it diminished the
volubility of that fluid, or increased its density." "The organs
of articulation," he adds, "strike with concentrated force; and
the pulses thus so vigorously excited are, from the reflected form
of the aperture, finally enabled to escape and spread themselves
along the atmosphere." The experiments of Hassenfratz, a French
philosopher, are cited in support of this theory. He tried the power
of a speaking-trumpet, by measuring the distance at which the ticking
of a watch could be heard through it, and found the effect the same,
whether the metal tube were used simply, or wrapped round in such a way
as to prevent vibration. It was also heard at the same distance when
the inner surface was lined with linen, or woollen cloth, to diminish
reflection; and the range of a cylindrical trumpet was the same as that
of a conical one.

In the ear-trumpet, used by persons partially deaf, and in the
stethoscope, it appears to us that we have concentrations of sound into
a focus, by repeated reflexions of the aerial wavelets from side to
side of the tube; and we may ask, does not the murmuring sound which we
hear, when we apply a conch shell to our ear, arise from the same kind
of percussion?

In echoes we have an instance of the reflection of atmospheric
undulations, and this reflection, as in many natural situations, may
be multiplied till the last faint repetitions die away; and when
a succession of echoes is very rapid, a loud exclamation of the
monosyllable, Hah! may be thrown back upon the ear like a boisterous
laugh. The echoes of old halls and galleries, of vaults and dungeons,
of caverns, rocks, and grottoes, have served as subject-matter for
the writers of imaginative poetry and romance. It is not only to old
romantic halls and galleries that echoes are confined; they are not
uncommon in modern public buildings, so that the speaker hears his
words repeated. "The distribution of sound in public edifices, so that
the echoes (or reflections of aerial waves from the walls, etc.) may
be most advantageously brought to strengthen the original sound, is
a subject deserving of much attention." For some observations on the
errors of architects on this point we may refer to sir J. Herschel's
Treatise on Sound.

When our auditory nerves receive a succession of uniform impulses at
equal intervals of time, the intervals being at the same time very
small, the impressions become so interblended with each other as to
produce an apparently continuous sound, even and equal, except as to
variation in loudness. This sound we call a musical note, produced
by the string of the violin, or piano; if the intervals between the
vibrations be, comparatively speaking, long, the note is grave; but if
within the same given time the vibrations be very numerous, the note
is in proportion acute. Some notes harmonize with each, and thereby
please the mind through the ear; others are discords, and offend. Grave
or acute notes depend upon the length and the tension of the strings
of an instrument, or the length of a wind instrument. In the piano,
the low notes are produced by long, thick strings, the high notes by
slender, short wires, in which the vibrations are excessively rapid.
In the violin, which has strings of equal length, the thin strings for
producing the high tones are screwed to a far greater degree of tension
than those of the lower tones; and each string, as its length (that is,
vibratory length) is shortened by the pressure of the finger at due
intervals, produces high and higher tones in proportion.

We have here said enough (for we aim not at a treatise on acoustics)
to show what sound really is, and what are the principal laws by which
it is governed. We have also shown, that it is our mind alone that
takes cognizance of the impulses given by vibratory wavelets of the
atmosphere to the auditory nerves; consequently, that as the mind sees,
so the mind alone hears, for vibration cannot in and of itself be that
sensation which we call sound.

What is the knowledge gained through the ear by the appreciation of
sound, or in common language, by hearing? Let us answer:--We commonly
judge of the distance and position of objects producing sound by the
sense of hearing, but in these points our accuracy greatly depends
upon our attention and our experience. Yet are we liable to deception;
we are thoroughly deceived by a skilful ventriloquist, who can so
modulate his voice as to make it seem distant or near, or to proceed
from one quarter of the room or house, or from another. The voice of
the corn-crake (_Crax pratensis_) is, from some cause or other, very
perplexing; sometimes it will appear as if the bird were only a few
yards distant from us, and the next instant in some far part of the
field. Perhaps instinct leads it to alter the pitch of its monotonous
cry, in order to deceive the intruder. Again, echoes deceive the ear;
not only may we mistake echo for the actual voice of the speaker, but
it may appear as if close or distant, faint or loud, and thus in every
point lead to erroneous conclusions.

That the ordinary animals around hear will not be denied, nor can we
blind ourselves as to the fact, that they acquire a limited share of
information, bearing upon their corporeal necessities, through this
sense. Animals have a natural language, expressive of pain or pleasure,
of surprise, of fear, of anger; and this language consists of cries or
tones, variously modulated, each species having its own range of vocal
intonations. Every species understands the simple instinctive language
of its own species. Some birds, for example, as the wild geese, have
sentinels around the flock while feeding, and rise _en masse_ at the
warning cry of their guards. Who has not marked the distress and
agitation of the ewe, when she hears the plaintive tremulous bleat of
her lamb, forcibly separated from her? The warning note of the cock,
his cluck of invitation, his scream of surprise or fear, his cackle
of agitation, his crow of defiance, are well understood by his train.
Quadrupeds, birds, and even some insects call to each other, and are
answered again--

    "Steed answers steed with loud and boastful neighing."

The bird invites his mate by a sweet strain, and is answered by her
low chirp. The call of the young in their nests is responded to by the
parents; the parents call to each other, as if to assure themselves of
each other's safety, or to find out where they mutually are, and what
they are doing.

Imitation is an instinct; we see it powerful in its dominion over
children; it is in exercise before reason assumes a definite sway; it
prompts to the acquisition of the mother-tongue, till, by repetition,
the true pronunciation is acquired, and the names of all common
articles known: then reason steps in. But imitation is not confined
to the human race; monkeys imitate, and the grotesqueness of their
imitations renders them ludicrous; they do not imitate voice, but
action. Some birds, however, imitate the human voice, and are easily
taught to utter words or sentences, (the parrot, the mino-bird, the
magpie, are examples,) nay, even to sing musical airs with great
accuracy. But, by all this acquisition through the organ of hearing,
they gain no information, nor add to the limited number of their ideas.
The parrot may be, indeed, made by practice to associate the sound of a
word, say bread, with the article thus denominated, and to call for it
by name when wanted; but reason steps not in to give further assistance
in the building up of idea upon idea, without which there can be no
definite language--no real speech. Though the dog and the horse cannot
utter the sound, they know what bread is quite as well as the parrot,
and, indeed, the ear of the dog is the inlet to an instinctive mind of
no mean order, for the Almighty created the dog to be man's assistant
and humble friend.

The question has been often mooted, as to whether song-birds acquire
their respective warble or song by the ear alone, that is, by listening
and imitating, as a child would do, or whether it is intuitive;
the answer is not very easy. There is an impulse in song-birds to
express their feelings of pleasure or enjoyment, by giving utterance
to modulated sounds, so pleasing to the human ear, that their song
leads too frequently to their friendly imprisonment. Young birds,
brought up by their parents, and with a vocal pipe best fitted for the
enunciation of the strain of their parents, (or rather male parent,)
rapidly acquire that strain, and soon begin to record, or try it over
in an under tone, and bearing it in memory, break out into full song
when leafy spring returns. Nevertheless, birds, taken early from the
nest, and put under the tuition of other birds, acquire to a certain
extent the song of the latter, often, indeed, apparently perfect; yet,
perhaps, could our ears catch it, we should find that the bird had much
of the parent accent in its acquired language.

Though birds receive ideas of a simple character, and express simple
feelings, understood by each other, through the medium of various
sounds, yet nothing from age to age is thereby added to their
knowledge; they remain what they have been from the commencement of
their creation. Their ears are far less the inlets to knowledge than
their eyes, and this observation applies generally to the lower animals.

Now let us turn to man. Setting aside meaningless sounds and noises,
(some of which, however, through the association of ideas, are very
grateful, as those of the multifarious denizens of a farm-yard,) man
derives both pleasure and knowledge from a definite succession of
sounds, which appeal to his mind, as sound cannot appeal to the mind
of the lower orders. How laughable is the fabled contest of the lutist
and the nightingale, and of the death of the latter disappointed of
the victory--the lutist might have enjoyed the warbling of the bird,
but the bird could not have entered as a rival into the strains of the
lutist. Nevertheless, from personal observation, and from the most
credible authorities, we fearlessly assert, that many animals are
allured by sweet sounds; we have seen rats peeping out of their holes,
listening to airs played on a flute; and sir Walter Scott says,

    "Rude Heiskar's seals through surges dark,
    Will long pursue the minstrel's bark."

A little lizard (the _anolis_) in the West Indies, and snakes in North
Africa and India, are attracted by the notes of a rude pipe; to deny
this is futile; it has been proved in modern days, and the fact is
noticed in Scripture. Some animals, when certain notes are struck,
or certain keys tried over, are decidedly agitated, and perhaps feel
as we do when some horrid sound "sets our teeth on edge,"--that is,
irritates by a mysterious sympathy the whole nervous system. In the
same way, perhaps, are animals pleased with certain sounds; that is, a
sympathetic tranquillity or pleasing excitement of the nervous system
is produced, and they yield, instinctively, to "the voice of the
charmer."

With regard to ourselves, music (we need not enter into a learned
explanation of what it is) operates far less upon the reasoning than
the instinctive faculties of man. Tones, modulations, swellings, and
cadences, though no words be sung, excite all the emotions of which
our animal nature is capable. But when words are used--when music is
married to immortal verse, and an appeal through language is also made
to the mind, then, indeed, the effect is tremendous. A song shouted
forth in the streets may overturn an empire. Who knows not what was
the effect of the Jacobite songs in Scotland, when Charlie came "o'er
the water?" Who knows not the effects resulting from _Caira_ and
the Marseillaise Hymn? Whose bosom has not beat high when our own
national hymn, when Rule Britannia, and other patriotic airs, have
been energetically and effectively delivered? In fine, who is there
that is not affected by music? very few; it is and has been a natural
expression of human feeling appealing to human feeling, since the time
of Jubal even unto the present day; and Miriam's song of triumph, and
the songs (how mournful!) of the daughters of Judah on the willowy
banks of Babel's rivers, were equally expressive of natural emotions.

Music, then, without words, appeals rather to our animal feelings than
to our reason or mind; music, with suitable words, appeals both to our
animal feelings and our mind; and music, with merely recollected words,
does the same by concatenation of ideas; and this also is often the
result of tones, passages, and cadences, to which we have never heard
words applied; hence, we talk of a lively air, a merry air, a martial
air, a melancholy air; and hence a great poet wrote--

    "That strain again! it had a dying fall.
    Oh! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
    That breathes upon a bank of violets,
    Stealing and giving odour."

Some airs, again, are solemn, and tend to fill the mind with awe, or a
feeling of devotion; deep strains of melody were those which resounded
through the great temple, when the holy psalms of the shepherd-king
were chanted, and deeply was every heart moved to the worship and
adoration of the living God. Oh, such should ever be our sacred music!
Perhaps we are wrong, but we confess that the sweetest air composed for
an ordinary song, (however pure, elegant, or patriotic that song may
be,) when introduced into the house of God grates upon our feelings. We
divide literature into profane and sacred (meaning nothing offensive
by the term profane)--let, then, music be as strictly divided, so
that the association of ideas which a popular air will, in spite of
ourselves, engender, shall not creep in to intertwine with the sacred
exercise of praise and thanksgiving to our Creator and Redeemer, which
alone should engage the full force of our mind.

The power of music in elevating the mind, in cheering it, or, on the
contrary, in depressing it, has been felt from the earliest ages. When
Saul was troubled in spirit, "David took an harp, and played with his
hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed
from him."[16]

[16] 1 Sam. xvi. 23.

We have said, that animals appeal to each other through the organs of
hearing by cries or sounds, nor is man destitute of natural cries,
which are universally understood--the shout of exultation, the scream
of terror, the shriek of agony, the moaning of mental or bodily
suffering, and the sobs of sorrow, speak to every heart. But, besides
these instinctive tones, man acquires a definite language, more or
less extensive, more or less capable of expressing abstract or complex
ideas, and ever in these points bearing progress with the advancement
of the arts, with the civilization and with the religion of the people.
There are some savage tribes who cannot count a hundred, but we can
count to hundreds of millions, till the mind becomes overwhelmed with
the vastness of the numerical progression, which, let each unit stand
for a million of years, would, after all, infringe not on eternity.
Language is the appeal of definite sounds, through the organs of
hearing, to the mind; these sounds are arbitrary; they do not in any
way represent things, or the qualities, or the state of things; for,
indeed, language is based altogether on a system of association--it has
to be acquired; that is, the mind has to be taught to associate certain
sounds with certain mental perceptions; but these sounds do not mean
the same thing in every language or dialect. On this point we need not
insist, neither need we give examples, which must suggest themselves to
every reader, if he reflects that there are other tongues beside that
which he speaks.

Though language consists in a system of sounds uttered by the mouth,
appealing through the sense of hearing to the mind, yet man has
contrived to effect the same purpose through the eye, and hence
is enabled to convey to others at a distance his thoughts, his
observations, his wishes, and views--to transmit to posterity the
results of his labours and researches, or the outpourings of his
genius. His plan is to employ certain marks or characters, drawn or
impressed on paper, bark, wood, metal, or other materials, which
characters shall be understood. These characters, which we call an
alphabet, represent sounds; they are made up into words, and as our eye
runs along them the varying sounds of the words are suggested, and with
them the meaning; this is termed reading, and if we utter the words,
reading aloud.

But there are other characters, not alphabetical, which have been, and
still are, in use, and which are symbols of ideas, and not of sounds.
"While the letters of our alphabet are mere symbols of sounds, the
Chinese characters or written words are symbols of ideas, and alike
intelligible to the people of Cochin-China, Japan, Loo-choo, and Corea,
with those of China itself. As the best practical illustration of a
written character, common to several nations who cannot understand each
other's speech, Mr. Davis adduces the Arabic numerals, common to all
Europe. An Englishman, who could not understand what an Italian meant
if he said _venti-due_, could comprehend him immediately if he wrote
down _twenty-two_. This advantage, which belongs to our numerals only,
pertains to the whole language of the Chinese. The uniformity, however,
in the written character, does not prevent the existence of great
diversities in the oral languages of the neighbouring countries and
China, and even of the separate provinces of the latter country. These
diversities are precisely analogous to the different pronunciation
given to the same numerical characters in the various countries of
Europe.

"To adduce the foregoing example--the number 22, which the Italian
calls _venti-due_, a Frenchman pronounces _vingt-deux_, and an
Englishman _twenty-two_, though all three write them just alike. It
is in this manner that the universality of the Chinese language
extends only to the written character, and that the natives of the two
extremities of the empire, who read the same books, and understand
each other perfectly on paper, are all but mutually unintelligible in
speech. The roots, or original characters of the Chinese, are only
two hundred and fourteen in number, and might, indeed, be reduced to
a much smaller amount by a little dissection and analysis. These are
combined with each other to form other words, or express other ideas,
very much in the same way that the individual Arabic numerals are
combined to express the infinite varieties of numbers. By a species
of analogy, they may be called the alphabet of the language, with the
difference that exists between an alphabet of ideas, and an alphabet of
sounds."[17]

When the Chinese wish to write a European proper name, they have
recourse to a contrivance which in some respects approaches the
phonetic hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. The Chinese characters when
thus employed do not become alphabetic, but represent the entire
syllable or sound which they express in ordinary use. Thus, if we
suppose A, B, C, to stand respectively in the place of three Chinese
characters, intended to give the name _Maria_, the mode would be thus--

  +-+
  |A|   _Ma_   Jasper
  |B|   _Li_   Profit
  |C|   _Ya_   Second in rank.[17]
  +-+

[17] See Klaproth's Examen, etc., p. 25.

In ancient Egypt, two modes of writing were practised, namely, the
_common_ and the _hieroglyphic_. There were several kinds of _common_
characters, and also, as it would appear, of _hieroglyphics_. Clemens
of Alexandria distinguishes from both the _hieratic_, which was used by
the sacred registrars. The ancient Mexicans employed pictorial writing;
and of this nature we may consider the Bayeux tapestry, representing
the chief incidents of the invasion of England by William I. Savages
often give information to their friends, or convey their wishes, by
cutting rude figures on the bark of trees, the meaning of which is at
once understood by every individual of the tribe.

On these points we have sufficiently enlarged. Our main purpose is
now to show how great an inlet to knowledge the ear is. To the eye
speak the writings of antiquity, the accumulated wisdom of successive
generations, the experience of sages, and those holy records which
contain the oracles of God, the sacred truths, and the revelation
of the purposes of the Almighty towards a fallen race. It is by
language, as it appeals to the eye, that we commune with the mighty
dead--that we receive into our minds the sublime ideas of a Milton,
the learning of a Bacon, or the philosophy of a Newton. But it is
to the ear that the conversation of ordinary life is directed; the
directions, the requests, the commands that we continually issue forth
or receive--words of congratulation, consolation, encouragement, or
information--the eloquence of the senate or the bar--the strenuous
admonitions or exhortations of the preacher. What a wonderful thing
the mind of man is, that a few atmospheric vibrations on the auditory
nerves, or a few pictures on the retina, should produce sorrow or joy,
hope or fear--should communicate instruction or pleasure--should excite
sympathy or love, contempt or aversion! And, again, how wonderfully
is the organic frame constructed, and adapted to the conditions of
our planet, that light and air should communicate through two of our
external senses with the mind, affording it food for cogitation, stores
of knowledge, and intellectual gratification! Does this arise in any
degree from the superiority of the organs of sight and hearing in man?
Certainly not. The vulture, soaring in the upper sky, far excels man in
the power of vision. Yes, and so does every bird that skims the air, or
hovers in quest of prey over the surface of the great deep. The dog,
the horse, the antelope, and numerous other lower animals, have quicker
ears than man; but then the mind! it is there that the difference lies;
with a weaker sight than is usual, with a more imperfect hearing than
is ordinary, sages and philosophers, and historians and poets, have
left to posterity the brightest productions of mental power. Homer and
Milton were blind.

Through the sense of hearing man communicates orally with man, and man
utters his prayers and praises orally to God, as if God heard with
ears like those of organic beings. It is natural that we should thus
address ourselves to the Almighty, because our conceptions of him are
necessarily limited by the measure of our minds, expansive as regards
the lower creation, but narrow--oh, how narrow!--compared with the
wisdom of the uncreate Eternal. "He that planted the ear, shall he
not hear!"[18] It matters not whether we murmur forth with our lips,
or silently think them in our mind--God hears them. He hears the
language of our heart, the aspirations and vows of our inmost soul:
and he knows, too, (and he alone can know,) whether we be sincere
or the contrary. The tongue of the hypocrite may deceive men, but
not God; nay, we may deceive ourselves by our own verbiage, but God
distinguishes the prayer inspired by the Spirit of truth, from the
empty declaration of excitement.

[18] Psa. xciv. 9.

Thus, then, is the ear an inlet of a vast amount of knowledge to
the mind; it conveys what the eye cannot convey, and it assists the
eye, while in turn by the eye it is assisted; and, indeed, that one
sense shall support another, and be again supported, or corrected,
is ordained by our Creator, who in wisdom has fashioned our mortal
framework, the tenement of an undying soul.

3. _Taste._--The sense of taste conveys to the mind an impression from
objects, very dissimilar to that which is gained through the medium of
the eye or of the ear; nay, dissimilar to that conveyed by the sense of
touch.

The sense of taste resides in the mouth; that is, it pervades the
tongue, the palate, and the pharynx, on which are distributed fine
ramifications of the fifth, eighth, and ninth pair of nerves.

Taste is the appreciation of the savour of bodies, or, in other words,
of certain chemical qualities, which, acting on the nerves, give to our
mind an agreeable or disagreeable sensation; hence the terms sweet,
luscious, acid, vinous, sour, bitter, saline, spicy, aromatic, etc.
Some bodies, however, are tasteless--pure distilled water is tasteless,
and so would a small globe of glass be, however long it was held in
the mouth; but if we put our tongue to a piece of brass, or copper, we
perceive at once a peculiar flavour, resulting from the oxydized film
on its surface mingling with the saliva covering the nervous papillae of
the tongue.

The organs of taste are placed at the commencement of the apparatus
of nutrition, and their assigned work is to test the quality of the
food received, thereby giving warning lest any noxious substance be
introduced into the stomach. Man, indeed, employs the sense of taste
far less decidedly in this manner than do most other animals; he
is omnivorous; in the north he relishes train-oil and blubber, the
blood of seals, and animal food half raw, while, in tropical regions,
he feeds upon boiled rice or other grain, seasoned with a little
spice, and accounts it a luxury. In both cases, the taste is in
consonance with the requirements of the system, placed under opposite
circumstances. Man, however, acquires by habit an artificial taste,
and comes at last to relish things which he at first disliked, and in
many instances these things are more or less injurious. Nor is this
artificial taste confined only to man--we have seen it in domestic
animals--cats, by nature exclusively carnivorous, will eat boiled
cabbage with relish; the dog will acquire a partiality for bread and
biscuit. On the contrary, some of our herbivorous animals may be taught
to like animal food. For example, in some parts of Arabia, flesh, raw
as well as cooked, is occasionally given to the horses, with fragments
of their owner's meals. An inhabitant of Hamah assured Burckhardt, that
he had often given his horses roasted meat before the commencement of
a fatiguing journey, that they might be the better able to endure it;
this same person, as we learn from the learned traveller, fearing lest
the governor should take from him his favourite horse, fed it for a
fortnight exclusively upon roasted pork, which so excited its spirit
and mettle, that it became absolutely unmanageable, and no longer an
object of desire to the governor.

In the Edinburgh Journal of Natural History we find the following
passage: "We are assured by M. Yvart, that in Auvergne fat soups are
given to cattle, especially when sick or enfeebled, for the purpose
of invigorating them. The same practice is observed in some parts of
North America, where the country people mix, in winter, fat broth with
the vegetables given to their cattle, in order to render them more
capable of resisting the severity of the weather. These broths have
been long considered efficacious by the veterinary practitioners of our
own country, in restoring horses which have been enfeebled through long
illness. It is said by Peall to be a common practice in some parts of
India to mix animal substances with the grain given to feeble horses,
and to boil the mixture into a sort of paste, which soon brings them
into good condition, and restores their vigour. Pallas tells us, that
the Russian boors make use of the dried flesh of the hamster, reduced
to powder, and mixed with oats, and that this occasions their horses
to acquire a sudden and extraordinary degree of _embonpoint_. Anderson
relates, in his History of Iceland, that the inhabitants feed their
horses with dried fishes when the cold is very intense, and that these
animals are extremely vigorous, though small. We also know, that in
the Feroe Islands, the Orkneys, the Western Islands, and in Norway,
where the climate is still very cold, this practice is also adopted;
and it is not uncommon, in some very warm countries, as in the kingdom
of Muskat, in Arabia Felix, near the Straits of Ormuz, one of the
most fertile parts of Arabia; fish and other animal substances are
there given to the horses in the cold season, as well as in times of
scarcity."

In Norway, or at least in some districts of that country, the cattle
are housed during the long winter months, and fed partially upon hay,
but more plentifully on a kind of diet, which, strange and disgusting
as we may think it, is said to be much relished. This consists of a
thick gelatinous soup, made by boiling the heads of fish, and mixing
horse-dung with the broth; so that the boat of a Norwegian farmer
supplies not only himself and his family with the staple portion of
winter subsistence, but his cows also.

We doubt much whether any wild herbivorous animals will feed upon
poisonous plants; they are constantly in the exercise of their
instinctive faculties, and to these faculties the organs of taste
(and smell) administer. Hence they constantly reject all that is
deleterious. But this is not the case with domestic animals, whose
instinct is much enfeebled, or curbed, from the peculiar circumstances
in which they are placed. Hence accidents often happen, to the great
loss of the farmer; for example, both horses and horned cattle will
crop the foliage of the yew, which offers a temptation to them,
especially if underfed, or fed almost exclusively on dry fodder; the
foliage of the yew is poisonous. Cattle often perish from eating the
long-leaved water hemlock, or cowbane, (_Cicuta virosa_.) "When Linnaeus
visited Tornea, he found a terrible malady sweeping away the cattle
of the district, and which he at once traced to the long-leaved water
hemlock. Scarcely, in fact, had he crossed the river, and landed from
his boat on the meadow, before he felt convinced of the origin of the
mischief. This deadly plant grew there in abundance, and it appeared
that as soon as the cattle left off their winter fodder, and returned
to pasturage, they died swollen and convulsed; as the summer came on
the mortality decreased, and still more so with the advance of autumn.

"The least attention," says Linnaeus, "will convince us that brutes
reject whatever is hurtful to them, and distinguish poisonous from
salutary plants by natural instinct, so that this plant is not eaten
by them in the summer and autumn, which is the reason that in those
seasons so few cattle die; namely, such only as either by accident or
pressed by extreme hunger eat of it. But when they are let into the
pastures in spring, partly from their greediness after fresh herbs,
and partly from the emptiness and hunger they have undergone during
a long winter, they devour every green thing which comes in their
way. It happens, moreover, that herbs at this time are small, and
scarcely supply food in sufficient quantity. They are, besides, more
juicy, and covered with water, and smell less strong, so that what is
noxious is not easily discerned from what is wholesome. I observed,
likewise, that the radical leaves were always bitter, the other not,
which confirms what I have just said. I saw this plant in an adjoining
meadow, mowed along with grass for winter fodder; and, therefore, it is
not wonderful that some cattle, though but a few, should die of it in
winter. After I left Tornea, I saw no more of this plant till I came
to the vast meadows near Limmingen, where it appeared along the road,
and when I got into the town I heard the same complaints as at Tornea,
of the annual loss of cattle, with the same circumstances." Monkshood,
meadow-sweet, hemlock, (_Conium maculatum_,) meadow-saffron, foxglove,
etc., are occasionally eaten by cows, and prove fatal.

The sense of taste varies greatly in different animals; in granivorous
birds, in reptiles and fishes generally, we cannot suppose that the
impressions made on the gustatory nerves are at all delicate; they
swallow their food entire at a single gulp, and their tongue is
covered with a thick or a horny cuticle. Among birds, the carnivorous
tribes, the parrots, and the swans, and true ducks, possess the sense
of taste in considerable perfection. Among reptiles, tortoises and
vegetable-feeding lizards, as the iguana, are, as it would seem,
superior to the others; and among fishes, it is probable that those
which feed on marine or aquatic vegetables, are endowed with a higher
degree of taste than those which prey upon other fishes, which they
engulph at once. It cannot be denied that many insects, as bees,
wasps, butterflies, the house-fly, and various others, enjoy a keen
sense of taste, and relish the sweets which prove so attractive to them.

Among the mollusca, some, at least, are endowed with the sense of taste
in no low degree; the snail and the slug are examples in point, as the
gardener can readily testify.

What information do we gain by the sense of taste? The eye and the
ear conduce to our mental improvement, to our store of knowledge,
to our appreciation of the sublime and beautiful. Eloquence, music,
poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, scenery--the glory of the
sun, and the moon, and the stars--these appeal to our mind through
the organs of sight and hearing; but the sense of taste administers
rather to our animal than to our intellectual being, and, doubtless,
the pleasures of taste contribute greatly to the enjoyments of our
existence. Taste, then, belongs to us less as spiritual, intellectual,
immortal beings, than as corporeal, mortal beings; nevertheless, it
is part of our nature, implanted in us by an all-wise God, in order
that we should relish the provisions for sustaining life, which he has
so bountifully provided. To pretend that we are indifferent to the
pleasure or the disgust resulting from taste is an untruth--nay, it
is to say that God's gifts to us are not worth our consideration. Our
Lord and Saviour was one of a party at a marriage feast, and when the
wine was exhausted, he turned water into wine, which was superior to
that previously passed round. "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in
Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory."[19] But while, with
a healthy appetite we relish our food, giving thanks to God for his
bounty, let us not be epicures or gluttons; let our moderation be seen;
let us use, not abuse, the gifts of our heavenly Father.

[19] John ii. 11.

4. _Smell._--On a fine, filmy membrane, which lines the labyrinth
of the nasal cavities, are distributed the delicate ramifications
of the olfactory nerves, or the nerves of smell. These nerves are
constructed for transmitting to the mind impressions arising from
the floating exhalations of odoriferous substances. It is through
these nasal cavities, principally, that man and quadrupeds breathe;
hence the respiration of the air informs us of our proximity to
objects disgusting and noxious, or, on the contrary, attractive from
their fragrance. Surely we need not adduce instances in proof of our
position. The scent of putrescent animal or vegetable matters is
in itself a warning to us to retire from the locality of mortific
corruption, and escape from the region of disease. How loathsome
to our sense are these putrescent effluvia! They nauseate us even
to sickness--nay, sometimes almost to fainting; indeed, the writer
has seen a violent fit of epilepsy produced by the overpowering and
horribly disgusting odour of the matter contained in the scent pouch
of a small quadruped, the grison, (_Galictis vittata_,) which he was
dissecting, the sufferer being a practical zoologist, accustomed to the
dissecting-room.

But when the voice of the nightingale is heard, and the air is loaded
with the perfume of the hawthorn blossom, and of thousands of spring
flowers, are we not invited, as it were by a secret call, to walk
abroad through woodlands and meadows, contemplating the works of God?
We are thus lured to beneficial exercise--to inhale

    "The breezy fragrance of the morn"--

to forget the trials of life, and muse upon a still brighter world,
where the flowers perish not, where storms come not, and where winter
is unknown. Thus, to our bodily health do our senses administer; and
thus the sense of smell calls us from the close room of the populous
city, into the fresh air of the country--from the crowded town,

    "Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,"

to issue forth on a summer's morn, and breathe the pure air redolent of
sweetest odours.

When overpoweringly offensive effluvia disgust us, we endeavour to stop
our breath--we breathe at protracted intervals, take in as little air
as possible, and endeavour to escape from the infected locality; but
do we flee away from the gale bearing the scent of the honey-suckle,
the bean-field, or the new-mown hay? It is, indeed, rather to our
pleasures, to our mental enjoyment, to our delight, or to our disgust
and abhorrence, that our sense of smell administers. We depend little
upon it for our discrimination between things acting as poison,
and things nutritious or wholesome. How pleasant is the smell of
laurel-water or prussic acid--how dull and insipid the smell of wheaten
flour! We must not, then, always be guided by our sense of smell,
although in general it serves us as a monitor.

The sense of smell is intimately combined with that of taste; indeed,
it is a powerful auxiliary to it, for, as a learned writer well
observes, "taste, without the aid of smell, would be very vague in its
indications, and limited in its range." Nevertheless, savage people,
in whom the sense of smell is far more acute than in civilized races,
do not appear to possess a greater refinement of taste--indeed, what
the former regard as delicacies would be rejected by the latter with
abhorrence. Most quadrupeds possess the sense of smell in far greater
perfection than man, and are evidently influenced by it in their choice
or rejection of food. In the carnivorous tribes this sense is, perhaps,
at its highest ratio, and many pursue their prey guided by their
olfactory organs alone.

Certain odours are agreeable to some few animals, irrespective of
food; but on this point our range of information is limited. The cat
delights in the scent of valerian, and some other herbs, although they
are not among the articles of this animal's diet; yet to the cat and
the dog, the odour of the sweetest flowers yields no pleasure. Birds,
in general, are endowed with the sense of smell in a far lower degree
than quadrupeds, and the olfactory organs are far less developed.
Birds of prey are guided by their keen powers of vision, and, indeed,
if we are to trust to the experiments of Audubon, the sense of smell
even in the carrion-loving vulture, contrary to the opinion of the
ancients, as well as of modern naturalists, is at a low ratio; for, as
he asserts, the stuffed skin of an animal will attract a vulture from
its "pride of place," in the upper regions of the air. It is true that
this assertion has been contradicted by Mr. Waterton, but it is again
confirmed by the experiments and observations of Mr. Bachman, which
are recorded in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, viii. 167; and
M. Levuillant seems to have considered that it is by the eye chiefly,
if not exclusively, that the vulture obtains its disgusting food. The
following observations from the proceedings of the Zoological Society
will be here, perhaps, not unacceptable:--

March 14th, 1837.--"A paper was read on the habits of the _Vultur
Aura_, by Mr. W. Sells, with notes of the dissections of the heads of
two specimens, by Mr. R. Owen. The writer states, that this bird is
found in great abundance in the island of Jamaica, where it is known
by the name of _John Crow_; and so valuable are its services in the
removal of carrion and animal filth, that the legislature have imposed
a fine of L5 upon any one destroying it within a stated distance of the
principal towns. Its ordinary food is carrion, but when pressed hard
with hunger, it will seize upon young fowls, rats, and snakes. After
noticing the highly offensive odour emitted from the eggs of this bird
when broken, Mr. Sells relates the following instances which have come
under his own personal observation, for the purpose of proving that the
_Vultur Aura_ possesses the sense of smell in a very acute degree.

"It has been questioned whether the vulture discovers its food by
means of the organ of smell or that of sight. I apprehend that its
powers of vision are very considerable, and of most important use; but
that it is principally from highly organized olfactories that it so
speedily receives intelligence of where the savoury morsel is to be
found, will plainly appear by the following facts. In hot climates,
the burial of the dead commonly takes place in about twenty-four hours
after death, and that necessarily, so rapidly does decomposition take
place. On one occasion, I had to make a _post mortem_ examination of
a body within twenty hours after death, in a mill-house completely
concealed, and while so engaged the roof of the mill-house was thickly
studded with these birds. Another instance was that of an old patient
and much valued friend, who died at midnight; the family had to send
for necessaries for the funeral to Spanish Town, distant thirty
miles, so that the interment could not take place until noon of the
second day, or thirty-six hours after his decease, long before which
time--and a most painful sight it was--the ridge of the shingled roof
of his house, a large mansion of but one floor, had a number of these
melancholy heralds of death perched thereon, beside many more which had
settled in trees in its immediate vicinity. In these cases, the birds
must have been directed by smell alone, as sight was totally out of the
question.

"In opposition to the above opinion, it has been stated by Mr. Audubon,
that vultures and other birds of prey possess the sense of smell in
a very inferior degree to carnivorous quadrupeds, and that, so far
from guiding them to their prey from a distance, it affords them no
indication of its presence even when at hand. In confirmation of
this opinion, he relates, that he stuffed the skin of a deer full of
hay, and placed it in a field; in a few minutes a vulture lighted
near it, and directly proceeded to attack it, but finding no eatable
food, he at length quitted it. And he further relates, that a dead
dog was concealed in a narrow ravine, twenty feet below the surface
of the earth around it, and filled with briers and high canes; that
many vultures were seen sailing over the spot, but none discovered
it. I may remark upon the above experiments, that, in the first case,
the stag was doubtless _seen_ by the birds, but it does not follow
that they might not also have smelt the hide, although inodorous to
the human nose; in the second case, the birds had been undoubtedly
attracted by the _smell_, however embarrassed they might have been by
the concealment of the object which caused it. I have, in many hundred
instances, seen the vulture feeding upon small objects under rocks,
bushes, and in other situations, where it was utterly impossible that
the bird could have discovered them but through the sense of smell; and
we are to recollect, that the habit of the vulture is that of soaring
aloft in the air, and not that of foraging upon the ground."

To this account are appended the details of a minute comparison, by
professor Owen, of the olfactory nerves and the olfactory branch of the
fifth pair in the _Vultur Aura_, with those of the common turkey and
the goose. The learned anatomist concludes by saying, "the above notes
show that the vulture has a well-developed organ of smell, but whether
he finds his prey by that sense alone, or in what degree it assists,
anatomy is not so well calculated to explain as experiment."

It is far from being impossible that Mr. Waterton and Mr. Wells on one
side, and Mr. Audubon and his party on the other, may be both correct,
for in different species of vulture the power of smell may greatly
differ; we know that it does among carnivorous quadrupeds, which seek
their prey, some chiefly by sight, others by their acuteness of scent.
Among reptiles, the sense of smell appears to be at a low ratio, nor
can we suppose that it is acute in fishes. In fact, in fishes the
nasal cavities are rudimental, and do not communicate with the organs
of respiration. They are nothing more than blind sacs, placed one on
each side in front of the head, with two external openings appertaining
to each sac. The principal entrance is valvular, and on a curiously
plaited membrane in the sac itself, or on tufted or arborescent
filaments, are the ramifications of the olfactory nerves distributed.
That fishes are attracted or repelled by the odorous effluvia of
bodies, diffused either through the water itself or through the air
which the water contains, is too well ascertained to be denied. Fishes,
in fact, are attracted by certain odoriferous substances, and anglers
often use baits impregnated with some volatile oil.[20]

[20] On this subject see Izaak Walton's "Complete Angler."

We cannot for a moment doubt that insects smell; that ants and bees
are greatly directed by this sense in their search after food; that
carrion-loving beetles are thereby guided from a distance to their
repast; that the flesh-fly is led to putrescent animal substances;
and we know that the flesh-fly is sometimes deceived by the smell of
certain plants emitting a cadaverous odour, and deposits her eggs upon
them, the larvae perishing for want of proper food. In what organ the
senses of smell in insects are placed does not appear very plain, and
the like observation applies to the _crustacea_, as crabs and lobsters,
for which baited traps are set, and into which they are allured by
their sense of smell.

No distinct organs of smell have been discovered in the mollusca,
yet it is incontestable that some of these creatures are capable of
appreciating odours. We cannot suppose that in the highly-organized
and savage cuttle-fish this sense is wanting; and we know that snails
and slugs are attracted from a distance by the odour of the favourite
plants or fruits on which they feed. The garden slugs are fond of
animal food, as we can testify, and they will pick bones with relish;
we have seen the hollow of a marrow-bone thrown into the garden filled
the next morning with slugs, which had completely cleaned it.

Whether the bivalve mollusks, as mussels, oysters, clams, etc., have
any definite sense of smell, we cannot ascertain, but we conjecture
that they are endowed with the sense of taste, for they know what to
accept and what to refuse.

We have said that man derives pleasure or disgust from the exercise of
the sense of smell, and is greatly directed thereby what to choose and
what to avoid; yet this sense harmonizes with those of sight, hearing,
and more particularly of taste, to render this world delightful to
us, if we use God's gifts aright. Has he not scattered the loveliest
flowers in garden and meadow? Has he not created fruits that gratify
alike the sight, the touch, the taste, and the smell? Has he not spread
the beauties of nature around us? Was not the garden of Eden prepared
for our first parents? Yes; but sin has entered the world, and over
flower and fruit has been the "trail of the serpent."

A few passages from the Scriptures, on which we need not comment,
will serve to show the figurative notice of, or reference to this
sense by the sacred writers, in order to influence the mind of man
through an appeal to his own sensations. "An odour of a sweet smell,
a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God," Phil. iv. 18. Works
pleasing to the Lord, deeds of charity and mercy, done by the believer
as a testimony of his lively faith, and a proof to the world that faith
engenders good works; such works, and not those of the pharisee, are
an odour acceptable to God. "Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved
us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God
for a sweet-smelling savour," Eph. v. 2. Let us, who call ourselves
Christians, so walk, that our conduct before men may be after the
pattern of Him, who, in love to a fallen race, offered himself as a
sacrifice fragrant unto God the Father, that we might escape the sword
of justice. When Noah offered burnt-offerings on the altar, "the Lord
smelled a sweet savour," Gen. viii. 21; and to Him even now, O reader,
will be fragrant true penitence and faith in that Mediator, of whom the
sacrifices under the primitive dispensation were but types, and in this
sense only did they waft incense to the throne of the Almighty! The
language is altogether figurative; but how pertinent to our feelings,
and therefore how clear to our understanding, and how forcible!

5. _Touch._--Of all the senses, not one is so important to us as
that of tact or touch. It is the foundation, as it were, of all our
knowledge of the material world, and according to their elevation in
the scale of being do animals enjoy this sense in greater perfection,
and possess organs in which it is more especially concentrated. We
here distinguish, between mere feeling and touch. We consider the
wings of the bat, and the antennae of insects, rather as feelers than
as organs of exact appreciation. The sense of feeling is diffused over
the whole surface of our body; but the sense of touch, so far as man is
concerned, resides in the hand, and especially in the pulpy tips of the
fingers.

It is true that we use the word feel when we test the qualities of
bodies with our hands, and in this sense our hands are feelers. But we
derive a knowledge from the use of our hands, which no other animal
derives from the exercise of any organ of tact it may possess. Nor
is this to be wondered at, for in all other animals tact or touch
administers only to their physical necessities. For example, the sense
of touch in the pulpy end of the beak of the snipe or woodcock must
be exquisite--multitudinous are the nerves supplying that part--for
even the soft worm or larva in the oozy ground is felt, and the
finger of man would most probably fail here; but in man the sense of
touch appeals to the mind, and communicates mental pleasure, mental
instruction, or even mental disquietude. Even as discords in music, or
grating sounds, such as the filing of a saw, or the rubbing of cork
against a wall, excite the nervous system through the mind, so does the
sense of touch disturb the mind and body when that which is touched is
discordant. A lady of the writer's acquaintance, by no means timid, and
by no means afraid of snakes, was induced to let a common snake glide
through her hand; she bore the sensation with firmness, but she nearly
fainted when the snake had crept through her grasp, and described the
working of the reptile's ribs and abdominal plates as communicating
an indescribable sensation. Yet that snake was a sort of pet, and she
used to stroke its head, and feel its lambent tongue quiver against
her hand. She was not afraid, but the sensation jarred like discordant
notes.

Were persons to write down their experiences of the pleasing and
unpleasing sensations derived through the medium of the different
senses, and were those notes collected together, we should have a mass
of most interesting and instructive information, well worthy the study
of a physiologist. After all, however, the sense of touch or tact gives
less pleasure to man than that of sight, hearing, taste, or smell; it
appreciates neither colours nor harmony, nor the flavour of luscious
viands, nor the odour of flowers and perfumes; but it communicates
greatly to his store of information. It is a "matter of fact" sense,
and though an old poet has said--

    "Have you felt the wool of the beaver,
    Or swan's down, ever?"

it is not one of the senses which figure on the page of poetry or
romance.

We discriminate, then, between the sense of touch and that of mere
feeling. Most probably all animals, even the lowest mollusks,
feel,--nay, even animals in which no nerves are to be discovered, as
the acalephae, or jelly fishes; but touch is a refinement upon feeling,
which is restricted within certain zoological bounds. A learned writer
says: "The conditions on which the perfection of the sense of touch
depends are, first, an abundant provision of soft papillae, supplied
with numerous nerves; secondly, a certain degree of fineness in the
cuticle; thirdly, a soft cushion of a cellular substance beneath the
skin; fourthly, a hard resisting basis, such as that which is provided
in the nails of the human fingers; and lastly, it is requisite that
the organ be so constructed as to be capable of being readily applied,
in a variety of directions, to the unequal surfaces of bodies, for the
closer the contact, the more accurate will be the perceptions conveyed.
In forming an estimate of the degree of perfection in which the sense
is exercised in any particular animal, we must accordingly take into
account the mobility, the capability of flexion, and the figure of the
parts employed as organs of touch."[21]

[21] Dr. Roget.

This is decidedly true as regards the higher orders of creation; but
let us look at insects--do not bees, and wasps, and flies feel? can
we watch a fly brushing its head and wings, and rubbing its little
paws against each other, without an assurance that it enjoys the sense
of touch? and what shall we say of the spider, that feels at each
thread, and "lives along its line?" Surely its sense of touch must be
sufficiently acute; yet it is limited to a certain given object, and
the spider gains only that information which bears upon its animal
necessities. But the sense of touch gives to man a number of the
properties of matter, which he retains as abstract ideas, such as
dimension, form, condition of surface, hardness, softness, elasticity,
compressibility, fluidity, quiescence, motion. In many and most
important respects it assists the eye; and, indeed, the senses of sight
and of touch appear to be correctors and supporters of each other.
As in the case of every other sense, accuracy is greatly improved by
habit, yet the qualities of matter, under the dominion of touch, are
ascertained in so correct a manner that we are scarcely ever deceived
by the knowledge thus acquired.

Dr. Fleming, in his "Philosophy of Zoology," thus writes: "The sense of
touch appears in man to be able to obtain nearly all the information,
with regard to external objects, which it is capable of receiving.
In a few instances, the lower animals surpass us in the delicacy of
the sense, as the bat, which is warned indirectly by its aid of the
presence of bodies previous to coming in contact with them. The feelers
of insects are likewise better adapted for exploring the condition
of the surface of bodies than any organ which we possess. But in all
these the sensibility of touch is limited to particular qualities, or
confined within narrow bounds. The human hand, on the contrary, by
its motions, the pliability and strength of the fingers, and their
softness, is the most extensive and perfect organ of touch possessed by
any animal."

The accuracy of the sense of touch is greatly improved by habit; and
when its resources are in constant demand, as in the instance of
persons deprived of sight, or born blind, its discriminating powers
are wonderfully increased. The same observation applies also to the
sense of hearing, which in blind persons generally is extremely acute
and accurate in its perceptions. In a Monthly Volume, published by the
Religious Tract Society, and entitled "Comparisons of Structure in
Animals: the Hand and the Arm," the reader will find a general account
of the structure and uses of the anterior limbs of man and the lower
animals, and of the substitutes for the hand, as an organ of touch and
prehension, with which many of the latter are provided.

Dr. Fleming regards the "sense of heat" as distinct from that of
touch, and, in fact, as claiming to be one of the senses. "The sense
of touch," he writes, "is exclusively occupied with examinations of
the conditions of resistance. Contact, therefore, is indispensably
requisite for enabling the organ to act upon the object, and muscular
exertion to examine its condition. Neither of these is necessary to
enable the sense of heat to act. Caloric rays emanate from a heated
body, though at a distance; and in order to ascertain their direction
and intensity no muscular effort is required. When the heated body
happens to be in contact with us, we in like manner examine its
conditions in reference to temperature without any muscular exertions,
or, rather, we try to avoid them. Thus, when I lay my hand upon the
table to examine its hardness or smoothness, I make an obvious muscular
effort with my fingers; but when I lay my hand upon the table to
examine its temperature, I endeavour to check all motion, so as to
keep my hand in the same position. These qualities of the sense of
heat sufficiently distinguish it from that of touch, with which it has
been confounded, and justify its establishment as a distinct power of
perception."

It is true that we cannot test caloric by the touch, but it does not
appear to us that an appreciation of caloric involves any other sense
than that of ordinary cutaneous feeling; the feeling of heat or cold
is a mere sensation, agreeable or painful as circumstances may be,
and it is natural that we should wish to experience that temperature
which is most congenial to us. We say that marble is cold and wood
warm, yet both may be of the same temperature; but the marble produces
a sensation of coolness, because it rapidly abstracts caloric from
the part applied to it; the skin is, in fact, a very imperfect
thermometer, yet sufficient for all ordinary purposes. It conceals
the machinery of our bodies, giving beauty of outline and appearance,
and being provided with a most minute network of nerves of sensation,
it gives us warning by the pain experienced of what things are to be
avoided. "A burned child dreads the fire" is an old saying, and a boy
who has been stung by a nettle will not rashly meddle with the plant
again.

All our senses require training and education; they are taught, even
as we are taught language. It is some time before the infant sees
distinctly, or forms any idea of size, proportion, or distance; long
before it hears accurately, and understands a word of speech; longer
still before it discriminates between musical notes; it is long
before delicious odours are relished, and long before there is much
distinction of flavour in food, for instinct directs the infant to
its mother's breast, and for many a year sweet viands are chiefly
acceptable. Habit, exercise, practice, then improve the power and
acuteness of the senses, but simple feeling is blunted by habit and
exercise.

It is, we think, Mr. Lane who tells us, that in Egypt and elsewhere,
persons who have hoarded wealth are in the habit of inflicting the
bastinado on themselves, increasing the number of strokes by degrees,
in order to inure themselves to a mode of extortion of which they
are constantly in dread. They hope to be able to weary out their
tormentors, or convince them by endurance of their poverty, and so
preserve their bags of gold and silver. Idolatrous devotees in India
accustom themselves to self-inflicted torture, and feel much less than
we might suppose; nay, even in our own country, in times of spiritual
darkness, when by mortification and penance men hoped to merit heaven,
how many have worn a shirt of horsehair till custom had made it no
hardship! The ancient Britons bore, almost unclothed, the severities
of winter; and we have read a story, but where we cannot recollect,
to the following purport:--A North American Indian was asked, how,
nearly naked as he was, he bore with such ease the summer's heat and
the winter's cold; he asked the inquirer, how his face, exposed to the
weather, endured the changes. My face, said the white man, is hardened
to it; and I, retorted the red man, am face all over.

We have said it is long before an infant is in the full use of its
bodily senses: now with regard to feeling the infant is acutely
sensitive; but who ever saw a child of a few months old examine the
qualities of objects by the touch? it cannot even manipulate; it cannot
use its hands; it has to learn the art of touch, and to improve by
practice and the exercise of the mind. For example, some persons will
pass a piece of silk or cloth between their fingers, and tell you its
quality; and so with respect to other things; this is the result of
attention and exercise.

No one is born without the organization necessary for the development
of the sense of touch, for if the arms and hands be deficient, some
other part, as the lips or tongue, will take up the function, and this
alone shows what education effects; but if a person be born deaf, or
blind, or incapable of taste and smell, (which latter appears to be
very rare, if, indeed, the case ever occur,) no other part can supply
the loss; but the loss, as far as the sight at least is concerned, is
partly compensated for by the elevation of the sense of touch; and in
this we see the immediate bearing of these two senses on each other.

The boy born blind, upon whom Cheselden so successfully operated,
believed, when first he saw, that the objects touched his eyes, as the
things which he felt touched his skin; consequently he had no idea
of distance. "He did not know the form of any object, nor could he
distinguish one object from another, however different their figure
or size might be; when objects were shown to him which he had known
formerly by the touch, he looked at them with attention, and observed
them carefully, in order to know them again; but as he had too many
objects to retain at once, he forgot the greater part of them, and when
he first learned, as he said, to see and to know objects, he forgot
a thousand for one that he recollected. It was two months before he
discovered that pictures represented solid bodies; until that time he
had considered them as planes and surfaces differently , and
diversified by a variety of shades; but when he began to conceive that
these pictures represented solid bodies, in touching the canvass of a
picture with his hand he expected to find something in reality solid
upon it, and he was much astonished when, on touching those parts which
seemed round and unequal, he found them flat and smooth like the rest.
He asked which was the sense that deceived him--the sight or the touch.
There was shown to him a little portrait of his father, which was in
the case of his mother's watch; he said that he knew very well that it
was the resemblance of his father, but he asked with great astonishment
how it was possible for so large a visage to be kept in so small a
space, as that appeared to him as impossible as that a bushel could be
contained in a pint."[22]

[22] Phil. Trans., 1728.

In the Philosophical Transactions of 1826 will be found the account
of a case by Mr. Wardrop, which is very interesting; it is that of an
intelligent female of mature age, who was born blind; in her infancy,
operations were performed on both of her eyes, but they failed, one
eye being irrecoverably destroyed, and the other useless from closure
of the pupil; on this eye Mr. Wardrop successfully operated: but it
was not with joy that objects for the first time were perceived; she
was confused by the appearance of a new world, now for the first time
opened to her sense of sight; hitherto she had known it only through
the sense of touch, and touch and sight had still to be reconciled.
"On the sixth day, she said that she saw better than she had done on
any preceding day, but I cannot tell (said she) what I do see; I am
quite stupid. She seemed, indeed, bewildered from not being able to
combine the knowledge acquired by the senses of sight and touch, and
felt disappointed in not having the power of distinguishing at once
by her eye, objects which she could so readily distinguish from one
another by feeling them.

"The next day, on examining with the eye the tea-cups and saucers, and
being asked what they were--I don't know, she replied; they look very
queer to me, but I can tell in a minute when I touch them. So with an
orange which was lying before her, she could make nothing of it until
she actually touched it. When the experiment was made of giving her
a silver pencil-case and a large key to examine with her hands, she
discriminated and knew each distinctly; but when they were placed on
the table side by side, though she distinguished each with her eye, yet
she could not tell which was the pencil-case and which the key.

"In six weeks after the operation, she returned home. At this period,
she had learned a great deal; she had acquired a pretty accurate notion
of colours, but with regard to forms and distance she was still very
ignorant. She had also great difficulty in directing her eye to an
object, so that when she attempted to look at anything she turned her
head in various directions, until her eye caught the object of which
it was in search. She still entertained, however, the same hope, which
she expressed soon after the operation, that when she got home, her
knowledge of external things would be more accurate and intelligible,
and that when she came to look at those objects which had been so long
familiar to her touch, the confusion which the multiplicity of external
objects now caused would in a great measure subside."

Thus, then, it is from an association between the senses that
correctness and precision in any one sense are acquired; and especially
do the eye and hand support each other, and supply each other's
deficiencies till both have learned their perfect lesson. I can stretch
my hand out to any object before me with certainty, so truly does the
eye tell me whether it is within my reach or not, but the eye first
learned that faculty from the hand, after long discipline and many
trials. Afterwards the eye speaks a silent language to the hand, and
is understood. Under what merciful circumstances are they placed that
possess all their faculties and senses! but, alas! how many are there
that never dream of thanking a merciful God for his unbounded kindness!
nay, there are some atheistical materialists who believe, or rather
pretend to believe, that man's exquisite organization, and that of
animals and plants, is self-developed--how, they do not condescend to
explain; for, granting them their premises, namely, that matter is
eternal--and what then? it must be inert, and neither the laws of
vitality nor chemistry, involving electricity and galvanism, could
be taken on by inert particles--all would be chaotic, did not God
govern, arrange, and order all. It is he who has created man, and,
fallen as man is, he still is an object of God's care; for he sent
his well-beloved Son into the world for our redemption, and the time
is coming in which all nations shall know the Lord, and adore him in
sincerity and truth.

Like all the organs of our senses, the hands are the instrument of
wickedness to sinful man; his sense of touch is the inlet of evil. How
refined that sense in the adroit pickpocket, but to what an ill purpose
is it devoted! How dexterous are the hands of the shoplifter, but to
what a wretched course have they been trained! The hand grasps the pen;
every stroke is guided by its delicate sense of touch; it obeys the
mind; and, oh! what dictations from the depraved mind have polluted
society! God has been reviled, Jesus Christ denied, the Holy Spirit
mocked, and in letters written by hands which the almighty Maker and
Preserver had endowed so supereminently. Their hands are mouldering;
dust has returned to dust; but where are the immortal spirits which
directed those hands to scatter poison abroad? It is not for us to
inquire or judge. Let us, ourselves, be watchful, and let our hands be
clean in the sight of God; let us be diligent in business, serving the
Lord; let us fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal
life!

Though we have described the hand as the great and main organ of touch,
let it be understood that it is not the first called into operation.
The hand requires rigid discipline; for a long period it is useless
as an organ of tact; yet, when educated, how perfect, how precise!
But it is made what it is by education. Our ideas coincide exactly
with those of sir Charles Bell, who thus writes: "The lips and the
tongue are first exercised; the next motion is to put the hand to the
mouth in order to suck it; and no sooner are the fingers capable of
grasping, than whatever they hold is carried to the mouth; so that
the sensibility to touch in the lips and tongue, and their motions,
are the first inlets to knowledge, and the use of the hand is a later
acquirement."

Another passage from the same gifted writer is as follows: "The first
office of the hand, then, is to exercise the sensibility of the mouth;
and the infant as certainly questions the reality of things by that
test, as the dog does by its acute sense of smelling. In the infant,
the sense of the lips and tongue is resigned only in favour of the
sense of vision, when that sense has improved, and offers a greater
gratification, and a better means of judging of the qualities of
bodies. The hand very slowly acquires the sense of touch; and many
ineffectual efforts are seen in the arms and fingers of the child,
before the direction of objects or their distance is ascertained.
Gradually the length of the arm, and the extent of its motions, become
the measure of distance, of form, of relation, and perhaps of time."

Throughout life, the sensibility, as it regards tact, of the tongue
and lips continues paramount; we can feel the slenderest hair with our
tongue, which our hands would not appreciate: but, on the contrary,
size, form, distance, order, and the general qualities of matter,
can only be gained through the hand, after a persevering discipline.
A blind man may examine a statue with his hands, and pronounce upon
its excellence; and this fact suggests to us an idea of sir Charles
Bell, who says: "The knowledge of external bodies, as distinguished
from ourselves, cannot be acquired until the organs of touch in the
hand have become familiar with our own limbs. We cannot be supposed
capable of exploring anything by the motion of the hand, or of judging
of the form or tangible qualities of an object pressed against the
skin, before we have a knowledge of our own body as distinguished from
things external to us." From these remarks we naturally slide into a
dissertation on a sense, allied to that of touch, but yet different--we
mean muscular sense.

6. _Muscular sense._--God in his infinite wisdom has constructed all
living things, and no doubt there is much yet for the philosopher to
discover in the organization of animal bodies; there is, moreover,
something that he never will understand, namely, life intrinsically
considered, and the manner in which the immortal spirit and the
dying body communicate with and influence each other. But though
these points must ever remain a mystery, still there are those the
obscurity of which science has to a certain degree dispelled, and it
was reserved for a late scientific anatomist to prove to the world,
that the nerves of sensation and the nerves of motion are essentially
distinct, although interblended together they pervade every muscle.
Hence, as this philosopher observes, (we mean sir Charles Bell,) we
are sensible of the action of our muscles, because these muscles have
two classes of nerves; and he found that in exciting one of these the
muscle contracted, while on exciting the other no action took place.
The nerve which had no power to make the muscle contract was the nerve
of sensation.

Continuing his experiments, he proved that there is a nervous circle
connecting the muscles with the brain, that one nerve is not capable
of transmitting what is called the nervous spirits in two different
directions at one instant of time, but that for the regulation of
muscular action there is a nerve of sensibility, to convey a sensation
of the condition of the muscles to the sensorium, as well as a nerve
of motion for conveying the mandate of the will to the muscles. He
also demonstrated, that in their distribution through the body, the
nerves which possess these two distinct powers of conveying sensation,
and of exciting the muscles to contraction, are wrapped up, or, as
it were, woven together in the same sheath, and that they present to
the eye the single appearance of one nerve. It was only by examining
the nerves at their roots, that is, where they arise from different
tracts of the brain and spinal marrow, and before they coalesce, that
this philosophic anatomist succeeded in demonstrating their distinct
functions. In the face, the nerve of motion passes by a circuitous
route, apart from the nerve of sensation, to be distributed to the
muscles; and, therefore, the distinct characters of these two nerves
were, as sir C. Bell asserts, more easily proved by experiment than in
any other part of the body.

The nerves of sensation then feel, or rather recognise, those actions
of the muscles which are excited through the medium of the nerves of
contraction, and these nerves of contraction, as far as the voluntary
muscles are concerned, obey the commands of an immaterial being--mind,
spirit, soul; in the lower animals, so far as we know, this principle
is transient, for they have no ideas of life, or of death, or of
futurity; but in man, the soul is immortal, and for the future bliss of
this immortal essence revelation affords a certain guide.

Now the sense of touch and the muscular sense have, by most writers,
been confounded together; hence, we are told that weight is determined
by touch, but this is erroneous; it is determined by the muscular
agency and sense, under the dictation of the will. The abbe Nollet says
of touch, that "it not only puts it in our power to judge of what makes
an impression upon us, but also of what resists our impulsions." Here
the sense of touch and the muscular sense are confounded together. The
agency of touch has nothing to do with weight or resistance; and herein
we differ from Dr. Fleming, and agree with sir Charles Bell, by whom,
indeed, this muscular sense was first demonstrated. To feel, or touch,
is not to resist or struggle. Laocoon, striving with the serpents,
resists--his muscular sense is called into action, as is that of the
wrestler when engaged in a trial of skill or strength; but what has
muscular feeling to do with that tact, which distinguishes between
the texture of tissues, or the smoothness or roughness of bodies? For
ourselves, we refer the sensations of hardness and softness rather to
a muscular sense than a simple sense of touch; but, as we have said,
the sense of touch and the muscular sense, or sense of resistance,
inter-amalgamate with each other, nevertheless, there is a definite
muscular sense of which every one is conscious, and it is by the
education of this sense that the infant learns to walk, the man to
ascend the lofty ladder, or traverse the ledge of the precipice. It is
not connected with feeling alone, but also with sight; and, indeed, the
senses of sight, feeling and support, or resistance, are in as close
relationship, as are those of smell and taste. This is exemplified in
the fencer, whose muscular sense obeys his eye, and in the artist, who
strikes out the bold outline of a figure on the canvass.

This muscular sense is sometimes called the sense of motion; and
rightly, because it is a feeling of muscular action; not a feeling
of extraneous bodies, but a feeling of what passes within ourselves,
as far as such feeling is permitted (many internal operations go on
without our consciousness)--a feeling of what we do, according to our
will, and the permission of God Almighty. Does the uninstructed man,
who looks upon and admires a lovely landscape, think about the inverted
picture on his retina? No. Does the athlete who lifts a great weight
think of the biceps, or the deltoid, or the pectoral muscles? No. But
does he not feel, while he strives, while he struggles, while he runs,
an internal consciousness of action totally distinct from touch?

This perception is termed by sir Charles Bell the "muscular sense." He
thus illustrates his idea: "When a blind man, or a man with his eyes
shut, stands upright, neither leaning upon nor touching aught, by what
means is it that he maintains the erect position? The symmetry of his
body is not the cause. The statue of the finest proportions must be
soldered to its pedestal, or the wind will cast it down. How is it,
then, that a man sustains the perpendicular posture, or inclines in a
due degree towards the winds that blow upon him? It is obvious, that he
has a sense by which he knows the inclination of his body, and that he
has a ready aptitude to adjust it, and to correct any deviation from
the perpendicular. What sense, then, is this? for he touches nothing,
and sees nothing; there is no organ of sense hitherto observed which
can serve him, or in any degree aid him. Is it not that sense, which
is exhibited so early in the infant in the fear of falling? Is it not
the full development of that property which was early shown in the
struggle of the infant, while it lay in the nurse's arms? It can only
be by the adjustment of muscles that the limbs are stiffened, the body
firmly balanced and kept erect. There is no other source of knowledge
but a sense of the degree of exertion in his muscular frame, by which
a man can know the position of his body and limbs, while he has no
point of vision to direct his efforts, or the contact of any external
body. In truth, we stand by so fine an exercise of this power, and the
muscles are, from habit, directed with so much precision and with an
effort so slight, that we do not know how we stand. But if we attempt
to walk on a narrow ledge, or stand in a situation where we are in
danger of falling, or rest on one foot, we become then subject to
apprehension; the actions of the muscles are, as it were, magnified,
and demonstrative of the degree in which they are excited.

"We are sensible of the position of our limbs; we know that the arms
hang by the sides, or that they are raised and held out, although we
touch nothing and see nothing. It must be a property internal to the
frame by which we thus know the position of the members of our body;
and what can it be but a consciousness of the degree of action,
and of the adjustment of the muscles? At one time, I entertained a
doubt whether this proceeded from a knowledge of the condition of the
muscles, or from a consciousness of the degree of effort which was
directed to them in volition. It was with a view to elucidate this that
I made the observations which terminated in the discovery that every
muscle had two nerves; one for sensation, and one to convey the mandate
of the will, and direct its action. I had reasoned in this manner: we
awake with a knowledge of the position of our limbs; this cannot be
from a recollection of the action which placed them where they are; it
must, therefore, be a consciousness of their present condition. When a
person in these circumstances moves, he has a determined object, and
he must be conscious of a previous condition before he can desire a
change, or direct a movement."

In walking, riding, swimming, and other bodily exercises; in writing,
playing on the piano, or any other instrument of music, the muscular
sense is called into activity, and co-operates with the senses of
sight, touch, etc. Muscular exertion is in itself pleasurable, when
not pushed too far; and, indeed, the healthy condition, both of the
body and mind, results from muscular exertion, and the alternations
of activity and repose. The appointment of man, after the fall, to a
life of labour, was a judgment tempered by mercy. Man is not destined
to lead a life of sloth or supineness, but, urged on by his natural
wants, he cultivates the ground, he tames the wild beast of the forest
or mountain, he builds houses, he constructs ships, he clothes himself
with fabrics, he surrounds himself with the comforts, the decencies,
the luxuries of life, and in every work which his hands find to do his
muscular sense is in requisition; it is this sense which appreciates
resistance, which enables us to balance our bodies, to move with
gracefulness, to run, to walk, to leap, to throw the shuttle with
precision, or wield the hammer with skill. It is improved by education;
the child learns first to walk, and then to run and leap, and in due
time to know its own strength, and also the best mode of employing
that strength, without reflecting upon the laws of mechanics, or any
philosophic theories. It is evident, then, that we have "a perception
of the condition of the muscles previous to the exercise of the will,"
and that with respect to the hand, "it is not more the freedom of its
action which constitutes its perfection, than the knowledge which we
have of these motions, and our consequent ability to direct it with the
utmost precision."

That the lower animals are endowed with this muscular sense cannot be
doubted. It enables the tiger to spring with accuracy upon his prey,
the cat upon the mouse, the greyhound in pursuit of the hare when to
make the fatal snap, and the horse to leap the fence, which his eye
tells him is within his power; it teaches the loris to creep upon
its victim, as slowly but as surely as the hand on the clock-face
traverses the dial-plate, and attains the given number; it is
immediately connected with instinct, and man, when he steps aside to
avoid a threatened stroke, or raises his arm to parry a blow, puts the
muscular sense into exercise.

The muscular sense is, to use a homely expression, an every-day working
sense; touch and sight are its prime supporters, and to these in turn
it lends its aid. Nevertheless, to a certain degree it is independent
of them; the infant seeks the breast as it were by an instinctive
impulse, or applies the coral to its mouth; and in the dark as well
as in the light, we transmit our food directly and precisely to the
organs of mastication and deglutition, without thinking upon the manner
in which the varied actions are performed, or even transiently noting
them. We _will_ to perform an act within our power of achievement, and
by the complicated action of muscles, nerves, vessels, and bones, we
accomplish our object, at the same time, perchance, we know not the
origin and insertion of a single muscle, the direction of a single
nerve, the course of a single artery.

The muscular sense is, in fact, in perpetual exercise; it is intimately
connected with self-consciousness, for we feel that we corporeally
exist, that other bodies exist around us, that they resist us, that
they lead us to calculate our own powers, nor will all the arguments of
the school of Berkeley convince us that we exist only in idea. When Dr.
Johnson stamped upon the ground to disprove Berkeley's idea, he was
right.

So much for the senses with which we are endowed, and the information
which the mind receives through their respective channels. They teach
us all that we know concerning the qualities of matter, and they
subserve many of our enjoyments--they are essential to our comfort,
our activity, our usefulness; but we gain through their medium no
abstract truths, no determinate principles. These are elaborated in
the mind itself by its own self-analysis; but, then, they do not teach
us our own position as it respects time and eternity. The wisest
of the heathens of Greece or Rome lived in doubt, entangled in the
mazes of a vain system of philosophy; and though they might believe
in a god, or in gods, deducing their arguments as to the existence
of an all-powerful Being from the works of nature, and from that
internal conviction which seems common to the human race--they knew
nothing of His attributes, of his laws, of his requirements, of man's
fallen nature, of the intrinsic sinfulness of the heart, of the means
of grace, of a hope of glory. They could write noble poems, deep
philosophic treatises, histories of empires, narratives of events,
details of characters, descriptions of works of art; they could carve
statues of matchless perfection, and build temples of surpassing
splendour. They displayed an intellectual pre-eminence, which still
sheds a lustre over the civilized world. Who by searching can find out
God? Unless God graciously reveals himself to us, a true knowledge of
him in our fallen state is impossible; the capabilities of our minds
are, after all, but limited; and though, through reflection on the
evidences of our senses, we may come to the conclusion that there is
an omnipotent Power, we remain in ignorance as to what that Power is,
and as to our relationship thereunto. Hence, then, the necessity of
information beyond what the mind can gain through the senses, or by its
own reflex operations; we are conscious of our position as respects
the lower animals, and we have natural longings after and hopes of
immortality; the soul whispers to itself, _Non omnis moriar_, I shall
not all die; but here, were it not for revelation--a revelation from
God, we should be left in darkness.

God gave a revelation of his will to Adam; our first parents
transgressed, but then in mercy a promise was given, that the seed
of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. God gave a further
revelation of his will to Moses, with promises and commands, and
elected from among the nations a peculiar people, of whom from the line
of Jesse after the flesh should arise the Messiah; in Him are all the
promises and prophecies centred, and through him the great revelation
of God's purposes of mercy to a fallen world was ordained to be
published. The Messiah came; He of whom Isaiah prophesied; the despised
and rejected of men--God manifest in the flesh. The prophet's words
were verified, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed."[23]

[23] Isa. liii. 5.

This is the Christian revelation, which, while it shows us our lost and
sinful nature, our utter unworthiness, and the insufficiency of good
works for salvation--whilst it humbles our pride, and self-sufficiency,
and teaches that our place before God is in the dust, yet it speaks
of joy and peace, for it points out what is all-important, the mode
of redemption, the forgiveness of our sins, our adoption as heirs of
the kingdom of heaven. "In this was manifested the love of God toward
us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that
we might live through him."[24] God reveals himself in his works as
a God of wisdom and power; but here he discovers himself as a God of
truth, justice, and mercy. He reveals himself as the triune Jehovah,
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, one God for evermore; and he gives
us a revelation of the plan of salvation. And what is this plan? it
is one by which justice and mercy are reconciled. "Without shedding
of blood is no remission" of sins. The Son of God, according to the
Divine promise, took upon himself our human nature, dwelt upon earth,
sinless, and offered himself up as a sacrifice for sin on Calvary. He
"who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form
of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in
fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted
him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in
earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."[25]

[24] 1 John iv. 9.

[25] Philippians ii. 6-11.

Of the sacrifice of Christ, the crowning sacrifice, those of the Mosaic
ritual were types or emblems. By his sacrifice the claims of the law
were satisfied. What is required of us? Belief in the atonement. "Jesus
said unto Martha, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die."[26] A true, living, justifying faith
is the gift of the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies and renews the heart of
the genuine believer. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be;" but when the
mind is enlightened by grace Divine, the awfulness of sin is perceived
and deeply felt, true repentance is awakened, love and gratitude to God
for every mercy are excited, and the soul is warmed with adoration.
Then does the converted man become prayerful and watchful; then is he
zealous in God's cause, and anxious for the conversion of those that
live in the darkness of ignorance, and travel along the broad road that
leadeth to destruction. Then will he be patient and trustful under
trials and affliction, and justify God's dealings with man.

[26] John xi. 25, 26.

Such are the truths revealed by God himself, which through nothing
but direct revelation could have enlightened, cheered, animated, and
guided the human affections and will. Man, as an immortal being, has
not been left to himself. True it is, that there are many nations still
in darkness, and some in the most degraded ignorance. To ask why this
is so, is to ask the reasons which determine God in his purposes; we
see as in a glass darkly, and the deep things of God are hidden from
our eyes; but we are assured that the time will come when all nations
shall know the Lord, and Christ shall reign in fulness of glory. Let
us be thankful if our trust is in Christ, if he is in us the hope of
glory, for "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
him."

We have sufficiently shown the necessity of a revelation to man
relative to things essential to his eternal interest, but of which
he could gain no knowledge by his own mental exertions. We know by
internal conviction that we are immortal beings; but unguided by
revelation, we shall look forward to the future with anxiety, with a
sort of vague apprehension, but revelation dispels anxiety, and fills
us with all "joy and peace in believing."

Dr. Abercrombie, in his work on the Intellectual Powers, says: "There
is thus, in the consciousness of every man, a deep impression of
continued existence. The casuist may reason against it till he bewilder
himself in his own sophistries; but a voice within gives the lie to his
vain speculations, and pleads with authority for a life which is to
come. The sincere and humble inquirer cherishes the impression while he
seeks for further light on a subject so momentous; and he thus receives
with absolute conviction the truth which beams upon him from the
revelation of God, that the mysterious part of his being, which thinks,
and wills, and reasons, shall, indeed, survive the wreck of its mortal
tenement, and is destined for immortality."

How mysterious is the union between mind and matter! how little we
know of ourselves! how shallow is our deepest philosophy! We know that
the mind is that part of our being which thinks and wills, reasons and
remembers, but we know nothing of it except from these functions. "By
means of the corporeal senses it holds intercourse with the things
of the external world, and receives impressions from them, but of
this connexion also we know nothing but the facts; when we attempt to
speculate upon its nature and cause, we wander at once from the path
of philosophical inquiry into conjectures, which are as far beyond
the proper sphere as they are beyond the reach of human faculties.
The object of true science on such a subject, therefore, is simply
to investigate the facts or relations of phenomena, respecting the
operations of mind itself, and the intercourse which it carries on with
the external world."

In a philosophic point of view, all our knowledge of the world around
us is referable to the operations of the mind on the impressions
conveyed to it through the senses, that is, perception. Nevertheless,
in point of fact, the knowledge which is acquired by an individual
through perception and mental agency, as reflection, memory, etc.,
is but a small part of what he possesses; it is to the perception
and mental labour of others that he owes the great mass of knowledge
he is gifted with. Generation after generation has contributed to
accumulate a store of facts, a treasury of thoughts and reflections,
to which succeeding generations have added, leaving them as a legacy
to generations yet to come, who will contribute in their turn to
the stock, and bequeath the treasure to their successors. Thus are
we enriched by the labour of others, and not altogether by our own
experience.

Herein is a wide hiatus between man and the most sagacious of brutes.
The brute gains all from personal experience; no generation can build
upon the foundation left by a preceding generation--but man can; and
it is no objection to allege, that some races remain in a savage
state for ages; they possess the power, the capability, the mental
constitution, which the brute does not. Besides, they do improve under
favourable circumstances. What were the Anglo-Saxon marauders, our
own ancestors? Savages. Is England now a savage country? What were
the Celtic British in Caesar's time? Savages. Were they savages when
the Romans had held possession of the island for three hundred years?
No; they had adopted the arts, the manners, the civilization of their
conquerors. How this very fact of the capability of man to give and
receive knowledge demonstrates his superiority in creation! It is true
that the human intellect is limited, and that there are mysteries into
which he cannot penetrate; nor is it needful for his welfare, his
improvement, his happiness, his hopes of a joyful immortality, that he
should be able to do so. Let him rely on the oracles of God. Mysteries,
indeed, surround him. How fluently does he talk about matter, yet he
knows nothing about it, excepting what he gains through his senses; and
this knowledge is limited to certain qualities, which may be termed
primary and secondary. The primary qualities of material bodies are
in themselves essentials, namely, solidity and extension. We cannot
conceive of matter, without an involvement of these two properties. The
secondary qualities of matter are colour, texture, temperature, smell,
taste, etc., properties which differ in different bodies, and which are
fluctuating, changeable, uncertain. Of these, and other properties of
matter, as motion, sound, lightness, or heaviness, etc., our senses are
the external tests, though mind is, in reality, the discriminator.

"Our first knowledge of the existence and properties of the material
world is evidently of a complex nature. It seems to arise from the
combined action of several senses, conveying to us the general notion
of certain essences, which are solid and extended, or possessed of
those properties which characterize material things. Without this
general knowledge previously acquired, our various senses, acting
individually, could convey to us no definite notion of the properties
of external things. A smell, that is a mere odour, for example, might
be perceived by us, but would convey nothing more than the sensation
simply. It could not communicate the impression of this being a
property of an external body, until we had previously acquired a
knowledge of the existence of that body, and had come by observation to
associate the sensation with the body from which it proceeds. The same
holds true of the other senses, and we are thus led at the very first
step of our inquiries to a complicated process of mind, without which
our mere sensations could convey to us no definite knowledge."[27]

[27] Abercrombie.

Here, then, we conclude. Let us give thanks and praise to that God
who has made us what we are--instruments of countless strings, all
in harmony, the music of which reaches the soul, and in the secret
recesses of the mind is there analyzed, reflected upon, compared, and
stored up as knowledge. We feel, we see, we hear, we smell, we taste,
we resist; we are assured of our own individuality; we are conscious of
our own existence, and we know that all around is external to our own
individuality. That sense of individuality is in the mind, and we have
within us the assurance of immortality. Let us look to Him, who is the
Saviour from an immortality of despair, that at the day of judgment
we may be found clothed in his robe of righteousness, the garment of
salvation.




CHAPTER IV.

     OBSERVATIONS ON THE AGENCY OF THE SENSES, RELATIVE TO THE UNION
     BETWEEN MIND AND MATTER; AND ON THE OCCASIONAL IMPERFECTION OF THE
     BODILY ORGANS OF THE SENSES, WITH THE RESULTS DEPENDING THEREUPON.


That the organs of the senses communicate with the mind, through
the mediation of certain mysterious filaments, or thread-like
bodies, termed nerves, cannot be denied; but the manner in which
this communication takes place, the process by which mind receives
information from matter, and the subtle operations which enable matter
to transfer impressions to mind, are points around which, as it appears
to us, the great Author of our being has thrown an impenetrable veil.
It is true, that, in consequence of certain discoveries relative
to what the older writers termed "the nervous fluid," discoveries
which almost go to prove that the "fluid" is of an electric or
electro-magnetic nature, a bold theory has been promulgated, namely,
that these electro-magnetic currents not only give an impress to
the mind or soul, but are in turn influenced by the agency of the
immaterial principle, and that thus the communication between mind and
matter is carried on; in fact, that the link which unites body to mind
is a mysterious agent, which (its name is of little importance) cannot
be recognised as belonging to the material world. Where revelation
leaves a subject untouched, it is, we humbly think, allowable to
theorize from facts which science has laid open; but let us remember
that, however we may incline to a theory which seems consonant to
science, a knowledge of the limitation of our intellectual powers
should lead us to cultivate a spirit of humility and candour. It is
something to approximate towards truth; let us, then, be content to
leave much for a future revelation which science on this earth can
never unfold before us.

The foregoing observations may be regarded as a slight introduction to
a passage on the connexion between the mind and body, well worthy of
especial consideration: "In considering the connexion between the mind
and the body, it is of the highest importance always to remember that
the mind, or rather the being which thinks and wills, is the active
agent. The body, with all its beautiful and wondrous adaptations,
only supplies the means of perception and of acting. Nerve-matter is
the evident medium and instrument of the being that perceives and
acts through it. Physiologists appear to have demonstrated that an
imponderable principle, akin to electricity, is evolved in the nervous
system, and that currents of this kind are constantly traversing the
different sets of nerves, according to their office and function,
either as the medium of sensation, volition, or of vegetative life.
There is, in short, an action going forward in all the nerves and their
centres similar to the electro-magnetic, and, consequently, every nerve
is polarized. The soul appears to operate upon these electro-magnetic
currents, and to be impressed by them. The _imponderable energia_
passing in these currents, is apparently the medium between the soul
and the more palpable materials forming the body. This may be inferred
from the fact, that whatever alters the force of these currents,
alters the condition of the mind in relation to the body. Thus, the
arrest of the current in a nerve, subservient to voluntary muscular
action, whether by chemical or mechanical means, prevents the mind
from exercising will in the use of the muscle, with which the nerve
experimented on is connected. The same occurs, also, in the like case
with any nerve through which we obtain sensation of the presence of any
body, which, in a natural state, would so affect the body as to produce
feeling.

"Another evidence that the soul acts through this fluid is afforded in
the circumstance, that by strongly directing the attention to any part,
as, for instance, the eye, a new sensation is perceived in the organ;
and if this kind of attention be persisted in, or frequently repeated,
the eye becomes inflamed and painful. It is also evident, that those
nerves which belong to parts, the natural functions of which latter
are carried on without our consciousness, such as the stomach, may be
rendered sensitive by a strong action of the will; and the operation
of all the reflex, or ordinary involuntary system, is modified by
mental emotion. In fact, every thought changes the nerve current.
Moreover, the brain itself, and all the nerves connected with it, are
so far influenced by the will of the individual, as to be not only
directed into new modes, so as to effect an entire alteration in the
habit of mental and muscular action, but also to such a degree, that
the completely organized brain is partly a creation of self-directing
and self-repeating mental activity. It is, so to say, developed by the
habits of the soul. How necessary, then, is early training! as we bend
the twig so is the tree inclined--a trite axiom, but, nevertheless,
very true.

"The rapidity of the mental processes seems to require an electric,
or some similar medium, by which they may be effected in connexion
with the body, since they result so instantaneously, that the will
to move, for instance, and the motion, are simultaneous. Professor
Wheatstone has proved, that electricity, like light, travels at the
rate of 192,000 miles in a second, and this appears to be an agency
sufficiently subtle to answer all the purposes of the soul as an active
being. Probably electricity and light are but one agent, acting under
different relations. It is interesting to consider ourselves, by
each act of our will, as operating upon embodied light; but whatever
be the immediate agency between mind and muscle, it is vastly more
interesting to know, that willing being is something as really and
distinctly existing as the light itself, but in its nature infinitely
more subtilely and exquisitely constituted, since it is indivisably and
inscrutinably associated with the Being who said, Let light be, and
light was!"

"If we advance further in contemplating our mental existence with
the body, we shall more clearly perceive that the body itself is not
the cause, but the instrument of mind. In order that it should be a
ready instrument, it is, as we see, constructed on electro-magnetic
principles, so that it serves the purposes of the mind in many
spontaneous actions, without even awakening consciousness. Whatever is
essential to the processes of life is carried on in the economy without
our consent; and until some demand is made by the body, requiring
our voluntary interference for the removal of inconvenience, or the
supply of aliment, our attention is not so far attracted to the body
as that our desires are distinctly perceived to arise from its state.
Thus, we feel hunger or thirst, and use means for their removal. But
our emotions and affections are at all times influenced by bodily
condition, and in many respects may be traced to a physical origin.
They are so far involuntary, that their causes are in operation before
we are aware, and they are apt to evince their power against our
wills; yet reason is tested by their presence, and she prevails over
them, in proportion to the clear perception and experience of spiritual
motives, or those moral convictions which arise from religious
enlightenment. Were it not that our connexion with the body subjects
us to feelings against which we are conscientiously and reasonably
required to contend, we should be incapable of that self consciousness
by which we distinguish ourselves from our bodies. In fact, those who
find no other inducement to thought and action than the body affords,
are really incapable of apprehending any other than bodily existence,
and they live not according to spiritual but sensual motive."[28]

[28] Dr. George Moore.

Granting the truth, or the approximation to truth, of the foregoing
theory, it is evident, not only that whatever alters the force of
the electro-galvanic currents of which the nerves are conductors,
alters the condition of the mind in relation to the body, thus making
impressions weaker or stronger; but that whatever deranges the tone or
"_timbre_" of the nerves themselves, produces mental illusions which
are sometimes of a temporary, sometimes of a permanent character. For
example, in derangements of the digestive organs, partial loss of sight
in one or both eyes, the appearance of black motes, specks, or flies
floating in the atmosphere-- wavy lines or zigzags--nay, even
strange faces, sometimes grotesque, sometimes terrific, palpable to
vision like the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth, are by no means unfrequent
phenomena.

But, besides these transitory effects of nervous derangement, there
are others dependent upon a permanent condition of the nerves, which
is not well understood. For example, some persons are incapable of
distinguishing between certain colours, while at the same time there
is no defect in the construction of the eye, as an optical instrument.
Sir J. Herschell examined the eyes of a person affected with this
peculiarity, and satisfied himself that all the prismatic rays had the
power of affecting them with the sensation of light, and of producing
distinct vision. Hence, therefore, as he observes, "the defect
arises from no insensibility of the retina to rays of any particular
refrangibility, nor to any colouring matter in the humours of the
eye preventing certain rays from reaching the retina, as has been
ingeniously supposed, but from a defect in the sensorium, by which it
is rendered incapable of appreciating exactly those differences between
rays on which their colour depends."

The degree of defect in these singular cases is variable, nor are the
colours which the sensorium cannot appreciate by any means always
the same. Generally, however, red and green are the colours which
are not discerned, while blue and yellow seldom fail to make a due
impression. Seebeck, on somewhat vague grounds, as we think, divides
persons labouring under this defect of vision into two classes. The
first consists of individuals who have a very imperfect power of
distinguishing the impressions of colours generally; in these, at
the same time, the defect is greatest with regard to red and green,
these colours being not distinguishable from grey; blue is imperfectly
distinguished, and yellow the most perfectly.

The second class consists of individuals who err with regard to the
distinction of red from blue; and who, as in the first class, recognise
yellow the best. It is not, as we have said, to the eye itself that
we are to look for the cause of this defect, but to some mysterious
peculiarity of the sensorium, or to some want of harmony between the
brain and the optic nerves; but whether the failure is in the energia
of the optic nerves, or in the sensorial power of the brain, we pretend
not to say. We have, in fact, in this instance, as in so many others,
only to confess our ignorance. It is scarcely needful for us to add,
that this visual defect is irremediable.

But there are defects of vision dependent upon the structure of the
eye itself, as an optical instrument; and under this head we may first
notice _myopia_, or _near-sightedness_. _Myopia_ results from an
over-refractive condition of the eye, the rays of light passing from
any object being brought to a focus in the vitreous chamber of that
organ, before reaching or impinging on the retina. In this case, either
the cornea or the crystalline lens is too convex, or both are in this
condition, or the humours of the eye generally are too dense or too
abundant, and the pupil is large. Persons thus affected see all objects
indistinctly which are viewed at the ordinary distance of distinct
vision, but objects held close to the eye are seen with microscopic
accuracy. The distance from the eye, when in a normal state, at which
objects are surveyed with the utmost distinctness, is from fifteen
to twenty inches. An eye which cannot discern objects with ease and
accuracy beyond ten inches, may be considered as myopic; but not
unfrequently persons affected with myopia cannot regard an object with
distinctness which is beyond four, three, two, or even one inch distant
from the eye.

To myopic persons, objects brought within their sphere of vision appear
magnified; a small type is read more easily than a large type; and,
indeed, such eyes see better through a pin-hole in a card than when
not thus assisted; the reason is, that the pupil, from its dilatation,
admits too many rays of light, but by diminishing the aperture through
which the rays of light are admitted, all but those which are the
most direct are excluded, and the images on the retina will be,
therefore, the more defined. On the same principle, myopic persons,
when endeavouring to see distant objects, half close the eyelids,
(hence the term myopia, from [Greek: myo], I shut, and [Greek: ops], an
eye.) Myopic persons generally see better in the dusk, or at twilight,
than others; and their sight, though short, is strong and good, often
lasting. It has been asserted, that as the eye flattens in age, the
vision of myopic persons will improve as they advance in life, and the
theory, it must be acknowledged, seems feasible, but experience proves
that this is not the case; indeed, it would appear that the myopia
rather increases than diminishes.

Concave glasses greatly assist the myopic eye; they cause a divergence
of the rays of light before entering the pupil, and thus counteract the
over-refractive condition of that organ. The degree of concavity best
suited to particular cases can only be determined by trials.

From _myopia_ we pass to its opposite, _presbyopia_, or
far-sightedness, ([Greek: presbys], old, [Greek: ops], the eye,) this
being a state of vision to which old age is so commonly subject. In
presbyopia the refractive powers of the eye are feeble; that is,
the rays of light are concentrated into a focus beyond the retina,
and, therefore, too far back for the reception by the latter of a
definite impression, at the ordinary distance, of normal vision. This
condition may result from flatness of the cornea, from an insufficient
convexity of the lens, or from a shorter degree than natural of the
antero-posterior axis of the eye itself. The pupil is more or less
contracted. The far-sighted person either removes the object under
examination further than is usual from the eye, or he avails himself of
convex glasses, the effect of which is, to increase the refraction, or
convergence of the rays of light, before they enter the pupil. Although
this condition of the eye is common in elderly or aged persons, we are
not to suppose that it is confined to such alone. In aged persons it is
one of those signs which bid man prepare for his last mortal change--a
change, the premonitory warnings of which are beautifully described
in the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes. But this affection sometimes
occurs in the young; for a time it will remain stationary; but after a
certain period, determined by various concomitant influences, it will
greatly increase, till at length, indeed, it may be said, "those that
look out of the windows be darkened."

Another defect of vision may be next noticed; namely, _diplopia_,
or double vision. This arises from various causes, some of them
obscure, and, perhaps, connected with a morbid affection of the base
of the brain, such as a tumor pressing on the _motor oculi_ nerve,
an inflammatory condition of the brain and its membranes, or a
sanguineous or serous effusion involving the origin of the third pair
of nerves. It is often the accompaniment of squinting or strabismus,
in which, although there is a want of correspondence in the movements
or position of the two eyes, the vision of each singly is perfect.
Sometimes, however, double vision occurs in one eye only, while, at
the same time, there is no disturbance, as far as the harmony of the
movements of the two eyes is concerned; occasionally, both eyes are
affected by diplopia. In these cases, there must be some irregularity
of refraction, either in the cornea or the lens.

M. Prevost, who published an account of his own case, in the "Annales
de Chimie et de Physique," 1832, thought that the diplopia under
which he laboured might arise from a fracture, bruise, or partial
flattening of the lens, or from a separation of its laminae. Professor
Airy and Mr. Babbage both experience the inconvenience of diplopia; in
the case of the latter, both eyes are defective, but he can obviate
the defect by looking through a small hole in a card, or through a
convex lens. "Professor Airy finds that his eye refracts the rays to
a nearer focus in the vertical than in the horizontal plane, and he
has ingeniously contrived to remedy it by the use of a double concave
lens, one surface of which is spherical and the other cylindrical. The
spherical surface is to correct the general effect of a too convex
cornea; the cylindrical is to converge or diverge those rays at right
angles to the axis; while the parallelism of those which impinge upon
it in the plane of its axis is unaffected. Thus the focus of the
spherical surface will remain unaltered in one plane, but in the other
it will be changed to that of a lens, formed by it and a spherical
surface of equal curvature with the cylinder. With the aid of a glass
of this description, professor Airy could read the smallest print at a
considerable distance, equally as well with the defective eye as the
sound one. He found that vision was most distinct when the glass was
pretty close to the eye, and the cylindrical surface turned from it.
With these precautions, he observes, I find that the eye which I once
feared would become quite useless, can be used in almost every respect
as well as the other."

These are defects in vision which, however distressing, and in
themselves, that is, as far as the eye itself is concerned, incurable,
may be borne with resignation or remedied by scientific agency. But
human beings are often called to still greater trials--to total loss
of sight--in other words, to perfect blindness. This calamity results
from many causes; for example, the cornea may become so opaque as to be
incapable of transmitting rays of light into the interior chamber of
the eye; or the crystalline lens, also, may become opaque (_cataract_;)
disease of the iris, attended by closure of the pupil, will produce
blindness, as will also paralysis, or loss of energy, in the retina or
optic nerve, (_Amaurosis_ or _Gutta serena_.) Accidents may destroy the
powers of the eye, and a flash of lightning may produce _Amaurosis_;
there are, besides, other causes of loss of vision, into which it is
not requisite that we should here enter. In certain cases, blindness
is congenital, that is, the individual was born blind, but in most
instances blindness comes on at various periods of life, subsequent
to the age of infancy. Great as is the calamity of blindness, it is
not, we think, so heavy an affliction as total deafness. Privation of
sight does, indeed, close one avenue leading from matter to mind, but,
perhaps, not the most important avenue; we may assume this fact--had
Euclid been blind he could still have written on mathematics.

Homer and Milton were both blind, and had Shakspere been blind, the
extraordinary creations of his genius would have been what they
are--the visions of mighty intellect. An admirably written passage in
one of our periodical publications may be here introduced; it proves
that blindness closes but a small inlet to the immortal soul: "We are
all familiar with many well-authenticated instances of blind persons
having attained to a distinguished position both in literature and
science. The celebrated Saunderson, who filled the chair of Newton
in the University of Cambridge, lost his very eye-balls by the
small-pox, when only twelve years old; yet before he was thirty, we
find him giving public lectures on _optics_, explaining clearly the
theory of vision, and discoursing admirably on the phenomena of light
and colours--thus furnishing by his own extensive acquirements a
convincing proof of the extraordinary powers of language, and of the
full efficiency of the ear, as an avenue to the mind. The darkness of
the blind, such as instances like this sufficiently show, is but a
physical darkness; they still possess a ready channel, through which
the brightest beams of intellectual light may be freely poured: but the
darkness of the deaf mute is a mental and moral darkness; and though he
can gaze abroad upon creation, yet it is little more than mere animal
gratification that he feels; he looks not through nature up to nature's
God, nor does he participate in that high communion which, through
the sublimity of her visible language, she holds with the soul of an
enlightened being.

"The reason why the blind usually receive from us a deeper sympathy
than the deaf, is, perhaps, because the amount of privation borne by
the former can be more accurately estimated. We have only to close our
eyes, to shut out for a while the glorious light of heaven, in order
to conceive how great that privation must be, but we can never for a
moment occupy the place of the uneducated deaf and dumb; we cannot shut
out our moral and intellectual light; we cannot dispossess our minds
of all that language has conveyed there, nor realize by any effort of
imagination the melancholy condition of a being grown up in the midst
of society, yet deprived of all power of social intercourse; whose
mind has never been elevated by a single act of devotion, nor soothed
and comforted by a single impulse of religious feeling. Man naturally
'looketh on the outward appearance;' and when we see the bright eye,
and the contented, and even joyous aspect of the deaf mute, we forget
that we may witness all this in the brutes that perish."

The ear has been happily called the vestibule of the soul, and the
annals of the blind who have become illustrious confirm the remark, for
they show that few intellectual studies are inaccessible to them. It
has even been said, and the assertion has received a kind of universal
assent among those who have associated much with the blind, that in
certain instances they have a facility which others rarely possess. We
would not go so far as Huber, who praised the advantages of blindness,
but for which, as he says, he might never have become celebrated; nor
as Holman, who has endeavoured to make it appear, that in his blindness
he possesses advantages over those travellers who have the use of their
eyes, most of whom, as he intimates, though they have the use of these
organs in perfection, yet "see not."

Huber and Holman availed themselves of the eyes of others, and in this
capability the blind have great advantages over the deaf, for their
intercourse with the outward world by means of speech is direct, hence
they obtain a knowledge of things, theories, and events, which have
passed or are passing, of their condition as men, of the requirements
of God, and of the appointed mode of salvation. The deaf and dumb
_see_, indeed, all that passes within their immediate sphere, but,
owing to the imperfect and circuitous mode of communication, (by
signs,) by means of which alone access to their mind is gained, little
definite information relative to things, events, their condition as
fallen creatures, the mode of salvation, and regeneration by the
influence of the Holy Spirit, can be communicated. They imitate, as we
can testify, the actions of those who attempt to enlighten them; they
kneel, they raise the eyes, they mimic a solemnity of deportment, and
much more, so as to persuade some that they have a clear perception of
spiritual truths; but "faith cometh by hearing," and though we would
not presume to assign a limit to God in illuminating the darkest mind,
yet we doubt whether the soul can in this life become the recipient of
the truths and promises of the gospel in all their glorious fulness.

Deaf and dumb persons are generally irascible, impatient, suspicious,
and watchful; they creep about stealthily, and take you by surprise;
they form habits to which they adhere with unflinching pertinacity, and
fret if any trifle molests them. They may attain to a certain degree
of cleverness, as the word is usually understood, but we know not any
deaf and dumb persons (as far as records go) who have attained to any
great degree of eminence, even under circumstances favourable to the
development of their powers. But with regard to the blind, they have
enriched the arts, the sciences, and literature, by their successful
pursuits, and not unfrequently under circumstances of extraordinary
difficulty. Viewing both these classes of men as devoid of education,
dependent upon themselves for support, and for the enjoyment of life,
the blind are physically greater objects of compassion than the
deaf, because, without peculiar modes of education, suited to their
privation, they cannot obtain a livelihood; but so far as happiness is
dependent upon knowledge, (and from this source some of the purest
enjoyments arise,) they are nearly on a level with ordinary men.
Through the ear they can acquire knowledge of the highest order, but
the case of the deaf is the reverse of this. They are not physically
so dependent as the blind; for, having the advantage of sight, they
may acquire by application the simpler imitative arts, and thus earn a
subsistence; but mentally, their great inferiority, their ignorance of
themselves, of all that bears upon the concerns of their existence, and
upon the condition, order, changes, and phases of things extraneous to
themselves, is painfully palpable to every philanthropic observer of
his fellow-beings. The light of the _eye_ is theirs, but the light of
the _mind_ is exchanged for darkness.

We have already intimated, that the obliteration of one organ of
sense tends to the greater perceptibility or acuteness of others.
This follows almost of necessity, because the loss of any given organ
tends to the more finished education of those which are destined to
aid it. Thus, in a blind man, the hearing is generally more than
usually acute and accurate, as is also the sense of touch; while,
at the same time, the muscular sense is surprisingly elevated.
Blind guides have been known and celebrated for their extraordinary
gifts in the wildest moorland and hilly districts. John Metcalf, of
Knaresborough, (1717,) was road surveyor and contractor in the Peak
of Derbyshire; he built bridges over rivers, and projected roads over
the ridges of the Pennine chain, nor was he less remarkable for feats
of daring, such as hard riding, swimming, etc. This person was blind
from infancy. How wonderful is the elasticity of the human mind,
which can reconcile itself in such an astonishing manner to the most
adverse circumstances, and triumph, as it were, over the loss of that
inestimable possession--sight! Many men of note, who were either born
blind, or had lost their sight at an early period, have figured in the
scientific, literary, and musical worlds. A few of these may be here
mentioned (without going back to long past centuries, that is, to the
days of Homer, or Diodatus, or even to the more recent time of Henry,
the minstrel of Scotland, born blind 1361, or of sir John Gower, of
London, who died in 1402.)

Take, by way of example, the following:--Huber, the naturalist
(Geneva, 1784-85); he became blind at the age of seventeen; he wrote
on the labours and instincts of bees and ants, and also on education.
Francis Potter (London, died 1678); he wrote on mechanics, theology,
and painting. F. Carulhi (Nantes, died 1789); born blind; he wrote on
music. Rev. J. Troughton (Coventry, died 1681); blind at four years
of age; he wrote on theological subjects. John Stanley (London, died
1781); blind at two years old; a musical performer and composer; he
wrote the oratorios, Jephthah, Zimri, etc. John Gough (Kendal, 1757);
blind at the age of three years; a writer of several communications
to the Manchester Society, and to Nicholson's "Journal on Botany and
Natural Philosophy." Sir John Fielding (Westminster, died 1780); blind
from youth; police magistrate, and author of the "Universal Mentor."
John McBeath (Dalkeith, died 1834); blind at an early age; he studied
music and mathematics, and wrote on "Inventions for the Blind." He
was a blind teacher in the Edinburgh school. James Wilson, author of
the "Biography of the Blind." James Holman, whose published travels
through many portions of the world have excited very general curiosity
and interest. Alexander Rodenback, member of the Belgian Chamber of
Deputies, and one of the principal actors in the Belgian revolution;
he was a supporter of the democratic party, and often made the chamber
ring with his original and eloquent speeches.

We might add greatly to this list, but we select the above merely as
examples, to show how, when the acquisition of knowledge is debarred at
the entrance of the eye, the mind will collect it through the inlet of
other senses. Of the numerous schools of instruction for the blind, of
which our country may well be proud--of the systems of training pursued
in them--of the labours of pious individuals, some themselves blind--it
is not our place here to speak. We devoutly pray that the blessing of
the all-seeing God may be with them and upon them!

Blindness is sometimes, but, we are happy to say, not very often,
accompanied by deafness--utter deafness. Blindness is a sad calamity;
but when blindness and deafness meet in the same object, what a
deplorable picture presents itself to every feeling heart! Blind, deaf,
mute! Christian reader, reflect--by what means, by what process, shall
access be gained to the undying mind? How can we, by human means,
instil into the soul the glad tidings of salvation, demonstrate the
corruptness of human nature, the necessity of a new birth, the efficacy
of prayer, and the perfections of the triune Jehovah? Think of an
immortal soul imprisoned in such a rayless, silent tenement, debarred
from all acquaintance with the world around, except as far as feeling
may go, and taste and smell. But God often works in a mysterious way,
and perhaps communicates light to the mind, when the visual orbs
are sealed up in darkness, and the invitations of Christ cannot be
heard from the lips of his pious minister--the good shepherd, who is
commanded to care for the little ones of the fold. Oh! how thankful
to our gracious God ought we to be, for the full use of all our
senses--those inlets to the knowledge either of good or of evil, nay,
of both; but let us say, "I and my house will serve the Lord!"

The following account is condensed from the "American Annals of
Education," and from captain Basil Hall's "Travels in North America."
It refers to the deeply touching and most interesting case of Julia
Brace, a deaf, dumb, and blind American girl, who resides in the
Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Hertford, Connecticut: "Julia
Brace was seized with typhus fever at four years of age; during the
first week of her illness she became blind and deaf; she retained her
speech for about a year, (the tongue acting mechanically, according
to acquired muscular habit,) frequently repeating her letters, and
spelling the names of her acquaintance; but she gradually lost it,
and seems now condemned to perpetual silence. For three years she
continued to utter a few words; one of the last was 'mother' (that
word clung to her tongue; it was the earliest she heard and spoke, and
the last that died on her lips!) At first she was unconscious of her
misfortune, and imagined that a long night had come upon the world.
At length, in passing a window, she felt the sun shining warm upon
her hand, and she made signs indicating she was aware of it; she was
governed by her mother, by means similar to those employed in the case
of Mitchell. At first she was exceedingly irritable, but she became
at length habitually mild, obedient, and affectionate. At nine years
of age she was taught to sew, (wonderful the conjunct operation of
the nerves of sensibility and muscular sense!) and since that time to
knit. Julia Brace, who is now nearly thirty years of age, is supported
in the Hertford Asylum, in part by the contributions of visitors,
and in part by her own labours in sewing and knitting. A language of
palpable signs was early established as a means of communication with
her friends; this has been much improved by her intercourse with the
deaf and dumb, and is now sufficient for all ordinary purposes. It is
obvious, that her means of perceiving external objects are the smell,
the taste, and the touch. The touch is her chief reliance, and enables
her to distinguish every object with which she has been familiar,
sometimes by the aid of her lips and tongue; but her smell also is
surprisingly acute, and often enables her to ascertain facts which
are beyond the reach of other persons. Her countenance as she sits at
work exhibits the strongest evidence of an active mind and a feeling
heart, and thoughts and feelings seem to flit across it like the clouds
in a summer sky. A shade of pensiveness will be followed by a cloud
of anxiety or gloom; a peaceful look will perhaps succeed; and not
unfrequently a smile lights up her countenance, which seems to make one
forget her misfortunes. But no one yet has penetrated the darkness of
her prison house, or found an avenue for moral or intellectual light."
Blindness alone is a great calamity. Milton most affectingly deplores
his deprivation:--

    ------------"Not to me returns
    Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn;
    Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose;
    Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine,--
    But clouds instead, and ever during dark
    Surround me, from the cheerful ways of men
    Cut off; and for the book of knowledge fair
    Presented with a universal blank."

There are two morbid conditions of the eye of which we ought not here
to omit, at least, a passing notice; we allude to _hemeralopia_,
([Greek: hemera], the day, [Greek: alaos], blind, and [Greek: ops],
the eye;) or, in other words, day-blindness; and to _nyctalopia_,
([Greek: nyx], the night, and [Greek: ops], the eye,) that is to say,
night-blindness. We may observe that many modern writers, as Scarpa,
and others, have reversed the plain meaning of these terms, and
have considered _hemeralopia_ as denoting sight during the day, and
blindness during the night; and _nyctalopia_ as expressing the power
of vision by night, but not during the hours of daylight. In order to
prevent any confusion or misunderstanding, we shall drop the scientific
terms, which by some are so strangely misconstrued, and adopt their
English equivalents. Perfect day-blindness, or owl-sight, as the French
call it, is of rare occurrence. Dr. Hillary never met but with two
examples; at the same time he notices a report, that there are a people
in the East Indies, and also in Siam, who are subject to the disease of
being blind in the day-time, yet who see clearly by night.[29]

[29] Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. vii.

Day-blindness most probably never occurs as a separate disease; it is
immediately the result of a peculiarly irritable state of the retina,
insomuch that the stimulus of daylight cannot be borne; and not of the
retina only, but of the iris also, which, in order to exclude the rays
of light, closes the pupil of the eye to a mere point. All have heard
of those singular beings termed _Albinos_.

Albinos are found among all nations, and are noted, from contrast of
colour, in African and not unfrequent among the dark tribes of Africa;
indeed, it would seem that there are families of <DW64>s in which there
is an hereditary tendency to the production of Albino children.[30]

[30] See Dr. Prichard's "Researches into the Physical History of
Mankind," vol. i. p. 366.

Among the lower animals, albinism appears to occur most frequently in
the race of tame rabbits; they are known by their white fur and red
eyes; breeds of these may be propagated; the same observation applies
to white mice.

Human albinos, at least, and probably albinos in the animal grade, are
affected by a certain degree, more or less decided, of day-blindness.
The characters of the albino result from a deficiency in the colouring
principle, common to the skin, hair, and eyes. The eyes, for example,
are entirely destitute of the dark pigment; in fact, the pink, or red
colour, so observable, depends on the fine vessels which are very
numerous in the composition of the iris, and on the still greater
number of minute arterial ramifications which almost entirely form the
choroid membrane, and which, under this condition, are seen through
the pupil. To Albinos the state of the eyes is their greatest source
of inconvenience. The absence of the black pigment, which has the
important office of absorbing superfluous portions of light, renders
the eye preternaturally sensible of this stimulus. Strong lights affect
the organ painfully; even the glare of open day produces a partial
blindness, and the admission of light is intolerable. These evils
are balanced in some measure by superior power of vision in dusk, or
imperfect darkness.[31]

[31] On this subject see Buffon, Supplement, tom. iv. p. 559; Pallas
in his "_Novae Species Quadrupedum_," pp. 10, 11, _n._, and also
Blumenbach, etc.

Let us now turn to night-blindness. "Nocturnal blindness," says
Scarpa, "is properly nothing but a kind of imperfect _periodical
amaurosis_, most commonly sympathetic with the stomach. Its paroxysms
come on towards the evening, and disappear in the morning. The disease
is endemic in some countries, and epidemic, at certain seasons of
the year, in others. At sunset, objects appear to persons affected
with the complaint, as if covered with an ash- veil, which
gradually changes into a dense cloud, intervening between the eyes and
surrounding objects. Persons thus affected have the pupil, both in the
day and night-time, more dilated and less movable than it usually is
in healthy eyes. The majority of them, however, have the pupil more or
less movable in the day-time, and always expanded and motionless at
night. When brought into a room faintly lighted by a candle, where all
the bystanders can see tolerably well, they cannot discern objects at
all, or at most in a very feeble manner, or they only find themselves
able to distinguish light from darkness, and by moonlight their sight
is still worse. At daybreak they recover their sight, which continues
perfect all the rest of the day till sunset."[32]

[32] Cap. xix. p. 322. Ed. 8vo.

Mr. Bamfield observes that the abolition of eyesight by night has
occurred in all ages, and is a common disease of seamen in the East and
West Indies, the Mediterranean, and in all hot and tropical countries
and latitudes, and that it affects more or less the natives likewise of
those regions of the globe. It also occurs frequently among soldiers
in the East and West Indies, but, according to the information he
has received, it is by no means prevalent amongst sailors employed
on shipboard. It is not an uncommon complaint among the Lascars
employed in the East India Company's ships, trading between India and
Europe. Celsus has remarked that females in due health are exempt from
this strange affection of the orbs of vision.[33] It may further be
observed, that the inhabitants of northerly latitudes are less subject
to night-blindness than are the natives of tropical countries in
theirs; but that when the natives of cold climates visit the tropics,
they are peculiarly susceptible to this morbid condition of the eye.

[33] Lib. vi. cap. vi.

But we must now pass from the eye to the ear. Deafness from infancy,
that is, total deafness, involves the loss of speech, or of the
utterance of a definite language. The deaf do, indeed, utter wild
cries, and, as if impelled by instinct, scream with rage, howl with
pain or fear, and mutter when pleased; but they hear not the sounds
which they themselves utter, and which are often harsh, and even
terrible.

The grand object for which the sense of hearing was given to man was
for understanding, acquiring, and using language, or speech, for the
enunciation of which the lips, the teeth, the tongue, the palate, in
fact, the whole organization of the mouth and lower part of the face,
is expressly modified, as is also the conformation of the larynx;
but, be it observed, that without mind man could never have been a
speaking animal. Here, then, we see a design often overlooked by those
who study the economy of man. The ox hears, but it could not talk or
utter language--that is, sounds modified in accent, in termination,
in length--even if it would, for the organization of the vocal organs
would prevent the required intonations; but as the lower animals are
not destined to think, to argue, to admonish, to persuade--in short,
as they are not destined for immortality--in them the faculty of
speech would be out of harmony with their real condition and destiny.
Language is a mental as well as corporeal exercise, for we have to
learn what each sound uttered means, till at length it becomes natural
to us, if we may use a popular expression. We have already alluded to
the pleasure which the mind derives from music. Now, there are a few
observations regarding deafness, or the deprivation of hearing, which
cannot be out of place. Total deafness from various causes may take
place in a person of mature years, or after he has advanced in life
to years of adolescence; in such cases language will be retained, but
the voice will be under no control, no modulation--one sentence may be
shouted, another spoken in a whisper.

We may adduce a case in point: an officer (a nobleman) in the battle
of Waterloo had his auditory nerve destroyed by the concussion of the
air from the bursting of a shell, or from the report of a cannon. He
became totally deaf, and consequently lost all control over his voice,
which became discordant, and difficult to be understood even by those
who were his intimate associates. A similar instance is mentioned by
an American writer, in which entire deafness, taking place at the age
of eighteen, so affected the articulation, that the individual was
no longer intelligible, even to his nearest friends. But, besides
total loss of hearing, whether congenital, (that is, from birth,) or
occurring at any future period, auditory incapacity manifests itself
in various degrees, and under singular modifications. For example, a
friend of the writer, who is extremely musical, and plays brilliantly
on the piano, is so deaf that she scarcely understands a word of the
conversation of persons around her; yet let a discordant note be
struck, and she feelingly appreciates it. Another lady, with whom the
writer is acquainted, cannot hear the shrill high-toned squeak of the
shrew-mouse; and the writer knows some who cannot hear the cries of
other shrill-toned animals, as the bat, or mouse, while to deeper, not
louder notes, their ears are perfectly awake.

"Dr. Wollaston constructed a small organ, whose notes began where the
notes of ordinary instruments end; the notes of his organ increased
in sharpness till they became inaudible, though he was certain that
it continued to give sound, from feeling the vibrations equally with
the lower notes. He thus found that some people could hear seven or
eight notes higher than others, and that children could generally hear
two or three notes higher than grown-up people. In some persons, the
accuracy of the ear is merely impaired in distinguishing faint sounds,
and sounds somewhat similar; instances of this kind are particularly
evident in infants, whose first attempts at speech are a very remote
similarity to the sounds they hear, and become more perfect as their
ear is educated, and in some cases remain imperfect through life, in
consequence of defect in the organs of hearing. All imperfections of
speech do not arise from imperfect hearing; an indistinct articulation
may result from various other causes; from carelessness, from defective
organs of speech, or from an imperfect formation of those organs; from
irregular respiration, producing hesitation, and in some instances
proceeding from nervousness."[34]

[34] See Dr. Arnott's "Elements of Physics," 1827.

The writer is acquainted with a lady, whose organs of hearing are
in full activity, but she cannot distinguish one tune from another;
her ear appreciates _piano_, _forte_, or _fortissime_, but neither
modulation nor rhythm. The defect here must be in the mind, (a
phrenologist would say that the organ of music in the brain was
undeveloped,) yet this lady is sensible, pious, and strenuous in her
exertions for the extension of the knowledge of Christ.

To revert, however, to the deaf and dumb (or deaf-mute) not deprived
of eyesight, we may observe, that these persons, formerly neglected
and deemed incapable of instruction, are not now excluded from the
school of knowledge and of religion. Men have at length confessed
that they possess rational souls--that they are capable of receiving
information--and that the mind may be made the recipient of a certain
amount of knowledge, varying of course according to the natural powers
of the intellect. Not that the amount of knowledge acquired by such
persons can ever, _caeteris paribus_, equal that which may be acquired
by those who labour under no defect; nevertheless, the inferiority is
only one of degree, and is easily accounted for. An able writer makes
the following pertinent remarks: "From the advantages which instruction
has afforded to a certain proportion of the deaf and dumb for the last
half century, a tolerably correct estimate may be formed of their
capabilities for improvement. The deaf-mute, living in society, but
without instruction, must be regarded as one of the most solitary and
melancholy of beings. He is shut out from all but the most imperfect
intercourse with his species, and the very intellect, by the possession
of which he is raised above the lower creation, serves only to
heighten his calamity, and render the sense of his deprivation more
acute. His perceptions of external objects are indeed accurate, but
superficial, and confined to a very small sphere.

"Of the various arts by which the necessaries and conveniences of life
are produced, he can have no knowledge beyond that which is included
in the range of his own vision. Animal desires he feels, and he is
led by the conventional usages of society to the performance of moral
duties, and the avoidance of open and flagrant crime. Thus he becomes
experienced, as other human beings are, in what is right or wrong.
He sees that virtuous actions have a certain amount of reward in the
opinions of good men, for he learns to discriminate between those whose
actions are proper, and those who do wrong; and, again, he sees that in
many cases vice meets with disapprobation and punishment among mankind.
How this kind of experience shall affect his own conduct, must depend
not only on the circumstances in which he is placed, as to example, and
the moral influence of those with whom he has to associate, but also on
his own natural tendencies. The performance of moral duties implies the
exercise of intellectual faculties, and from his birth the deaf-mute
makes use of his reasoning powers. He is subject to changes of purpose,
to changes of feeling, the pleasures and the infirmities common to his
species. He is sensible of kindness; he gives proof of affection.
That such is the uneducated state of the deaf and dumb might be proved
by the observations of their parents, friends, and instructors,
in hundreds of instances. That such must necessarily be the case,
supposing them not to be idiots, it would be easy to show. We affirm,
in contradiction to those who contend that deaf-mutes are naturally
more debased than other men in intellect and in morals, that there is
not an individual deaf-mute, now under instruction, improving, and
thereby evincing rational faculties, who, previous to his instruction,
however disadvantageous the circumstances which attended his earlier
years, did not evince moral sentiments and intellectual operations.
We have traced the history of many of this class, in different ranks
of society, down to the period when the deprivation under which they
have laboured was first ascertained; and we have invariably found that
mixture of good and evil in their actions and tendencies, which is
seen amongst other children. We have also had sufficient proofs of the
exercise of intellect even while they were in a state of childhood. The
parents of deaf and dumb children can sufficiently attest the truth of
these observations."

The writer can attest them: he can adduce facts within his own
knowledge, proving the correctness of the views entertained by the
author just quoted; reasons, however, sufficiently obvious prevent him
expatiating on this part of the subject, and, indeed, have influenced
him in adopting the words of another, whose means of observation have
been very extensive. We cannot here enter into the modes of instruction
employed in order to illuminate the minds of the deaf-mutes; all we
need say is, that it is by a system of apt signs, or of hieroglyphics,
at least in the commencement; but minds of capacity soon advance still
further; reading and writing are acquired--nay, even the power of
articulate speech. But we must pass from this part of our subject, on
which indeed much might be said.

The senses of smell and taste require a passing notice. We conjoin
these senses together, because the latter depends much for its
discrimination on the functional perfection of the former; in fact,
much of that which in the enjoyment of food is commonly attributed
to the sense of taste, depends on the odour carried from the mouth
to the nose. If, for example, we masticate any spice, or aromatic
substance, as cinnamon, while at the same time the nostrils are
strongly compressed, and breathing through those channels obstructed,
we perceive no definite flavour from the spice, although the essential
oil expressed may sting the tongue and palate. Stoppage of the
nasal passages, from catarrh, influenza, or other affections, and
preternatural dryness or thickening of the schneiderian membrane,
impair or destroy both the sense of smell and taste. We may here
observe, that irritation of the schneiderian membrane by ammonia, by
snuff, and other things of the like nature, has nothing to do with the
sense of smell residing in the nerves of that membrane: smell is the
appreciation of odours; any delicate membrane may be irritated, as,
for example, the conjunctiva of the eye. With irritants, scents may
be combined; in such admixtures for the stimulation of the olfactory
nerves many persons eagerly indulge, and under certain circumstances
they are medicinally useful; but it is the perception of scent or
odour, irrespective of irritation, which is the proper function of the
olfactory nerves.

With respect to taste, this sense resides in a branch of the fifth
cerebral nerve, called, from its function, gustatory. For the sensation
of taste, moisture must be present; an utterly insoluble body, as
crystal, is tasteless; we reduce to a pulp, by means of the teeth and
the saliva, the food which we eat, excepting, indeed, such articles as
come under the denomination of drink, or, in other words, viands in a
fluid state, such as wine, ale, coffee, etc. Perfectly pure water is
tasteless.

The contact of two metals in the mouth, producing a galvanic discharge,
excites a sensation or flavour which cannot be well described; but the
moisture of the saliva is requisite for the effect. It is said, that
the superior flavour of porter drunk out of a pewter vessel results
from a slight galvanic action going on. Mr. Mayo says, "various
substances, after exciting the sense of touch on the fauces, and that
of taste on the tongue, are capable of producing a third impression,
which is popularly referred to the palate, but which is really felt
upon the sentient membrane of the nostrils." In the case of metals
taken into the mouth, this mode of the reception of flavour would
appear to take place.

Loss of taste, like that of smell, may arise from various causes; when
the mouth is parched up by fever or intense thirst, the sense of taste
is greatly impaired, or even altogether suspended; but this condition
may be regarded as temporary. A few instances have come under our
own observation, in which, though the senses of smell and taste were
not obliterated, they were extremely obtuse, insomuch that the most
nauseous medicines or offensive odours created no feeling of repugnance
or disgust, and the most delicate viands, or the fragrance of sweetest
flowers, no pleasurable sensation. In idiots, this loss of taste and
smell is far from being uncommon; but it is not to such that we here
allude, nor is it to those who have suffered from repeated partial
strokes of paralysis or apoplexy, but to persons of sane mind and
sound health. In such cases, the deficiency is either in the sensitive
and conducting power of the nerves, or in some a loss of tone in the
portion of the brain to which they immediately lead--at all events, a
barrier is interposed between organic structure and the mind.

As far as the operations of intellect are concerned, the loss of smell
or of taste is of secondary consideration; these senses administer to
our animal enjoyments rather than to the spiritual part of our being;
nevertheless, mind and body are so united that the breath of early
flowers, the incense of the fields, the balmy breeze, the taste of
wholesome food, or of the refreshing draught, call forth the feelings
of the mind, awaken gratitude, and lead us to offer up our thanks to
Him who is the Giver of every good.

With respect to the sense of touch, we have few additional observations
to make; this sense is trained to its highest perfection in those who
are born blind, and who from early childhood have acquired the habit
of supplying by its exercise their visual deficiency, as far as one
sense can compensate for the loss of another. In the educated blind,
the faculty of distinguishing minute differences in impression, and
of receiving from a given surface of sentient integument the largest
number of separate sensations of contact, appears most remarkably
developed; in the blind, too, the exploring movements of touch are
performed with the most skill and delicacy. To so high a pitch, indeed,
is the sense of touch elevated, that many have been led to believe that
the blind are even capable of appreciating colour; it may be, we admit,
that they are able to detect by touch certain differences of texture,
which depend on the chemical processes of dyeing, or on certain modes
of preparation connected with the impartation of colour to the surface
of objects, and thus discriminating or analyzing, may be taught to
associate the name of blue with one sensation, of red with another,
and so on--more than this is impossible.

Obtuseness of feeling, or of tact, arises from various causes; the
horny hand of the labourer is less discriminative than that of the
man who is not called to toil in the field, or work at the anvil. As
regards feeling, independent of the pure sense of touch, there is much
difference even among individuals, according to the general nervous
susceptibility of the frame. Among the North American Indians this
susceptibility is less than among Europeans, as may be concluded from
the horrid details given by Mr. Catlin, and others, who have witnessed
the revolting practices of the red men of the western world.

Loss of feeling, or of tact, in one or more limbs, is the result of
paralysis, and other morbid conditions of the system, to which our
frail tenement is subject. The same observations apply to the muscular
sense, which sense is moreover deranged, or suspended, during a fit
of intoxication, (_Proh pudor!_) or when placed on some dizzy height,
one, unaccustomed to such a situation, is agitated by extreme terror.
The sailor in the rigging of the topmast, the cragsman of the Hebrides,
the hunter of the chamois, have learned to surmount such a sense of
fear, and are secure in their place of peril. The loss of sensibility,
and the loss of the muscular sense, can never pervade the whole frame,
till that hour arrives when the soul is about to quit its mortal abode,
and enter the regions of another world. To this condition all are
destined--the sentence of death is gone forth! Oh that, while living,
while in the enjoyment of our senses, and of the energies of our body,
we may "lay hold upon eternal life," and live as "dying daily!" Let us
aim at being able to appropriate to ourselves the expression of the
psalmist, "My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my
heart, and my portion for ever."[35] No one can say this in verity, who
is not established on the "Rock of Ages."

[35] Psa. lxxiii. 26.

The Almighty has not designed that man, even in this his probationary
state, should pass through his pilgrimage without experiencing pure
pleasures and delights. It is to these that the senses administer,
each in its appointed way. The sublimity and the beauty of natural
scenery--the grandeur of mountains, forests, and seas--the glory of
the sun, moon, and starry expanse above--the works of art, towers, and
temples--all these, and more, received into the mind through vision,
produce the most delightful emotions. The flowers that strew our
pathway, the insects glittering in the sun, the waving cornfields, the
grazing cattle, the rustic cottage of the hardy labourer--all combine
to fill the soul with pleasure and thankfulness. Can we listen to the
roar of waters, to the deep murmur of the wind rushing through the
forest, to the song of birds, or the notes of sweet melody, and feel no
pleasure--no spirit of praise and gratitude? Is not food sweet to the
healthy appetite? Do we not rejoice in our strength, in the use of our
limbs, and in our manual address and precision? Are not the perfumes of
flowers, the scent of the bean-field, of the bower of honey-suckle, of
the new-mown hay, delicious? Is not the earth full of riches? Has not
the Creator adapted it to our pleasures, as well as our necessities,
and endowed us with every sense requisite for enjoyment? How delightful
to the Christian--how doubly enjoyed by him is nature in all her
phases, in all her manifestations, in all her variety! To him nothing
is uninteresting, from the mightiest creature to the animalcule,
from the cedar to the humble weed; and reflecting that knowledge
stores his mind, and pleasure gladdens, refreshes, and animates him,
through each respective medium; and delighting in life, and life's
enjoyments, he praises God for every bodily and mental endowment,
and for all the glorious works which his hands have created--works
which lead him to muse upon that inscrutable wisdom, power, love, and
consideration, which the Almighty has displayed in fitting the earth
for him as his temporary abode--glorious in its mountains, its plains,
its seas, and rivers--glorious in the light of day and the darkness
of night--glorious in the air and the clouds, in the lightning and
the rainbow; but yet an abode to be exchanged by the believer for one
infinitely more glorious, in which sin and pain are unknown, and from
which mortality is banished for ever.




     Transcriber's Notes:

     Page 65: Contrary to the other sections, section 8. of CHAPTER I.
     has no header in the original.

     Footnotes have been moved to directly under the text they refer to.

     Changes made to the text:

     Page 19 (table): "Heats" in the right column changed to "Heat"

     Page 67/68: Added a "." at the end of the footnote

     Page 153: The original read "CHAPTER V." as heading of the last
     chapter, this has been changed to "CHAPTER IV." as there are only
     four chapters.

     Page 178: Quotes removed (originally: in others." At sunset,)

     Page 179: "effects" changed to "affects" (it affects more or less)

     Page 184: Quotes added ("Of the various arts)





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Senses and The Mind, by Anonymous

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