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INTRODUCTION.

TH

HAT nothing external is perceived till first it make an impreffion upon the organ of fenfe, is an obfervation that holds equally in every one of the external fenfes. But there is a difference as to our knowledge of that impreffion in touching, tafting, and finelling, we are fenfible of the impreffion; that, for example, which is made upon the hand by a stone, upon the palate by an apricot, and upon the noftrils by a rofe: it is otherwife in feeing and hearing; for I am not fenfible of the impreffion made upon my eye, when I behold a tree; nor of the impreffion made upon my ear, when I listen to a fong *. That difference in the manner of perceiving external objects, diftinguisheth remarkably hearing and feeing from the other fenfes; and I am ready to fhow, that it diftinguisheth ftill more remarkably the feelings of the former from that of the latter; every feeling, pleasant or painful, muft be in the mind; and yet, because in tasting, touching, and fmelling, we are fenfible of the impreffion made upon the organ, we are led to place there also the pleasant or painful feeling VOL. I. caufed

A

* See the Appendix, § 13.

caused by that impreffion *; but, with respect to seeing and hearing, being infenfible of the organic impreffion, we are not mifled to affign a wrong place to the pleafant or painful feelings caused by that impreffion; and therefore we naturally place them in the mind, where they really are upon that account, they are conceived to be more refined and fpiritual, than what are derived from tafting, touching, and smelling; for the latter feelings, feeming to exift externally at the organ of fenfe, are conceived to be merely corporeal.

The pleasures of the eye and the ear, being thus elevated above thofe of the other external fenfes, acquire fo much dignity as to become a laudable entertainment. They are not, however, set on a level with the purely intellectual; being no lefs inferior in dignity to intellectual pleasures, than fuperior

* After the utmost efforts, we find it beyond our power to conceive the flavour of a rose to exist in the mind: we are neceffarily led to conceive that pleasure as exifting in the noftrils along with the impreffion made by the rofe upon that organ. And the fame will be the refult of experiments with refpect to every feeling of taste, touch, and smell. Touch affords the most fatisfactory. experiments. Were it not that the delufion is detected by philosophy, no perfon would hefitate to pronounce, that the pleasure arifing from touching a smooth, foft, and velvet furface, has its existence at the ends of the fingers, without once dreaming of its exifting anywhere elfe.

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