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preconception of the object, this affection does not arise- 

 But when the ear becon)es familiar with different arrange- 

 ments of sound, the imagination can readily conceive the 

 formation of other arrangements, and naturally gives birth to 

 a desire for new harmonies in music, new expressions of lan- 

 guage, and at length pants after new efforts of eloquence, 

 new flights of the muse, and all that science can perform by 

 the power of diction. 



Vast as is the empire of the eye, the dominion of the ear 

 is far more extensive; and though the former is more useful 

 to man as an animal, the other is more necessary to him as a 

 reasonable creature. It is the great inlet of his knowledge — 

 the gate which opens to him the intellect of others, throws 

 down the barriers which would confine his mind to the scanty 

 produce of its own conceptions, and gives it a passage to the 

 collective understanding of mankind. Without it, language 

 could never have been invented — without language, general 

 ideas could have no existence — and without general ideas, 

 where Avould be that knowledge which stamps on maa his 

 exalted character of a reasonable being? 



No wonder then that this refined and delicate organ should 

 be slow in arriving at perfection. To distinguish accurately 

 every vibration of air, from an infinite number of other vi- 

 brations, whose impulse conveys to the auditory nerves all 

 the involutions of sound employed in music or language, 

 seems a power more than miraculous. It is according to the 

 course of nature, and we pass it by without consideration — 



