418 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



thence to conclude, that a man born deaf and blind 

 muft be an idiot, as fome have pretended. The foul 

 fees and hears by all the fenfes. This has been 

 demonstrated in the cafe of the blind Princes of 

 Per fia, whofe fingers, according to Chardin s re- 

 port, are fo aftonifhingly intelligent, that they can 

 trace, and calculate, all the figures of Geometry on 

 tablets. Such are, likewife, the deaf and the 

 dumb, whom the Abbé de l'Epée, is teaching to 

 converfe together. 



I have no occafion to be diffufe on the fubject 

 of the intellectual relations of hearing. This fenfe 

 is the immediate organ of intelligence ; it is that 

 which is adapted to the reception of fpeech, a fa- 

 culty peculiar to Man, and which, by it's infinite 

 modulations, is the expreffion of all the correfpon- 

 dencies of Nature, and of all the feelings of the 

 human heart. But there is another language, 

 which feems to appertain ftill more particularly to 

 this firft principle of ourfelves, to which we have 

 given the name àifentiwènt : I mean mufic. 



I fhall not dwell on the incomprehenfible power 

 which it pofîefles of roufing and quieting the paf- 

 ficms, in a manner independent of reafon, and of 

 kindling fubli me affections, difengaged from all in- 

 tellectual perception : it's effects are fufHciently 

 known. I (hall only obferve, that it is fo natural 



to 



