On Genius. 383 
may be resolved into a strong original sus- 
ceptibility of temperament—or, in other 
words, a livelier perception, than is granted 
to men in general, of pleasure and pain.(q) 
The first statement of this idea may wear an 
air of paradox ; yet it is an obvious extension 
of Mr. Locke’s theory of the human mind, 
which carries back the origin of all our ideas 
to sensation and reflection, and I hope to 
shew in the sequel that there at least some 
plausible grounds for entertaining it. 
The power of distinguishing between plea- 
sure and pain is an ultimate fact in the hu- 
man constitution; it is original, innate and 
incapable of analysis. It is the earliest func= 
(g) IT am aware, that in explaining the original differences of charac- 
ter, we ought perhaps, in philosophical correctness, to consider this 
acute sensibility to pleasure and pain, rather as consequent upon a 
constitutional susceptibility of temperament than identical with it. 
---But I am not prepared to go deep into physiological disquisition, 
and wish to confine myself to the metapliysical view of tle 
subject. By what peculiar organization of the bodily frame this consti- 
tutional susceptibility is occasioned ; how far it involves an extraordinary 
acuteness in each of the five senses; or whether it does not chiefly 
depend on the liveliness of that more general sense, which is diffused, 
under the name of feeling, over the whole body ; I hardly consider it 
within my province to inquire. With the impressions, which are 
received through the senses in the commencement of existence, and none 
of which probably are in the first instance indifferent, it is to me perfectly, 
conceivable that various degrees of pleasure and pain, dependant on the 
different bodily organization of individuals, may be connected. If 
this be granted; I ask no furtlier concession, as thie basis of the 
Subsequent theory. 
