On the Sense of Feeling. S&9 



particular impressions to particular parts, by habit. I know that if I 

 place a marble between the tip of my fore and middle fingers, it touches 

 the adjacent sides of each ; this I have found uniformly to be the case, and 

 the mind has unconsciously treasured it up. Jf then I cross the fingers, 

 and thus place them upon the marble, there seem to be two marbles pre- 

 sent J for I have an impression felt by the sides of each finger, naturally 

 roost removed from each other; and I know that under ordinary circum- 

 stances this could only have been produced by two marbles. I am there- 

 fore deceived, until set right from another source. 



Tact is by far the most perfectible of the senses ; and when adventitious 

 circumstances have led to its cultivation, has been possessed in a most as- 

 tonishing degree. 



AA'e must not confound the sense of tact, with what Sir C. Bell has 

 called the muscular sense ; that which informs us what muscles are in ac- 

 tion, or rather; of the general result produced by their action : — That power 

 which keeps a man erect upon his legs, while the best proportioned statue 

 is obliged to be strongly affixed to its pedestal j or which enables him to 

 know at what inclination his body rests against the wind, and gives him 

 aptitude to adjust himself accordingly. 



When a man awakes from sleep, he wakes with a perfect consciousness 

 of the position of his limbs : this cannot be from a recollection of the ac- 

 tion which placed them there ; he must therefore possess a sense which 

 relates to liim their present condition. 



This, or something very similar to it, was originally broached by a pro- 

 found, though short-lived, philosopher, the late Dr. Wells. " What is 

 there," asks he, "within us, indicative of the true positions of the body ? 

 to me it appears evident, that since they are occasioned and preserved by 

 combinations of the actions of various voluntary muscles, some feeling 

 must attend such combination, which suggests, perhaps from experience, 

 the particular position produced by it. But almost every position of the 

 body, and the chief of its muscular eff'orts, are directed towards sustaining 

 it against the influence of gravity. Each position, therefore, in which this 

 takes place, must be attended with a feeling, which serves to indicate its 

 relation to the horizontal plane of the ea,rth." 



All animals are enveloped in a membrane, passing under the general 

 name of integument, and interposed between their external structure, and 

 the medium in which they move ; and serving to connect together the dif- 

 ferent parts of the body, to give shape and comeliness to the whole, and to 

 shield it from external injury. It is in this integument that the nervous 

 filaments terminate, and in which, consequently, sensibility resides. 



This covering, known to us familiarly in tiie human body as the skin, is 

 found to present very different appearances in different animals, or in dif- 

 ferent parts of the same animal, according to the uses intended by nature 

 for it to subserve, or to which the individual may have itself applied it. 



