44G THOUGHTS ON THE 



water, and by a similar property admits and refracts the 

 images of light and of visible objects. The organ too of 

 hearing is analogous to the obstructed part of a cave-like 

 passage, from which part the voice and all sound best rever 

 berates. The attractions also of inanimate objects, and again 

 their affections of horror and flight (those I mean which 

 come of their own spontaneous motion), are correlative to 

 smell and to odours grateful and offensive in the case 

 of animals. But the capacity of touch and taste, like a 

 prophet and interpreter, delivers to the mind all the modes 

 either of forcible appeal, or of benign and insinuating flat 

 tery to the sense, which are incident to inanimate sub 

 stances, and all the forms they assume under the influence 

 of these affections. For compressions, expansions, corro 

 sions, separations, and the like, are in things without life, 

 invisible in their progress, and are not perceived till the 

 effect is manifest. But all violence to the organization of 

 animals is accompanied with a sense of pain, according to 

 their different kinds and peculiar natures, owing to that 

 sentient essence which pervades their frames. And from 

 this principle may be inferred the knowledge whether 

 haply any animal possesses some additional se nse, besides 

 those commonly observed, and what senses and how many 

 can possibly exist in the whole circle of animated nature. 

 For from the affections of matter duly analyzed, will follow 

 the number of the senses, if there be only the sufficing 

 organs for the operation of such senses, and the presence 

 of spirit to inform them. 



Of violent Motion, that it is the rapid Motion and Discur- 

 sation of the Particles of a Body, in consequence of 

 Pressure, but perfectly invisible. 



VIII. 



Violent motion (as it is termed), by which missiles, as 

 stones, arrows, cannon balls, and the like, move through 

 the air, is of all descriptions of motion nearly the most 

 familiar. And we may note here, the singular and supine 

 indifference which men have discovered in observing and 

 investigating this kind of motion. Nor is a faulty way of 

 tracing the nature and power of it attended with only tri 

 vial loss ; since it is of unlimited use, and as it were the 

 life and informing principle of projectiles, engines, and all 

 the applications of mechanical power. Yet many conceive 

 that they have completely acquitted themselves of their 



