OF ORGANIZED BEINGS. 417 



reduced in size or are entirely wanting in various ani- 

 mals. l It is said that by laking away, diminishing, or 

 changing proportions, you might form from the brain of 

 man that of any other animal, while there is no animal 

 of whose brain you could in like manner compose that of 

 man. The brain in man approaches more nearly a spher- 

 ical form than that in any animal, and the nerves are 

 smaller in proportion to the brain. The brain diminishes 

 and the nerves increase from man downwards.' Plants 

 have no nervous system, and the lowest order of animals 

 have but imperfectly developed nerves, while they are 

 destitute of a brain. 



Men and the most perfect animals, in fact all vertebral 

 animals, such as are furnished with a spinal marrow, have 

 five senses, viz. seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and 

 feeling; but we have before observed, that the only sense 

 which pervades the whole animal creation, was that of 

 feeling. M. Cuvier thinks that the sense of feeling is 

 the sensorial power manifested in its most simple state, 

 and that all the other senses are mere modifications of it. 

 The sense of feeling in man is more strongly developed 

 in the tongue, lips, and ends of the fingers than in any 

 other part of the body. In cows and horses the tongue 

 and nostrils appear to be the local organs of touch. In 

 the mole and pig the snout appears to be the peculiar 

 organ which performs the office of feeling. The local 

 organ of feeling in many of the feathered tribe appears 

 to be situated in the membrane that lines their mandibles. 



In the opossum it exists in the end of the tail ; in in- 

 sects in their antennae, and in worms in their tentacula. 

 It is not determined whether the fish and amphibious ani- 

 mals are furnished with any local organ of the sense of 

 feeling or not. We would here remark, that although 

 every sensation may be comprehended under the term 

 feeling, yet when we speak of it as a distinct sense, we 

 would restrict it to the different sensations excited 

 by different substances when applied to the integument 

 which covers the body of men and animals, or more 

 particularly to those organs which we have mentioned 

 as being local, but which perform in an eminent degree 

 the office of feeling. It is certain that in man, the 



VOL. i. NO. xvn. 37* 



