SENSES OF INSECTS. 243 



can dart to the region of the stars, and convey by the 

 perceiving sense, to the sensory, ideas of innumerable 

 objects. Next in rank is hearing, which can receive 

 sounds from a great distance; but the ideas it remits are 

 confined only to one object, the variations of tones. In 

 the other organs the sensitive power is much more con- 

 fined. There is another difference between the intel- 

 lectual and physical senses : the former are the only 

 ones that receive and convey sensations of the beautiful 

 and sublime; of harmony and discord, the latter, though 

 they minister more to our sensual enjoyments, add 

 little to our intellectual ; and therefore too devoted an 

 indulgence in them debases our nature, and levels us 

 with the brutes, which use their eyes and ears only for 

 information, not for pleasure*. 



In man the ordinary five senses are usually in their 

 greatest perfection, although in some animals particular 

 senses have a greater range. The Vertebrates in general 

 are also gifted with the same number, though there are 

 some exceptions. But in the Invertebrates they are sel- 

 dom to be met with all together in the same object. The 

 Cephalopods have no smell. Several Gasteropods can 

 neither hear nor see. The animals of bivalve shells have 

 neither eyes, nor ears, nor smell ; and the zoophytes and 

 the races below them have, it is affirmed, only the single 

 sense of touch, which in them is so extremely delicate as 

 to be acted upon even by light b . 



Not so our insects. These, there is good reason to 



a N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xxx. 584. 

 b Cuv. Anat. Comp. ii. 362. 

 R 2 



