270 THE SPECIAL SENSES 



16. These distinct and active faculties are termed the 

 special senses, and are five in number, viz., Touch, Taste, 

 Smell, Sight, and Hearing. For the exercise of these senses, 

 special organs are furnished, such as the hand, the tongue, the 

 nose, the eye, and the ear. The manner in which the nerves 



2. The Mutual Relations of the Special Senses. "A blind man, 

 attempting to express his notion of scarlet, said it resembled the sound of 

 a trumpet. We are constantly reminded of the impressions of one sense 

 by the operations of another. To my ear the bass note in music is what 

 a dull black is to the eye. The reverberations of deep thunder seem like 

 boulders with worn angles with profiles blunt and irregular, as if drawn 

 by the jerking pencil of the lightning ; and one who never had the pleas- 

 ure of seeing stars from a blow on the head may get a tolerably correct 

 idea of that kind of galaxy by snuffing at a bottle of volatile salts. 



" Language is full of effort to report the impressions of one sense by 

 the symbols of another. We say that an apple is sweet, that a rose is 

 sweet, a face is sweet, a strain of music is sweet, and love is sweet, not 

 to mention the saccharine reaction of the ' uses of adversity. ' Here 

 taste, smell, sight, hearing, and a social sentiment use the same word for 

 that pleasurable sensation experienced by the mind through each distinc- 

 tive organ. We assist the organ of one sense by that of another. We 

 open the lips and part the teeth a little when we are eager to hear ; we 

 listen and turn the eyes' attention inward when we would detect a deli- 

 cate taste, or remember a faded impression. 



" But this mutual accommodation of the senses is not so marvelous as 

 it may seem, when we remember that the whole five, six, or seven, as you 

 please, are but one power of nervous perception, specialized into a variety 

 of functions, differentiated, as the learned say, that we may have more 

 perfect work by a division of labor. The same necessity which developed 

 nerve-contact into sight on the one hand and hearing on the other might 

 also express through one of these the sensations proper to the other, when 

 the other was wanting. Seal up the eyes of a bat, say the naturalists, 

 and let it loose in a room crossed with wires in every direction, and he 

 will fly clear of them all, as if he had other means of perception as 

 sensitive as the optic nerve. 



"Laura Bridgman, with neither sight, hearing, nor smell, could detect 

 the presence of a stranger in the room, without contact. Her mind then 

 must have as distinct an image of every person as we have, yet not one 

 of what we call our senses could go to the making up of that image. It 

 could not be form as we know it, nor a voice, nor an odor, but it was 

 itself other than all, exciting emotions of love, or hate, gratitude or 

 repugnance, and the thought it excited must have had shape, though it 

 is not easy to imagine how." The Schoolmaster. 



16. What are the special senses ? Special organs for them ? 



