82 HEARING AND TOUCH. 



pleasure, we must cultivate the ear ; that is, we 

 must exercise it among pleasant sounds ; and where 

 can we do that so well as among the voices of na- 

 ture, which are all musical, all true, and have no cor- 

 rupting associations blended with them. The ear is 

 thus well worth the cultivating to as great an extent 

 as possible ; and where that is vigorously and suc- 

 cessfully done, it will accomplish many things. It 

 cannot, indeed, give eyes to the blind, or feet to the 

 lame, but it makes a substitute ; and if we may 

 judge by the light hearts and gleesome dispositions 

 of blind people, as contrasted with the gloom and 

 even moroseness of the deaf, it is probable that a 

 soundless world would be more desolate than a sun- 

 Jess one. 



It is quite impossible to say what may be the 

 parti cular^state or action of the air in the curious 

 tubes ?nd labyrinths which make up the beautiful 

 internal cavity of the ear ; but it is certain, that the 

 fine membrane called the tympanum is not the 

 organ of hearing; because there have been frequent 

 cases in which deafness has been cured by the de- 

 struction of that membrane. The sense which it 

 most nearly resembles is that which is called touch, 

 though not that branch of the very complex sense 

 of touch which is made up of a succession of feel- 

 ings and leads to knowledge, but immediate and in- 

 stantaneous touch. The one of these gives us no 

 more information about the object producing it than 

 the other. If a person is sitting, musing in a dreamy 

 revery, with his senses idle "about him, and you 

 steal behind him unobserved, and slap your hands 

 smartly together, it will take him some time to find 

 out whether you slapped him or not. Then^as to 

 the knowledge which is obtained of the object of 

 immediate (even pretty smart) touching, the ab- 

 surdity of it is well exposed by Butler in these 

 lines : 



