50 A HISTORY OF 



All othei crentures, deprived of hands, can have no distii.et ideas of 

 ihe shape of the objects by which they are surrounded, as they want 

 this organ, which serves to examine and measure their forms, their 

 risings, and depressions. A quadruped, probably, conceives as erro- 

 neous an idea of any thing near him, as a child would of a rock or a 

 mountain that it beheld at a distance. It may be for this reason, that 

 we often see them frighted at things with which they ought to be bet- 

 ter acquainted. Fishes, whose bodies are covered with scales, and 

 who have no organs for feeling, must be the most stupid of all animals. 

 Serpents, that are likewise destitute, are yet, by winding round seve- 

 ral bodies, better capable of judging of their form. All these, how- 

 ever, can have but very imperfect ideas from feeling; and we have 

 already seen, when deprived of this sense, how little the rest of the 

 senses are to be relied on. 



The feeling, therefore, is the guardian, the judge, and the examiner 

 of all the rest of the senses. It establishes their information, and de- 

 tects their errors. All the other senses are altered by time, and con- 

 tradict their former evidence; but the touch still continues the same; 

 and, though extremely confined in its operations, yet it is never found 

 to deceive. The universe, to a man who had only used the rest of 

 his senses, would be but a scene of illusion; every object misrepre- 

 sented, and all its properties unknown. Mr. Buffon has imagined a 

 man just newly brought into existence, describing the illusion of his 

 first sensations, and pointing out the steps by which he arrived at re- 

 ality. He considers him as just created, and awaking amidst the pro- 

 ductions of nature; and, to animate the narrative still more strrngly, 

 has made his philosophical man a speaker. The reader will no doubt 

 recollect Adam's speech in Milton as being similar. All that I can 

 say to obviate the imputation of plagiarism is, that the one treats the 

 subject more as a poet, the other more as a philosopher. The philo 

 sopher's man describes his first sensations in the following manner.* 



I well remember that joyful anxious moment when I first became 

 acquainted with my own existence. I was quite ignorant of what I 

 was, how I was produced, or from whence I came. I opened my 

 eyes : what an addition to my surprise ! the light of the day, the azure 

 vault of heaven, the verdure of the earth, the crystal of the waters, 

 all employed me at once, and animated and filled me with inexpres- 

 sible delight. I at first imagined that all those objects were within 

 me, and made a part of myself. 



Impressed with this idea, I turned my eyes to the sun ; its splendour 

 dazzled and overpowered me ; I shut them once more ; and, to my 

 great concern, I supposed that during this short interval of darkness, 

 1 was again returning to nothing. 



Afflicted, seized with astonishment, I pondered a moment on this 

 great change, when I heard a variety of unexpected sounds. The 

 whistling of the wind, and the melody of the groves, formed a concert, 

 the soft cadence of which sunk upon my soul. I listened for some 

 time, and was persuaded that all this music was within me. 



* Buffon, vol. vi. p. 88. 



