26G NATURAL THEOLOaY. 



of our faculties. The Deity, it is true, is the object of none 

 of our senses ; but reflect what limited capacities anima,! 

 senses are. Many animals seem to have but one sense, or 

 perhaps tw^o at the most — touch and taste. Ought such an 

 animal to conclude against the existence of odors, sounds, 

 and colors ? To another species is given the sense of smell- 

 rg. This is an advance in the knowledge of the powers 

 and properties of nature ; but if this favored animal should 

 infer from its superiority over the class last described, that 

 it perceived every thing which w^as perceptible in nature, it 

 is known to us, though perhaps not suspected by the animal 

 itself, that it proceeded upon a false and presumptuous esti- 

 mate of its faculties. To another is added the sense of hear- 

 ing ; which lets in a class of sensations entirely unconceived 

 by the animal before spoken of, not only distinct, but remote 

 from any which it had ever experienced, and greatly supe- 

 rior to them. Yet this last animal has no more ground for 

 believing that its senses comprehend all things, and all prop- 

 erties of things which exist, than might have been claimed 

 by the tribes of animals beneath it ; for w^e know that it is 

 still possible to possess another sense, that of sight, w^hich 

 shall disclose to the percipient a new world. This fifth 

 sense makes the animal what the human animal is ; but to 

 infer that possibility stops here, that either this fifth sense 

 is the last sense, or that the five comprehend all existence, 

 is just as unwarrantable a conclusion as that which might 

 have been made by any of the difierent species which pos- 

 sessed fewer, or even by that, if such there be, which pos- 

 sessed only one. The conclusion of the one-sense animal 

 and the conclusion of the five-sense animal stand upon the 

 same authority. There may be more and other senses than 

 those which w^e have. There may be senses suited to the 

 perception of the powders, properties, and substance of spirits. 

 These may belong to higher orders of rational agents ; foi 

 there is not the smallest reason for supposing that we are 

 the highest, or that the scale of creation stops with us. 



