86 OF INSTINCT. SECT. XVI. 10. 



Others have in their infancy frequently held the 

 corner of a filk handkerchief in their mouth, or the 

 end of the velvet cape of their coat, whilft their 

 companions in play have plucked it from them, and 

 have given another diiagreeable fenfation to their 

 teeth, which has afterwards recurred on touching 

 thofe materials. And the fight of a knife drawn 

 along a china plate, though no found is excited by 

 it, and even the imagination of fuch a knife and 

 plate fo fcraped together, I know by repeated ex- 

 perience will produce the fame difagreeable fenfa- 

 tion of the teeth. 



Thefe circumnances indifputably prove, that this 

 fenfation of the tooth-edge is owing to aflbciated 

 ideas ; as it is equally excitable by fight, touch, 

 hearing, or imagination. 



In refpect to the artificial proportions of found 

 excited by mufical inftruments, thofe, who have 

 early in life aflbciated them with agreeable ideas, 

 and have nicely attended to diftinguim them from 

 each other, are faid to have a good ear, in that coun- 

 try where fuch proportions are in famion : and not 

 from any fuperior perfection in the organ of hearing, 

 or any inftinftive fympathy between certain founds 

 and pafiions. 



1 have obferved a child to be exquifitely delighted 

 with muiic, and who could with great facility learn 

 to fmg any tune that he heard diftinctly, and yet 

 whole organ of hearing was fo imperfect, that it 

 was neceflary to fpeak louder to him in common con- 

 verfation than to others. 



Our mufic, like our architecture, feems to have no 

 foundation in nature, they are both arts purely of 

 human creation, as they imitate nothing. And the 

 profeffors of them have only clafled thofe circum- 

 liances, that are mod agreeable to the accidental 

 rafle of their age, or country ; and have called it 

 Proportion* But this proportion mud always fluc- 

 tuate. 



