46 HISTORY or 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF SMELLING, FEELING, AND TASTING. 



AN animal may be said to fill up that sphere 

 which he can reach by his senses ; and is actually 

 large in proportion to the sphere to which its 

 organ extends. By sight, man's enjoyments are 

 diffused into a wide circle ; that of hearing, 

 though less widely diffused, nevertheless extends 

 his powers ; the sense of smelling is more con- 

 tracted still ; and the taste and touch is the most 

 confined of all. Thus man enjoys very distant 

 objects but with one sense only ; more nearly, he 

 brings two senses at once to bear upon them ; his 

 sense of smelling assists the other tw r o at its own 

 distance ; and of such objects, as a man, he may 

 be said to be in perfect possession. 



Each sense, however, the more it acts at a dis- 

 tance, the more capable it is of making combina- 

 tions ; and is, consequently, the more improve- 

 able. 



Refined imaginations, and men of strong minds, 

 take more pleasure, therefore, in improving the 

 delights of the distant senses, than in enjoying 

 such as are scarce capable of improvement. 



By combining the objects of the extensive 

 senses, all the arts of poetry, painting, and har- 

 mony, have been discovered ; but the closer 

 senses, if I may so call them, such as smelling, 

 tasting, and touching, are in some measure as 



