ANIMALS. 53 



judging of their form. All these, however, 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 detects their 

 errors. All the other senses are altered by time, 

 and contradict their former evidence ; but the 

 touch still continues the same ; and though ex- 

 tremely 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 misrepresented, 

 and all its properties unknown. M. 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 

 reality. He considers him as just created, and 

 awaking amidst the productions of nature ; and, 

 to animate the narrative still more strongly, 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 philosopher's man 

 describes his first sensations in the following man- 

 ner.* 



* Buffon, voL vi. p. 88. 



