464 Additional Notes, 



tion. The power of abstraction, then, must he given up, of 

 Dr. Darwin's theory must be totally abandoned. Nor can 

 this writer be considered as satisfactorily replying to this ob- 

 jection, by asking, as he does, in his turn, how eise do we ac- 

 quire abstract ideas, if not as he states ? Though we may 

 not be able to find any other solution of the question, it does 

 not follow that the one which he offers is adequate to the pur- 

 pose. 



Memory is also altogether inexplicable on this theory. This 

 too is said to consist in the repetition of former perceptions. 

 But, according to this definition, the former perception must 

 have been attended with an impression of a previous similar sen- 

 sation, which involves an absurdity; and as this first contrac- 

 tion of the fibre was occasioned by the action of a certain 

 stimulus, it must be granted by the advocates of this theory, 

 that the stimulus might have acted alone, and the idea of me- 

 mory have been rhus produced, without any object of re- 

 membrance. Besides, ideas of memory cannot arise from the 

 motion of peculiar fibres, because these ideas belong alike to 

 all our sensations. Nor are fibrous motions even necessary to 

 their immediate production; for the idea of memory is ex- 

 cited as readily by a desire which we have formerly experi- 

 enced, or by a process of reasoning formerly made out, as 

 by the renewed action of external stimuli. In short, the 

 theory of Dr. Darwin, at most, can only be considered, by 

 a candid inquirer, as solving the phenomena of one class of 

 ideas, viz. those which we receive immediately from our ex- 

 ternal senses. Even of some of these it furnishes an inade- 

 quate solution; but all the rest, not only those of memory 

 and abstraction, but also those of imagination, taste, moral 

 perception, &c. are left completely in the dark, after all his 

 fanciful attempts at explanation. 



It is also worthy of remark, that one of the leading doc- 

 trines of this theory is plainly contradicted by fact. Dr. 

 Darwin teaches that perception is not to be referred, as 

 some have taught, to any common sensorium in the head, 

 but that it takes place in the several organs of sense them- 

 selves; that the fibrous motions in these organs constitute 

 our ideas ; and that, of course, when any organ of sense is to- 

 tally destroyed, all the ideas connected with it necessarily perish. 

 But is the man who became deaf in adult years incapable 

 of forming any ideas of sound ? Were Homer and Mil- 

 ton unable to conceive of visual objects after they became* 

 blind? The noble descriptions with which their poems 



