Additio72al Notes, 417 



turn, how else do we acquire abstract i<lcas, if not as he slates ? 

 Though we may not be able to find any other solution of the 

 question, it doeg not follow that the one which he offers is ade- 

 quate to the purpose. 



Memory is altogether inexplicable on this theory. This too 

 is said to consist in the repetition of former perceptions. But, 

 according to this dctinition, the former perccpti(;n must have 

 been attended with an ir-pression of a previous similar sensa- 

 tion, which involves an absurdity; and as this first contraction 

 of the libra 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 memory have 

 been thus produced, without any object of remembrance. Be- 

 sides, ideas of memory cannot arise from the motion of pecu- 

 liar fibres, because these ideas belong alike to all our sensations. 

 :Nor are fibrous motions even necessary to their immediate pro- 

 duction ; for the idea of memory is exciied as readily by a de- 

 ;sire which we have formerly experienced, or by a process of 

 reasoning formerly made oat, as by the renewed action of ex- 

 >ternal stimuli. In short, the theory of Dr. Darwin, at most, 

 can only be considered by a candid inquirer as solving tlie phe- 

 nomena of one class of ideas, x'lz , those which we receive im- 

 mediately from our external senses. Even of some of these it 

 furnishes an adequate 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 

 ,^U his- fanciful attempts ai explanation. 



It is. also worthy of remark, that one of the leading doctrines 

 .,^f this theory is plainly contradicted by fact. Dr. Darwin 

 leaches that perception is not to be referred, as some have 

 taught, to any common sensovium in the head, but that it 

 takes place in the several organs of sense themselves ; that the 

 fibrous motions in these organs constitute our ideas ; and that 

 of course, when any organ of sense is totally 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 Milton unable to conceive of 



Vol. II. '^ E 



