274 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTh. 



between his eyes and the paper on which he was writing, he 

 probably became conscious of its presence in the same way 

 that a blind man is conscious oi the presence of objects 

 near him, even (in some cases) of objects quite remote, by 

 some subtle effects discernible by the sense of touch excited 

 to abnormal relative activity in the absence of impressions 

 derived from the sense of sight. It is true that one might 

 have expected him to continue writing legibly, notwith- 

 standing the interposed screen; but the cons iousness of 

 the existence of what in his normal condition would ef- 

 fectually have prevented his writing legibly, would be 

 sufficient to explain his failure. If, while in full possession 

 of all our senses, the expectation of failure quite commonly 

 causes failure, how much more likely would this be to 

 happen to a man in F.'s unfortunate abnormal condition. 

 The sense of touch again would suffice to indicate the 

 presence of water instead of ink in his pen when he was 

 writing. I question whether the difference might not be 

 recognised by any person of sensitive touch after a little 

 practice ; but certainly a blind man, whose sense of touch 

 was abnormally developed, would recognise the difference, 

 as we know from experiments which have indicated even 

 greater delicacy of perception than would be required for 

 this purpose. The experiment with superposed sheets of 

 paper is more remarkable than any of the others, but 

 certainly does not suggest that light makes any impression 

 upon Sergeant F. It proves, in fact, so far as any ex- 

 periment could prove such a point, that the sense of 

 touch alone regulates the man's movements. Unconscious 

 of any change (because, after the momentary surprise pro- 

 duced by the withdrawal of the paper, he still found he had 

 paper to write on), he continued writing. He certainly did 

 not in this case, as Dr. Mesnet suggests, see all things 

 which are brought into relation with him by the sense of 

 touch ; for if he had, he would not have continued to write 

 when he found the words already written no longer dis- 

 cernible. 



