EXTERNAL SENSES. 519 



By means of the external senses only do we learn the existence 

 of the world around us. " With every sense an animal discovers 

 a new world ; thus creation is to it increased or diminished ac- 

 cordingly as its senses are more or less numerous." " Provided 

 with senses, it enters into communication with the university of 

 nature, and associates with surrounding beings ; a continual action 

 and reaction are established between animate and inanimate na- 

 ture." b They are the seat of almost constant gratification. Without 

 them, indeed, we should not only be ignorant of the surrounding 

 world, but our mental faculties would never come into operation. 

 We could not judge of objects of sight, hearing, or touch, 

 by our lower intellectual faculties ; nor would our higher 

 intellectual faculties come into play, nor our various inclinations 

 be called forth. Some writers, hardly deserving the name of 

 philosophers, have been misled by these truths, and declared that 

 the external senses give rise to our intellectual and moral powers. 

 Were this the case, persons of acute external sense, and those 

 numerous savages and brutes which surpass us in one external 

 sense or other, would be the most eminent in intellect. Gall 

 found it necessary to refute these errors at length. Not even 

 can an organ of external sense give rise to a sensation, except in 

 the brain, or what is tantamount to brain in every brute. 



Gall observes that, 



" 1. Every nerve of sense has its particular origin: no one 

 arises from- the brain, or from another nerve ; but the filaments 

 of each proceed from particular masses of pulpy substance. 



" 2. Each nerve of sense differs from the others in size, struc- 

 ture, colour, and consistence. 



* 3. The apparatus of some nerves are more or less compli- 

 cated, more or less numerous in the different kinds of animals. 



" 4-. There is no proportion, either direct or constantly uni- 

 form, between the size of the brain and of the nerves. 



" 5. There is no fixed proportion between the nerves of 

 sense in the different kinds of animals, nor in individuals of the 

 same species. 



" 6. The female has not nerves of sense larger or smaller 

 than the male. 



b Gall, 1. c. 4to. vol. i. p. 149. 



Ibid..ll. cc. 4to. vol. i. p. 223. sqq. ; also p. 149, sqq. 8vo. t. i. p. 114. sqq. 



