41 



-a time and then resumed, lest the system should get accustomed to 

 them, and their influence be lost. The same motive should lead one to 

 vary the treatment, and to employ, in succession, those medicines to 

 which nearly the same qualities are assigned, for, each of them call forth 

 the sensibility in a peculiar manner. The nervous system may be com- 

 pared to an earth abounding in various juices, and for a full display of 

 whose fecundity, it is necessary that the husbandman commit to it the 

 germs of various plants. 



It is very remarkable that habit, or the frequent repetition of the same 

 act, which uniformly, under all circumstances, and in all organs, blunts 

 physical sensibility, should improve the intellect, and increase the faci- 

 lity, and activity of execution of all the operations of the understanding, 

 or of the actions which depend on them. " Habit impairs the sensitive 

 power, and improves the judgment" Bichat was therefore incorrect, when 

 in his distinction of the organs which are subservient to the functions 

 of assimilation, from those which serve to keep up our relation with 

 the surrounding objects: he maintained, that the sensibility of the latter 

 becomes more exquisite, while the sensibility of the former becomes im- 

 paired from habit. 



But can a painter, because he judges more correctly than the ignorant, 

 of the beauties of a picture, be said to see it better? Surely not, for, he 

 may with a sight far less penetrating, and more infirm, form a more ac- 

 curate analysis, from the habit which he has acquired, and judge with a 

 great deal more promptitude and certainty, of the several parts of the 

 whole ; just as the practised ear of the musician seizes, in a piece of mu- 

 sic, and during the most rapid execution, the expression and the value of 

 all the notes and tones. The error has arisen, from its being forgotten, 

 that, correctly speaking, it is not the eyes that see, or the ears that hear: 

 that the impressions produced by the sounds on these organs, are but the 

 occasional cause of the sensation, or of the perception of which the brain 

 is the exclusive seat. Which has the more delicate sense of hearing, 

 the North American savage, who hears the noise of the step of his ene- 

 mies, at distances that astonish us, or the artist who does not hear a 

 person speaking at the distance of fifty paces from him, but who directs 

 with judgment, all the operations of a great orchestra, and who distin- 

 guishes skilfully, the effect of each part ? 



Bring down to a frugal Pythagorean regimen, one of our modem epi- 

 cures : his palate, exhausted of its sensibility by the most savoury dishes, 

 by ardent liquors, and the most exquisite ragouts, will discover no taste 

 in dry bread. Let him, however, live on bread, if he can, for some time, 

 it will soon appear to him to have a grateful taste, as it does to those who 

 make it their principal article of food, or who take it only with substan- 

 ces which have not a very distinct taste. Although with the sense of 

 smell, that of taste furnishes us only with ideas the most directly con- 

 nected with our preservation, those which most turn upon the wants of 

 our animal nature : although we retain, with difficulty, the impressions of 

 these senses, and that, to enable us to retain them, they must be often re- 

 peated ; the epicure has so carefully analyzed them, that he has attained 

 to the discernment of the faintest differences of taste, all those delicacies 

 of sensation, which, as Montesquieu says, are lost to us vulgar eaters. 



The motions, under the direction of the will, acquire by the precision 

 of the determinations, the same aptness, facility, and readiness, and 

 the dancer, who surprises us with his agility, hag reflected, more than 



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