[August, 
466 
Ignoramus et Ignorabimus. 
that we obtain through these scanty loopholes a complete 
view of the universe. Had we a greater number of senses, 
should we not receive impressions of which we have now no 
more conception than a man born blind has of light and 
colour? Would not the information thus received greatly 
modify our present knowledge ? To understand this point 
the more clearly, let us suppose a set of beings possessing 
the same intellect as do we, but devoid of hearing. . The 
effects of this shortcoming on their means of social inter- 
course we are not going to discuss. But if incapable of 
hearing they would never have observed the properties of 
sound, and in consequence they would not have had their 
attention called to vibrations as the cause of sound. Under 
these circumstances it is not too much to say that the un- 
dulatory theories of heat and light would never have 
suggested themselves to the physicist. W hat a complete 
change in our Science, therefore, would the absence of this 
one sense — one of the senses least used in the diieCt inter- 
pretation of Nature — involve ! . 
Or let us suppose a set of intellectual beings sightless, 
like certain inseCts in the caverns of Carniola and Kentucky. 
Being blind the discipline of optics would for them have 
been, of course, non-existent. 1 he part played by light in 
the organic world, would utterly escape then obseivation. 
Astronomy would be inconceivable, and no theoiy of uni- 
versal gravitation could have been evolved. 
Or, again, imagine scent and taste, generally regarded as 
, the humblest of the special senses, wanting. The ideas of 
acidity, alkalinity, and of neutralisation would never have 
arisen, and in their absence the foundations of chemistry 
could not have been laid. 
Thus we see that, if any of our present senses were 
wanting, entire categories of phenomena would escape us, 
and that entire branches of Science as we have them could 
never have arisen. _ . 
Such being manifestly the case, is it not justifiable to 
assume that, had we more senses, more gateways of know- 
ledge, we should become cognisant of classes ot phenomena 
which have now for us no existence, and that new unima- 
gined sciences would be developed ? A little reflection will 
convince most of us that the additional knowledge thus 
gained would in many cases inevitably modify our present 
views. 
But it may he said— and will be said by many in lull con- 
viction— that an increase in the number of our senses is 
impossible. Just as rationally would it be said by a blind, 
