174? Dr Hibbert’s Accmint of David Gilbert Tate, 
the law to which our pleasures are subject. That there may 
be a continuation of pleasurable sensations, it is necessary that 
the causes of them should be continually varied. The most 
beautiful landscapes, or the most exquisite monuments of art, 
when long opposed to vision, lose all their captivating power. 
Applying this principle, therefore, to the case of David Tate, 
and conceiving it highly possible, that the abstract causes of 
pleasurable sensations in touch, might in this individual be ex- 
emplified, the substance of the answer given by the parent to 
the question, What did the boy like best to handle which 
was, ‘‘ Each thing that he can alter the shape of,” comprehend- 
ed all that might have been anticipated. The above was her 
direct reply. She at the same time referred to the flexible sub- 
stances in the cottage, as to woollen and linen clothes, materi- 
als of cotton, or to straw. These were the objects the form 
of which he could change, and which consequently yielded the 
greatest sum of enjoyment. 
At the same time, when various objects were presented to 
him, he preferred smooth surfaces to those which were uneven 
or rough. Of the latter description, the outside of the tea-ket- 
tle, coated with sooty matter, was particularly disagreeable to 
him. 
Upon first hearing of this 3 *outh, I naturally expected that 
his sense of odorous substances would be pre-eminently acute. 
In this expectation I was disappointed. There was no evi- 
dence of this acuteness when I was present ; nor from the repre- 
sentation of his parents, am I inclined to think that it was ever 
exhibited. The question then is. If the sense was blunted or 
suspended It certainly, from my own observations, and the 
inquiries which I made, did not seem to be obliterated. It is 
therefore very probable, that the circumstance of his idiotisra, 
(to the use of which word I attach no other meaning, than that 
the law by which ideas are associated in his mind, is, from an or- 
ganic derangement, comparatively ineffective,) may have prevent- 
ed the particular exertions of this organ. I paid a second visit to 
David Tate, for the purpose of satisfying myself upon the state 
of this instrument of sensation, by the application of various sub- 
stances to his nostrils ; but unfortunately for my purpose, the 
day on which I returned to the hovel, happened to be the time 
