known how to combine infinity itself with that which may almost be considered as the most finite of things; and has repeated, as it were, in every mind, by the almost creative sensibilities with which He has endowed it, that simple but majestic act of omnipotence, by which, originally, He called from the rude elements of chaos, or rather from nothing, all the splendid glories of the uni verse. 38 298 LECTURE XX. PARTICULAR CONSIDERATION OF OUR SENSATIONS.- -NAMELESS TRIBES OF SENSATIONS SENSATIONS OF SMELL OF TASTE OF HEARING. A CONSIDERABLE portion of my last Lecture, Gentlemen, was employed in illustrating the corporeal part of the process of perception, which, though less immediately connected with our Science than the mental part of the process, is still, from its intimate connexion with this mental part, not to be altogether neglected by the intellectual inquirer. The importance of clear notions of the mere organic changes is, indeed, most strikingly exemplified in the very false theories of perception which have prevailed, and in some measure still prevail; and which evidently, in part at least, owe their origin to those confused notions, to which I alluded in my last Lecture, of the objects of perception, as supposed to operate at a distance through a medium, and of complicated series of changes supposed to take place in the nerves and brain. In considering the Phenomena of our Mind, as they exist when we are capable of making them subjects of reflection, I mentioned to you, in a former Lecture, that although we have to encounter many additional difficulties, in consequence of early associations, that modify forever after our original elementary feelings, with an influence that is inappreciable by us, because it is truly unperceived, there are yet some advantages, which though they do not fully compensate this evil, at least enable us to make some deduction from its amount. The benefit to which I allude, is found chiefly in the class of phenomena which we are now considering, -a class, indeed, which otherwise we should not have regarded as half so comprehensive as it truly is, since, but for our previous belief of the existence of a permanent and independent system of external things acquired from other sources, we should have classed by far the greater number of the feelings, which we now refer to sense, among those which arise spontaneously in the mind, without any cause external to the mind itself. Though the sensations, which arise from affections of the same organ-as those of warmth and extension for example, or at least the feeling of warmth and a tactual feeling, that is commonly supposed to involve extension, from affections of the same nerves of touch, are not, in every case, more analogous to each other, than the sensations which arise from affections of different organs, --and though, if we were to consider the sensations alone, therefore, without reference to their organs, we might not form precisely the same classification as at present, the division, according to the organs affected, in most cases corresponds, so exactly, with that which we should make, in considering the mere sensations as affections of the mind, and affords in itself a principle of classification, so obvious and definite, that we cannot hesitate, in preferring it to any other which we might attempt to form. In the arrangements of every science, it is of essential consequence, that the lines of difference, which distinguish one class from another, should be well marked; and this advantage is peculiarly important in the science of mind, the objects of which do not, as in the other great department of nature outlast inquiry, but are, in every case, so very shadowy and fugitive, as to flit from us, in the very glance, that endeavours to catch their almost imperceptible outline. In examining, then, according to their organs, our classes of sensation; and considering what feelings the organic affections excite at present, and what we may suppose them to have excited originally, I shall begin with those which are most simple, taking them in the order of smell, taste, hearing,-not so much, from any hope, that the information, which these afford will throw any great light on the more complex phenomena of sight and touch, as because the consideration of them is easier, and may prepare you gradually for this difficult analysis, which awaits us afterwards, in the examination of those more perplexing phenomena. I begin, then, with the consideration of that very simple order of our sensations which we ascribe to our organ of SMELL. THE organ of smell, as you well know, is principally in the nostrils, and partly also in some continuous cavities. on which a portion of the olfactory nerves is diffused. Naribus interea consedit odora hominum vis When the particles of odour affect our nerves of smell, a certain state of mind is produced, varying with the nature of the odoriferous body. The mere existence of this state, is all the information which we could originally have received from it, if it had been excited previously to our sensations of a different class. But, with our present knowledge, it seems immediately to communicate to us much more important information. We are not merely sensible of the particular feeling, but we refer it, in the instant, almost in the same manner, as if the reference itself were involved in the sensation,-to a rose, hemlock, honeysuckle, or any other substance, agreeable or disagreeable; the immediate presence, or vicinity of which we have formerly found to be attended with this particular sensation. The power of making the reference, however, is unquestionably derived from a source different from that, from which the mere sensation is immediately derived. We must previously have seen, or handled, the rose, the hemlock, the honeysuckle; or if, without making this particular reference, we merely consider our sensation of smell as caused by some unknown object external to our mind, we must at least have previously seen or handled some other bodies, which excited, at the same time, sensations analogous to the present. If we had been endowed with the sense of smell, and with no other sense whatever, the sensations of this class would have been simple feelings of pleasure or pain, which we should as little have ascribed to an external cause, as any of our spontaneous feelings of joy or sorrow, that are equally lasting or equally transient. Even * Gray de Principiis Cogitandi, Lib. I. v. 130–134. at present, after the connexion of our sensations of a fragrance with the bodies which we term fragrant, has been, in a great measure, fixed in our mind, by innumerable reflections, we still, if we attend to the process of the reference itself, are conscious of a suggestion of remembrance, and can separate the sensation, as a mere feeling of the mind, from the knowledge of the object or external cause of the sensation, which seems to us a subsequent state of the mind, however close the succession may be. Indeed, what is there which we can discover, in the mere sensation of fragrance, that is itself significant of solidity, extension, or what ever we may regard as essential to the existence of things without? As a mere change in the form of our being, it may suggest to us the necessity of some cause or antecedent of the change. But it is far from implying the necessity of a corporeal cause ;any more than such a direct corporeal cause is implied in any other modification of our being, intellectual or moral,-in our belief, for example, of the most abstract truth, at which we may have arrived by a slow developement of proposition after proposition, in a process of internal reflective analysis,--or in the most refined and sublime of our emotions, when, without thinking of any one of the objects around, we have been meditating on the Divinity who formed them-himself the purest of spiritual existences. Our belief of a system of external things, then, does not, as far as we can judge from the nature of the feelings, arise from our sensations of smell, more than from any of our internal pleasures or pains; but we class our sensations of smell as sensations, because we have previously believed in a system of external things, and have found, by uniform experience, that the introduction of some new external body, either felt or seen by us, was the antecedent, of those states of mind which we denominate sensations of smell, and not of those internal pains or pleasures, which we therefore distinguish from them, as the spontaneous affections of our own independent mind. ON TASTE. WITH the organ of taste you are all sufficiently acquainted. In considering the phenomena, which it presents, in the peculiar sensations that directly flow from it, it is necessary to make some lit |