corporeal process which precedes sensation, by the desire of removing,
as much as possible, any obscurity in which your notions on the subject
might be involved,--as I know well the influence which even a slight
confusion in our notion of any _part_ of a complicated process has,
in spreading, as it were, its own darkness and perplexity over parts
of the process, which otherwise we should have found no difficulty
in comprehending. You might think, that you knew less distinctly the
mental sensation itself, because you knew only obscurely the series of
bodily changes that precede sensation; but still it must be remembered,
that it is only the _last_ link of the corporeal chain,--the ultimate
affection of the sensorial organ, in whatever manner and to whatever
extent it may be affected,--immediately antecedent to the affection
of the mind, which is to be considered as that with which nature has
united the corresponding change in our mental frame. This mysterious
influence of our _bodily_ on our _mental_ part has been poetically
compared to that which the sun was supposed to exercise on a lyre,
that formed part of a celebrated Egyptian statue of Memnon, which was
said to become musical when struck with its beams; and though the poet
has extended the similitude, beyond our mere elementary sensations,
to the complex perception of beauty, it is still a very happy
illustration--as far as a mere poetic image can be an illustration--of
the power which matter exercises over the harmonies of mind:--
“For as old Memnon's image, long renown
By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch
Of Titan's ray with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded through the warbling air
Unbidden strains,--even so did Nature's hand,
To certain species of external things
Attune the finer organs of the mind.
So the glad impulse of congenial powers,
Or of sweet sound, or fair proportion'd form,
The grace of motion, or the bloom of light,
Thrills through Imagination's tender frame,
From nerve to nerve. All naked and alive,
They catch the spreading rays; till now the soul
At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without.
Responsive. Then the charm, by Fate prepar'd
Diffuses its enchantment.[72] Fancy dreams
Of sacred fountains, and Elysian groves,
And vales of bliss! the Intellectual Power
Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,
And smiles; the Passions, gently soothed away,
Sink to divine repose; and Love and Joy
Alone are waking.”[73]
When we consider the variety of our feelings thus wonderfully
produced,--the _pleasures_, and, still more, the inexhaustible
_knowledge_, which arise, by this mysterious harmony, from the
imperceptible affection of a few particles of nervous matter, it is
impossible for us not to be impressed with more than admiration of that
Power, which even our ignorance, that is scarcely capable of seeing
any thing, is yet, by the greatest of all the bounties of heaven,
able to perceive and admire. In the creation of this internal world
of thought, the Divine Author of our being has 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 universe.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] Gray de Princip, Cogit. lib. i. v. 48-50.
[69] Gray de Princip. Cogit. lib. i. v. 54-63.
[70] On the Intellectual Powers, Essay II. chap. ii.
[71] On the Intellectual Powers, Essay II. chap. ii.
[72] “Then the charm,” &c. to “enchantment,” from the second form of
the Poem. The corresponding clause, in the first form, from which all
the rest of the quotation is taken, is this,
“Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its enchantment.”
[73] Pleasures of Imagination, Book I. v. 109--131.
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
Docta leves captare auras, Panchaia quales
Vere novo exhalat, Floræve quod oscula fragrant
Roscida, cum Zephyri furtim sub vesperis hora
Respondet votis, mollemque aspirat amorem.[74]
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 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
little abstraction from the sensation of _touch_, which accompanies
them, in consequence of the immediate application of the tangible
sapid body to the organ; but the sensations, thus co-existing, are so
very different in themselves, as to be easily distinguishable. When
the organ of taste is in a sound state, the application of certain
substances produces, immediately, that change or affection of the
sensorial organs, which is attended with a corresponding change or
affection of the sentient mind. In our present state of knowledge,
we immediately refer this simple sensation, to something, which is
bitter, or sweet, or acrid, or of some other denomination of sapid
quality; and we have no hesitation, in classing the sensations _as
sensations_,--effects of laws of action that belong jointly to matter
and mind,--not as feelings that arise in the mind, from its own
independent constitution. But, if we attend sufficiently to the feeling
that arises in the case of taste, we shall find, however immediate the
reference to a sapid body may seem to be, that it is truly successive
to the simple sensation, and is the mere suggestion of former
experience, when a body previously recognized by us as an external
substance, was applied to our organ of taste;--in the same manner, as,
when we see ashes and dying embers, we immediately infer some previous
combustion, which we could not have inferred, if combustion itself had
been a phenomenon altogether unknown to us. In the simple sensation
which precedes the reference,--the mere pleasure of sweetness or the
mere pain of bitterness--there is nothing which seems to mark more
distinctly the presence of honey or wormwood, or any similar external
substance, than in any of our joys or sorrows, to which we have not
given a name; and there can be no doubt, that, if the particular
feeling which we now term _joy_, and the particular feeling which we
now term _sorrow_, had been excited, whenever we knew, from other
sources, that certain bodies were applied to the tongue, we should
have considered these internal feelings as sensations, in the strict
sense of the word, precisely in the same manner, as we now regard, as
sensations, the feeling which we term sweetness, and the feeling which
we term bitterness, because, like these sensations, they could not
have failed to suggest to us, by the common influence of association,
the presence and direct coincidence of the object without. In the case
of _taste_, therefore, as in the case of smell, we could not, from
the simple sensations,--if these alone had been given to us,--have
derived any knowledge of an external world, of substances extended
and resisting; but we consider them as sensations, in the strict
philosophic meaning of the term, because we have previously acquired
our belief of an external world.
It may be remarked of these two classes of sensations, now considered,
that they have a greater mutual resemblance, than our sensations of any
other kind. It is only a _blind_ man who thinks, that what is called
_scarlet_ is like the sound of a trumpet; but there are _tastes_ which
we consider as like _smells_, in the same manner as we consider them to
be like other tastes; and, if we had not acquired a distinct knowledge
of the seats of our different organs, and had yet known that smells
and tastes arose from external causes acting upon some one or other of
these, we should probably have been greatly puzzled, in many cases, in
our attempt to refer the particular sensation to its particular organ.
In considering the advantages which we derive from our organs of
_smell_ and _taste_, the mere pleasures which they directly afford, as
a part of the general happiness of life, are to be regarded, from their
frequent occurrence, as of no considerable amount. The fragrance of the
fields enters largely into that obscure but delightful group of images,
which rise in our minds on the mere names of _spring_, _summer_, the
_country_, and seems to represent the very form of ethereal purity, as
if it were the breath of heaven itself.
If we imagine all the innumerable flowers which nature pours out,
like a tribute of incense to the God who is adorning her, again to
be stripped, in a single moment, of their odour, though they were to
retain all their bright diversities of colouring, it would seem as
if they were deprived of a spirit which animates them,--how cold and
dead would they instantly become,--and how much should we lose of that
vernal joy, which renders the season of blossoms almost a new life to
ourselves.
“In vain the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing;
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She woos the tardy Spring;
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,”[75]
It is by this delightful quality that the tribes of vegetable life seem
to hold a sort of social and spiritual communion with us. It is, as it
were, the voice with which they address us, and a voice which speaks
only of happiness. To him who walks among the flowers which he has
tended,
“Each odoriferous leaf,
Each opening blossom, freely breathes abroad
Its gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets.”
The pleasures of the sense of _taste_, in the moderate enjoyment of
which there is nothing reprehensible, are, in a peculiar manner,
associated with family happiness. To have met frequently at the same
board, is no small part of many of the delightful remembrances of
friendship; and to meet _again_ at the same board, after years of
absence, is a pleasure that almost makes atonement for the long and
dreary interval between. In some half-civilized countries, in which the
influence of simple feelings of this kind is at once more forcible in
itself, and less obscured in the confusion of ever varying frivolities
and passions, this hospitable bond forms, as you well know, one of the
strongest ties of mutual obligation, sufficient often to check the
impetuosity of vindictive passions which no other remembrance could, in
the moment of fury, restrain. Had there been no _pleasure_ attached to
a repast, independent of the mere relief from the pain of hunger, the
coarse and equal food would probably have been taken by each individual
_apart_, and might even, like our other animal necessities, have been
associated with feelings which would have rendered solitude a duty of
external decorum. It would not be easy, even for those who have been
accustomed to trace a simple cause through all its remotest operations,
to say, how much of happiness, and how much even of the warm tenderness
of virtue, would be destroyed, by the change of manners, which should
simply put an end to the _social meal_; that meal which now calls all
the members of a family to suspend their cares for a while, and to
enjoy that cheerfulness, which is best reflected from others, and which
can be permanent only when it is so reflected, from _soul_ to _soul_,
and from _eye_ to _eye_.
One very important advantage, more directly obvious than this, and
of a kind which every one may be disposed more readily to admit, is
afforded by our senses of smell and taste, in guiding our _selection_
of the substances which we take as alimentary. To the other animals,
whose senses of this order are so much quicker, and whose instincts,
in accommodation to their want of general language, and consequent
difficulty of acquiring knowledge by mutual communication, are
providentially allotted to them, in a degree, and of a kind, far
surpassing the instincts of the slow but noble reflector _man_, these
senses seem to furnish _immediate_ instruction as, to the substances
proper for nourishment, to the exclusion of those which would be
noxious. To _man_, however, who is under the guardianship of affections
more beneficial to him than any instinct of his own could be, there is
no reason to believe, that they do this _primarily_, and of themselves,
though, in the state in which he is brought up, instructed with respect
to every thing noxious or salutary, by those who watch constantly
over him in the early period of his life, and having, therefore, no
necessity to appeal to the mere discrimination of his own independent
organs, and, still more, as in the artificial state of things, in which
he lives, his senses are at once perplexed and palled, by the variety
and confusion of luxurious preparation, it is not easy to say, how far
his primary instincts,--if it had not been the high and inevitable
dignity of his nature to rise above these,--might, of themselves, have
operated as directors. But, whatever their _primary_ influence may be,
the _secondary_ influence of his organs of taste and smell is not the
less important. When we have once completely learned what substances
are noxious, and what are salutary, we then, however similar they may
be in their other sensible qualities, discriminate these as often as
they are again presented to us, by that _taste_ or _smell_, which they
affect with different sensations; and our acquired knowledge has thus
ultimately, in guiding our choice, the force and the vivacity of an
original instinct.
HEARING.
In considering the phenomena of the sense of hearing, to which I now
proceed, I may apply to them the same remark, which has been already
applied to the phenomena of the senses before considered. They are
classed by us, as sensations, merely in consequence of our previous
belief in the existence of those external bodies, the motion of which
we have known to be followed by similar feelings. Our mind begins
suddenly to exist in a certain state; and we call this state joy or
sorrow, without supposing that it depends on the immediate presence of
any external object. It begins again to exist, in a different state,
and we say, that we _hear a flute_, referring the feeling immediately
to an external cause. But there can be no doubt, that, in making this
reference, in the one case, and not in the other, we are influenced by
experience, and by experience alone. If we suppose ourselves endowed
with the single sense of hearing, and incapable therefore of having
previously seen or felt the flute, which is breathed before us, or
any other extended and resisting object whatever, we may imagine the
mere sound to recur, innumerable times, without discovering any mode
by which it can give us _more_ knowledge, than we should receive from
a similar recurrence of any internal joy or sorrow. That we should
be able to refer it to a body, such as we now mean, when we speak of
a flute, is manifestly impossible; since this implies knowledge of
_solidity_, and _form_, and _colour_, which could not be acquired
without touch and sight. But there seems even no reason to think, that
we should refer it to any external cause whatever, unless, indeed, such
a reference necessarily accompanied every feeling, which we know is far
from being the case, since we have many internal pleasures, not more
like to each other, than they are to the sound of a flute, which we do
not refer to any thing, separate or separable, from the constitution
of our own mind. In _hearing_, therefore, as in taste and smell, we do
not derive from its sensations our knowledge of things external, but,
in consequence of our knowledge of things external, we regard these
feelings, as sensations, in the common philosophic meaning of that term.
Simple as our sense of hearing may seem, it affords a striking
specimen of that almost infinite variety, which is not inconsistent
with the closest resemblance; and the notion which we may form of the
innumerable varieties of sound, is perhaps not more vast, when we
attempt to wander over its boundless discrepancies, than when we limit
ourselves to its greatest similarities, in a single word of a language,
or, in that which we might be inclined at first to regard as simplicity
itself, a single _musical tone_.
“A flute, a violin, a hautboy, and a French horn,” it has been truly
remarked, “may all sound the same tone, and be easily distinguishable.
Nay, if twenty _human voices_ sound the same note, and with equal
strength, there will still be some difference. The _same_ voice,
while it retains its proper distinctions, may be varied many ways,
by sickness or health, youth or age, leanness or fatness, good or
bad humour. The _same words_, spoken by foreigners and natives,
nay, by different provinces of the same nation, may be very easily
distinguished.”[76]