Doubt, whether Man have all the Senfes. The first Confideration I have upon the Subject of the Senfes is, that I make a Doubt, whether, or no, Man be furnished with all the natural Senfes. I fee several Animals, who live an intire and perfect Life, fome without Sight, others without Hearing: Who knows, whether to us alfo, one, two, or three, or many other Senfes may not be wanting? For, if any one be wanting, our Reafon cannot difcover the Want thereof: 'Tis the Privilege of the Senfes to be the utmost Limit of our Perception: There is nothing beyond them that can affift us in difcovering them; nor can any one Senfe discover the Extent of another. An poterunt oculos aures reprehendere, an aures i. e. Can Ears the Eyes, the Touch the Ears correct; They all make the extremeft Limits of our Ability. Divifa eft, fua vis cuique est*. i. e. Each has its Power diftinctly, and alone, It is impoffible to make a Man, born Blind, conceive that he does not fee; impoffible to make him defire Sight, or. to lament the Want of it: For which Reason, we ought not to derive any Affurance from the Soul's being contented and fatisfied with those we have; confidering, that it cannot be fenfible herein of its Infirmity and Imperfec-. tion, if there be any fuch Thing: It is impoffible to fay, any Thing to this blind Man, either by Reafon, Argument, or Similitude, that can poffefs his Imagination with any Notion of Light, Colour, and Sight: There nothing A a 3 remains 2 Book II. remains behind, that can produce the Senfe to Evidence. Those that are born Blind, who fay they wish they could fee, it is not that they understand what they defire: They have learned, from us, that they want fomething; that there is fomething to be defired, that we have, which they name indeed, together with its Effects and Confequents, but yet they know not what it is, nor apprehend it at all. I have feen a Gentleman, of a good Family, who was born Blind, or, at least, Blind, from fuch an Age, that he knows not what Sight is; who is fo little fenfible of his Defect, that he makes Ufe, as we do, of Words proper to Seeing, and applies them after a manner wholly particular, and his own. They brought him a Child, to which he was Godfather, which having taken into his Arms Good God, faid he, what a fine Child is this, what a pretty Face it has! He will fay, like one of us, this Room has a very fine Profpect; it is clear Weather; the Sun fhines bright.' And, moreover, as Hunting, Tennis, and fhooting at Butts are our Exercises, and he has heard fo; he has taken a Fancy to them, makes them his 'Exercise, believes he has as good a Share of the Sport as we have, and will exprefs himself angry or pleafed, as we do, and yet knows nothing of it but by the Ear. One cries out to him, Here's a Hare,' when he is upon fome even Plain, where he may gallop; and, afterwards, when they tell him, The Hare is killed,' he will be as overjoyed, and proud of it, as he hears others are. He will take a Tennis-ball in his Left-hand, and ftrike it away with the Racket: He will fhoot with a Mufquet at Random, and is contented with what his People tell him, that he is over or wide of the Mark. Who knows, whether Mankind commits not the like Abfurdity, for want of fome Senfe, and that, through this Defect, the greatest Part of the Face of Things is concealed from us? What do we know, but that the Difficulties, which we find in feveral Works of Nature, are owing to this; and that diverfe Effects of Animals, which exceed our Capacity, are produced by the Power of fome Sense, that we are defective in? And whether fome of them have not, by this Means, a Life more full and intire than ours? We I We feize an Apple, as it were, with all our Senfes : We ' find Redness, Smoothnefs, Smell, and Sweetness in it; but it may have other Qualities befides these, as drying up or binding, which no Sense of ours can reach to. Is it not likely, that there are fenfitive Faculties in Nature, that are fit to judge of, and to discern thofe, which we call the occult Properties in several Things, as for the Loadftone to attract Iron; and that the want of fuch Faculties is the Cause that we are ignorant of the true Effence of fuch Things? 'Tis, peradventure, fome particular Senfe, that gives Cocks to understand what Hour it is of Morning, and of Midnight, and makes them to crow accordingly; that teaches Chickens, before they have any Experience of what they are, to fear a Sparrow-hawk, and not a Goose, or a Peacock, though Birds of a much larger Size: That warns them of the hoftile Quality a Cat has against them, and makes them not to fear a Dog; to arm themselves against the Mewing (a kind of flattering Voice) of the one, and not against the Barking (a fhrill and angry Note) of the other: That teaches Wafps, Ants, and Rats to fall upon the best Pear, and the best Cheese, before they have tafted them; and infpires the Stag, Elephant, and Serpent, with the Knowledge of a certain Herb proper for their Cure. There is no Sense, that has not a great Dominion, and that does not produce an infinite Number of Discoveries. If we were defective in the Intelligence of Sounds, of Mufic, and of the Voice, it would caufe an inconceivable Confufion in all the reft of our Science: For, befides what is annexed to the proper Effect of every Senfe, how many Arguments, Confequences, and Conclufions do we draw to other Things, by comparing one Sense with another? Let an understanding Man imagine human Nature originally produced without the Senfe of Seeing, and confider what Ignorance and Trouble fuch a Defect would bring upon him, what a Darkness and Blindness in the Soul; he will then fee, by that, of how great Importance to the Knowledge of Truth the Privation of fuch another. Senfe, or of two or three, fhould we be fo deprived, would A a 4 bé: f All this is taken from Sextus Empiricus's Pyrrhon. Hypotypof. lib. i. c. 14. Book II. be: We have formed a Truth by the Confultation and Concurrence of our five Senfes; but, peradventure, we fhould have the Confent and Contribution of eight or ten, to make a certain Discovery of it, and of its Effence. The Sects that controvert the Knowledge of Man, do it principally by the Uncertainty and Weakness of our Senses: For fince all Knowledge is, by their Means and Mediation, conveyed unto us, if they fail in their Report, if they corrupt or alter what they bring us from without, if the Light which, by them, creeps into the Soul, be obfcured in the Paffage, we have nothing elfe to hold by. From this extreme Difficulty all these Fancies proceed, that every Subject has, in itself, all we there find: That it has nothing in it of what we think to find there; and the Epicureans Notion, that the Sun is no bigger than 'tis judged, by our Sight, to be: Human Knowledge controverted by the Weakness and Uncertainty of our Senfes. Quicquid id eft, nihilo fertur majore figurâ, i. e. But, be it what it will in our Efteem, It is no bigger than to us doth feem. That the Appearances, which reprefent a Body great to him that is near, and less to him that is far from it, are both true : Nec tamen hic oculis falli concedimus bilum ; i. e. Yet that the Eye's deceived, we deny; ; Charge not the Mind's Fault therefore on the Eye. And, positively, that there is no Deceit in the Senfes that we are to lie at their Mercy, and feek elsewhere Reafons to excufe the Difference and Contradictions we therein find, even to the Inventing of Lyes, and other Flams, (for Lucret. lib. v. v. 677. What Lucretius fays here of the Moon, Montaigne applies to the Sun, of which, according to Epicurus's Principles, the fame Thing may be affirmed. Lucret. lib. iv. v. 380,-385. (for 'tis come to that) rather than accuse the Senfes. Timagoras fwore, That, by preffing or turning his. Eye", he could never perceive the Light of the Candle to double, and that the feeming fo proceeded from the Miftake of Opinion, and not from the Eye.' The most abfurd of all Abfurdities, in the Judgment of the Epicureans, is, in denying the Force and Effect of the • Senfes.' Proinde quod in quoque eft his vifum tempore, veram eft, Cur ea que fuerint juxtim quadrata, procul fint i. e. Whatever, and whenever seen, is true, This k Çic. Acad. Quæft. lib. iv. c. 25. 1 Lucret. lib. iv. v. 502-513. |