still older man, who has not been blind more than five years, and who can recall the most vivid conceptions of past scenes, persons, and things, I think I may infer, that, although the retina has lost its sensation of light, the adjusting muscles retain their power of reiterating the adjustments of long bygone sensations, by which the perceptions of memory are excited in the mind.

"There is a sensation by which we perceive a body to be hard or soft. But it is one thing to have the sensation felt on pressing the hand on a table, and another to attend to it, and make it a distinct object of reflection. The first is easy-the last difficult. We are so accustomed to use the sensation as a sign, and to pass immediately to the hardness signified, that, as far as appears, it was never made an object of thought, either by the vulgar or by philosophers. Nor has it a name [i. e. the sensation of hardness] in any language. There is no sensation more distinct or more frequent; but it is never attended to, but passes through the mind instantaneously, and serves only to introduce

that quality in bodies, which by a law of our constitution it suggests. I think it

probable that the novelty of this sensation will procure some attention to it in children at first. *** * Thus, when one is learning a language, he attends to the sounds; but when he is master of it, he attends only to the sense of what he would express.*"

Those who had the use of their eyes long enough to have adjustments of vision habitually associated with those of touch, find the visual spectrum recalled by touch, but cannot by a volition (whatever may be the efforts and mental attention exerted) recall the sensation of touch.

But the instance of Laura Bridgman (so well recorded by Dr. Howe), making words by the finger-alphabet in her dreams; the muscular efforts of dogs in their dreams, and those of which we ourselves have a sort of sleeping consciousness, while trying in a dream to escape from a bull; but, more convincing, the actual muscular movements of somnambulists; the twitching in amputated

* Reid on the Mind, pp. 103, 106.

legs referred to the long-felt ulcerated feetall seem to indicate, that, although we cannot recall the mere sensation of touch at the ends of our fingers, yet we have the reiteration of the muscular sense of feeling, and can, like Laura, recall this when we attend intensely to such evanescent feelings.

If the ends of our fingers have lain long in unheeded contact with a book, table, or other surface, we are not conscious of any sensation of touch till we move them. If, then, Dr. Reid's observation* be confined to passive touch, his opinion of the fact is confirmed by all whom I have asked to attend to this feeling.

For example, when the organs of sense are let to stand at ease, as it were, when the tension of its muscles required for its adjustments are relaxed, and the drum of the ear unbraced, we have little or no sensation, and consequently no definite perception of any surrounding object. While the eye is bent * "The mind is partly active, partly passive in sensation. I can think of the smell of a rose, even when the rose itself is not present."-Dr. Reid on the Mind, p. 38.

on vacancy, or glancing heedlessly on passing objects, we do not see definite outlines till we look and we must look and look again, before we can see such accurate relations of parts to the whole of an object as will make a faithful sketch of what we would impress on our memory. If we do not listen, the ear does not hear. The fingers may touch, but if they do not move over the surface and outlines with ever-varying pressure, they do not examine and, consequently, do not feel all they require to know. And those who have noticed the nostrils of a hound while tracing a scent, or an epicure while flavouring his wine, will be satisfied that this necessity of accurate adjustment for accurate sensation and perception is equally true of all our

senses.

Now, by a law of our constitution—and I believe this law will be found inherent in all animals the adjustments of all our organs of sense reciprocally influence each other through the medium of the muscular sense. For example, when sitting over a book we hear the rumbling of wheels on gravel made

by a coach, it suggests the visual coachwhen we feel our way in the dark, the several objects touched suggest their visual appearance. Richard Bright, who had seen till he was eleven years old, tells me he has as distinct a visual perception of the street and houses and of their relative situation in his native city, as any one who has the aid of sight to guide him.

Dr. Howe remarks, that Laura Bridgeman not only goes from room to room, but with unerring certainty puts her hand to the knob by which it is opened at the moment she is within the proper distance.

Dr. Brown, in his Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind, says, if the finger be alternately passed quickly and slowly over the same surfaces, while our eyes are closed, we shall estimate the distance of the edge of a book or table to be longer when the finger has moved slowly, than when it has moved quickly. This is an easy and satisfactory confirmation of the fact, that time is an element in our measure of space [extent], as the watch and sun-dial are proofs of the