signable proportion till forced to the cultivavation of some by the deficiency of others. Sir Charles Bell's investigation of the functions of the muscular sense led him to conclude, that "the exercise of our muscular frame is the source of much of the knowledge which is usually supposed to be obtained through the organs of the senses; and to this source also we must trace some of our chief enjoyments."

I have already adduced many proofs that it is by the agency of this that all the organs of our other senses are adjusted; and that, till so adjusted as to bring the points of greatest sensibility of the eye, the finger, the lips, and the tongue (at least) to bear on their respective objects, we have no distinct apprehension of them.

By how slight a touch the muscular sense is roused to activity, I have given an instance in poor Sullivan; and Dr. Howe has told us, that the slightest touch of the hand in passing Laura's numerous blind companions in the Asylum sufficed to apprise both her and them, that they had perfectly recognised each other.

It may assist our apprehension of this and similar facts, when we reflect on the innumerable intimations conveyed to the ear by vibrations of the air on the strings of an Eolian harp.

The happiness of persons deprived of organs of sense we may hope is not so much abridged as we might imagine. Laura is as prone to play, and appears always to enjoy it, as much as any of her companions. All the internal feelings which constitute our appetites, affections, emotions, and passions seem to exist in as great perfection in Laura as in others. Many instances are given by Dr. Howe of her keen affection for friends and relatives, and her quick apprehension of the ridiculous.

The peculiarity in the condition of the deaf and blind which has most arrested my attention is the quickness and accuracy of their perceptions through the medium of their remaining senses. Some attribute this to the quickened sensibility in the nerves of their senses. I am rather disposed to attribute it to the necessity of giving a more intense at

tention of the mind to their remaining sensations, and thus acquiring by practice a more perfect control of the adjusting muscles by which each sense searches for its object. Some have thought that touch alone is active in sensation; but any one may satisfy himself that this is not the case, if he attends to the efforts made by the other senses while we are testing the less obvious properties of their objects.

On the whole, I think it may be safely inferred, that the blind and the deaf have many and substantial compensations. If debarred from pleasures enjoyed by others, they escape many vexations. One of the happiest, the most intelligent, and the most conversable persons I ever met at table was the late Judge Burton. The born blind may not be fully aware of the pleasures and conveniences they lose; but he had enjoyed them in their fullest extent.

Few as are the instances cited in these pages of privations of organs of sense, they may still, I think, countenance the inference, that all our knowledge is not derived from

them alone, and that, as Arbuthnot has said in the following beautiful lines, we are really something more than what we seem :—

What am I?

Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood,
A branching channel with a mazy flood-
This frame, compacted with transcendent skill,
Of moving joints, obedient to my will,

Nurs'd from the fruitful glebe like yonder tree,
Waxes and wastes? I call it mine, not me ;
New matter still the mould'ring mass sustains-
The mansion chang'd, the tenant still remains,
And from the fleeting stream repair'd by food,
Distinct as is the swimmer from the flood.

But the argument for the distinct existence of mind is further strengthened by the observation of Professor Dugald Stewart, that all the phenomena of mind differ from all the phenomena of matter; and of matter, says Professor J. Robinson, we know nothing but its phenomena. They are as distinct from each other as man can conceive of difference. In Laura, we have a decisive proof that intelligence is not directly in the ratio of the senses. With the exception of touch and the

muscular sense, it may be doubted whether she has distinct sensation from any other organ; but her intelligence far surpasses that of many in whom all the senses are perfect.

I found two fine young women in Wales equally deaf and dumb. One had received all the instruction which could be given to her at an asylum. The other had remained at home; yet this surpassed her educated sister in quickness of apprehension and intelligence as much as one individual can evince superiority over another. That MIND does not bear any proportion to the perfection of the organs of sense abundant proof may be found, by all who may hunt for it, in the hawk, the hound, the salmon, and the mountain goat, who measure their leaps with such unerring precision.

If any ordinary measure of distance were put into the hands of Laura, she would be as capable of estimating the distance between its ends as I should be. But she could also imagine its extension to a mile-to a thousand miles-to infinity; for, at whatever distance her imagination might stop, she could