OCR Text |
Show ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO III. The fly of night illumes his airy way, .And seeks with lucid lamp his sleeping prey; Fierce on his foe the poisoning serpent springs, And insect armies dart their venom'd stings. " Proud Man alone in wailing weakness born' No horns protect him, and no plumes adorn; No finer powers of nostril, ear, or eye, Teach the young Reasoner to pursue or fly.Nerved with fine touch above the bestial throngs, The hand, first gift of Heaven 1 to man belongs; T!2ejly if night, 1. I 1:3. Lampyris noctiluca. Fire-fly. 120 The hand, first gift if Ifea'Ven, 1. 122. The human species in some of their sensations are much inferior to animals, yet the accurac~ of the sense of touch, which they possess in so eminent a degree, gtves them a o-reat superiority of understanding; as is well observed b! the inge~ious Mr. Buffon. The extremities of other animals terminate in horns, and hoofs, and claws, very unfit for the sensation .of touch· whilst the human hand is finely adapted to encompass Its objec; with this organ of sense. Those animals who have clavicles or collar-bones, and thence use their fore-feet like hands, as cats, squirrels, monkeys, are more ingenious than other quadrupe~ls, except the elephaiit, who has a fine sense at the extremity of his proboscis; and many insects from the possessing finer organs of touch l1ave greater ingenuity, as spiders, bees, wasps.. CANTO III. PROGRESS OF THE MIND. U:ntipt with claws the circling fingers close, With rival points the bending thumbs oppose, Trace the nice lines of Form with sense refined, And clear ideas charm the thinking mind. '-''hence the fine organs of the touch impart Ideal figure, source of every art; Time, motion, number, sunshine or the storm, 93 But mark varieties in Nature's fortJz. 130 'Frace the nice lines if form, 1. 1!25. When the idea· of solidity is excited a part of the extensive organ of touch is compressed by some external body, and this part of the sensorium so compressed exactly resembles in figure the figure of the body that compressed it. Hence when we acquire the idea of solidity, we acquire at the same time the idea of figure; and this idea of figure, or motion of a part of the organ of touch, exactly resembles in its figure the figure of the body that occasions it; and thus exactly acquaints us with this property of the external world. Now, as the whole universe with all its parts possesses a certain form or figure, if any part of it moves, that form or figure of the whole is varied. Hence, as motion is no other than a perpetual variation of figure, our idea of motion is also a real resemblance of tl1e motion that produced it. Hence arises the certainty of the mathematical sciences, as they explain these properties of bodies, which are exactly resembled by our ideas of them, whilst we are obliged to collect almost all our other know ledge from experiment; that is, by observing the effects e.~erted by one body upon another. |