Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/126

 which are esteemed the genuine signs, reasons, causes, &c. of sufferings. This is the case in general; but there are great particular differences both in children and adults; which yet, if accurately pursued, would probably not only be consistent with, but even confirm and illustrate, the doctrine of association.

And we may conclude upon the whole, since the pains of feeling are far more numerous and violent than those of all the other senses put together, that the greatest part of our intellectual pains are deducible from them.

In like manner the pleasures of an agreeable warmth, and refreshing coolness, when we are cold or hot respectively, of gentle friction and titillation, leave traces of themselves, which by association are made to depend upon words, and other symbols. But these pleasures, being faint and rare in comparison of others, particularly of those of taste, have but a small share in forming the intellectual pleasures. Titillation may perhaps be excepted. For laughter, which arises from it, is a principal pleasure in young children, and a principal source of the other pleasures, particularly of those of sociality and benevolence. Farther, since the miniatures left by the pains of feeling must in some cases be faint originally, in others decline from the diffusion, the faintness of the association, &c. these miniature pains will often fall within the limits of pleasure, and consequently become sources of intellectual pleasure; as in recollecting certain pains, in seeing battles, storms, wild beasts, or their pictures, or reading descriptions of them.



it may be observed, first, that the very words, burn, wound, &c. seem even in adults, though not formed into propositions, or heightened by a conjunction of circumstances, to excite, for the most part, a perception of the disagreeable kind; however, so faint in degree, that it may be reckoned amongst the number of ideas, agreeably to the definitions given in the Introduction.

Secondly, The words expressing the pleasures of this sense are probably attended with perceptions, though still fainter in degree. These perceptions may therefore be called the ideas belonging to those words.

Thirdly, The words moist, dry, soft, hard, smooth, rough, can scarce be attended with any distinguishable vibrations in the fingers, or parts of the brain corresponding thereto, on account of the faintness of the original impressions, and the great varieties of them; however, analogy leads us to think, that something of this kind must happen in a low degree. But when the qualities themselves are felt, and the appropriated vibrations raised, they lead by association to the words expressing them; and thus we can distinguish the several tangible qualities from each other by