Page:Physiological Researches upon Life and Death.djvu/38

Rh are confounded in one—this is precise, and distinguishes the slightest fault in the song, while in the latter the two ears offer different sensations, the perception is habitually confused and cannot estimate the defect of harmony. It is for the same reason that you see one man in me dance regulate his steps to the music of the orchestra, while another, on the contrary, is in constant discord with it.

Buffon has confined to the eye and ear, his considerations on the harmony of action. Let us pursue the examination in animal life.

In smell, as in the other senses, two impressions must be distinguished, the one primitive and belonging to the organ, the other consecutive and affecting the sensorium: the latter may vary while the former remains the same. By certain odours some persons are driven from a place to which others are attracted; this is not because the affection of the pituitary is different, but because the mind attaches different sensations to the same impression, so that the variety of results in these, is no indication of any in their principle.

But sometimes the impression made upon the pituitary, differs from what it really ought to be for the perfection of the sensation. Two dogs pursue the same game; the one never loses the scent, follows it in all its windings and turnings; the other follows also, but stops often, loses the foot, as it is called, hesitates and endeavours to recover it runs on and again stops. The first of these dogs receives a lively impression from the odorous emanations: while they only confusedly affect the organ of the second. Is not this confusion occasioned by the inequality of action of the two nostrils, by the superior organization of the one, and by the weakness of the other? The following observations appear to prove it.