Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/219

Rh lustrate or to enforce them either by reasoning or by examples. In all these respects, his style forms a complete contrast to that of Bacon’s.

In Descartes’ epistolary compositions, indeed, ample evidences are to be found of his vivacity and fancy, as well as of his classical taste. One of the most remarkable is a letter addressed to Balzac, in which he gives his reasons for preferring Holland to all other countries, not only as a tranquil, but as an agreeable residence for a Philosopher; and enters into some very engaging details concerning his own petty habits. The praise bestowed on this letter by Thomas is by no means extravagant, when he compares it to the best of Balzac’s. “Je ne sçais s’il y a rien dans tout Balzac où il y ait autant esprit et d’agrément.”

, p. 111.

It is an error common to by far the greater number of modern metaphysicians, to suppose that there is no medium between the innate ideas of Descartes, and the opposite theory of Gassendi. In a very ingenious and learned essay on Philosophical Prejudices, by M. Trembley, I find the following sentence: “Mais l’expérience dément ce systême des idées inneés, puisque la privation d’un sens emporte avec elle la privation des idées attachées à ce sens, comme l’a remarqué l’illustre auteur de l’Essai Analytique sur les Facultés de l’Ame.”

What are we to understand by the remark here ascribed to Mr Bonnet? Does it mean nothing more than this, that to a person born blind, no instruction can convey an idea of colours, nor to a person born deaf, of sounds? A remark of this sort surely did not need to be sanctioned by the united names of Bonnet and of Trembley: Nor, indeed, does it bear in the slightest degree on the point in dispute. The question is not about our ideas of the material world, but about those ideas on metaphysical and moral subjects, which may be equally imparted to the blind and to the deaf; enabling them to arrive at the knowledge of the same truths, and exciting in their minds the same moral emotions. The signs employed in the reasonings of these two classes of persons will of course excite by association, in their respective fancies, very different material images; but whence the origin of the physical and moral notions of which these signs are the vehicle, and for suggesting which, all sets of signs seem to be equally fitted? The astonishing scientific attainments of many persons, blind from their birth, and the progress lately made in the instruction of the deaf, furnish palpable and incontestible proofs of the flimsiness of this article of the Epicurean philosophy;—so completely verified is now the original and profound conclusion long ago formed by Dalgarno, “That the soul can exert her powers by the ministry of any of the senses: And, therefore, when she is deprived of her principal secretaries, the eye and the ear, then she must be contented with the service of her lackeys and scullions, the other senses; which are no less true and faithful to their mistress than the eye and the ear; but not so quick for dispatch.” Didascalocophus, &c. Oxford, 1680.

I was once in hopes of being able to throw a still stronger light on the subject of this note, by attempting to ascertain experimentally the possibility of awakening and cultivating the dormant powers of a boy destitute of the organs both of sight and of hearing; but unexpected occurrences have disappointed my expectations.

I have just learned, that a case somewhat similar, though not quite so favourable in all its circumstances, has recently occurred in the state of Connecticut in New England; and I have the satisfaction to add, there is some probability that so rare an opportunity for philosophical observations and experiments will not be overlooked in that quarter of the world.