PART I. the most manifest symptoms of horror and dis CHAP. II. tress. Yet these symptoms could not arise from Of Smell. any associated ideas of danger or death; since they appear in them, that never had any opportu ties of acquiring such ideas. They must therefore be instinctive, like other innate antipathies and propensities; in which sensation appears to operate upon the passions and mental affections more immediately, than it is ever found to do in the human species. 5. An eminent author, who makes terror to be a principal source of the sublime, has thence conceived a notion (upon a principle, indeed, different from that here stated) of stinks being sublime; though he acknowledges that he never could bring his mind to act in unison with his nose, so as to satisfy himself that he had really smelt a sublime stink. Through the medium of description, however, he has no doubt of the sentiment being excited by this sensation; in proof of which he quotes a celebrated passage of Virgil*. In this, however, as well as in many other instances, this truly great author has most unphilosophically mistaken a power for a sensation: a mistake, for which no excuse can be made but the early period of life, at which the *Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful. Part II. s. xxi. CHAP. II. Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful was written; PART I. and his having soon after, unfortunately for his peace of mind, abandoned himself to more active Of Smell. pursuits," and to party given up what was meant for mankind." But, nevertheless, at this early period, his feelings were generally right, even where his judgment was most wrong; so that he felt, though he did not know that, in the description, it is the power only, and in the reality, the sensation only, that affects the mind, or is at all perceived by it. But of this more hereafter: at present I shall merely observe, in justice to his memory, that, in his latter days, he laughed very candidly and good-humouredly at many of the philosophical absurdities, which will be here exposed; and I must add, in justice to myself, that I should not have thus undertaken to expose them, had they not been since adopted by others, and made to contribute so largely to the propagation of bad taste; of which instances will be given in the proper place. 6. In exciting the sexual desires of animals, the sense of smell seems to be no further concerned than in indicating their object; the real principles and incentives of their desires being certain internal stimuli, which operate periodically with a degree of viclence far surpassing that of any other appetite. PART I. CHAP. II. Of Smell. tum sævus aper, tum pessima tigris: Heu male tum Libya solis erratur in agris! GEORGIC. III. 248. No sooner are these stimuli felt, than every thing else, even the preservation of their own existence, seems to be forgotten. Food is neglected; dangers are encountered; wounds are endured without appearing to be felt; and all obstacles are borne down or surmounted: the timid become valiant; and the valiant, furiously mad. CHAPTER III. OF TOUCH, СНАР. 11. 1. THE pleasures of touch, if we omit those PART I. arising from the communication of the sexes, are few beyond the variations of warmth and cool- Of Touch. ness; and even those few are extremely limited in their degree. The elegant author, indeed, before cited, has expatiated upon the gratifications of feeling smooth and undulating surfaces in general: but, I believe, these gratifications have been confined to himself; and probably to his own imagination acting through the medium of his favourite system: for, except in the communication of the sexes, which affords no general illustration, and ought therefore to be kept entirely out of the question, I have never heard of any person being addicted to such luxuries; though a feeling board would certainly afford as cheap and innocent a gratification, as either a smelling-bottle, a picture, or a flute, provided it were capable of affording any grati fication at all. 2. This notion of smoothness being beauty CHAP. III. PART I. seems to have arisen, like many other erroneous notions of the same kind, from the common、 Of Touch. mistake of a particular sexual sympathy for a general principle. We all know how essential a smooth skin is to the charms of a desirable woman; and, as, in the other sex, whatever is desirable is commonly called beautiful, we naturally apply the same term to correspondent qualities in other objects, although they excite no similar sentiments or feelings. Those beauties, which owe their existence as beauties to sexual sympathies, are so much more powerful and efficient than any others, that they extend their influence, by means of trains of associated ideas, to a vast distance from its source: but, abstracted from such sympathies, the pleasures of this sense, if pleasures they may be called, seem to arise from gentle irritation; which, if it be extended beyond a certain degree, proportioned always to the sensibility of the part, becomes painful; and as this sense of touch extends over the whole body, the pain, which it can endure, knows no limit but the termination of life; a limit, which enlarges the scale of corporeal pain far beyond that of corporeal pleasure. 3. The modes of irritation, which the touch, abstracted from the other senses, is capable of, |