sults of the frequent exercise of this sense in the quickness, which the dealer in wines discovers in distinguishing the flavor of one wine from that of another. So marked are the results in cases of this kind, that one is almost disposed to credit the story, which Cervantes relates of two persons, who were requested to pass their judgment upon a hogshead, which was supposed to be very old and excellent. One of them tasted the wine and pronounced it to be very good, with the exception of a slight taste of leather, which he perceived in it. The other, after mature reflection and examination, pronounced the same favorable verdict, with the exception of a taste of iron, which he could easily distinguish. On emptying the hogshead, there was found at the bottom an old key with a leathern thong tied to it.

Another practical view of this subject, however, presents itself here. The sensations, which we experience in this and other like cases, not only acquire by repetition greater niceness and discrimination, but increased strength; (and perhaps the increased strength is in all instances the foundation of the greater power of discrimination.) On this topic we have a wide and melancholy source of illustration. The bibber of wine, and the drinker of ardent spirits readily acknowledge, that the sensation was at first only moderately pleasing, and perhaps in the very slightest degree. Every time they carried the intoxicating potion to their lips, the sensation grew more pleasing, and the desire for it waxed stronger. Perhaps they were not aware that this process was going on in virtue of a great law of humanity; but they do not pretend to deny the fact. They might indeed have suspected at an early period, that chains were gathering around them, whatever might be the cause; but what objection had they to be bound with links of flowers; delightful while they lasted, and easily broken when necessary! But here was the mistake. Link was added to link; chain was woven with chain, till he, who boasted of his strength, was at last made sensible of his weakness, and found himself a prisoner, a captive, a deformed, altered, and degraded slave.

There is a three-fold operation. The sensation of taste acquires an enhanced degree of pleasantness; the feeling of uneasiness is increased in a corresponding measure, when

the sensation is not indulged by drinking; and the desire, which is necessarily attendant on the uneasy feeling, becomes in like manner more and more imperative. To alleviate the uneasy feeling and this importunate desire, the unhappy man goes again to his cups, and with a shaking hand pours down the delicious poison. What then? He has added a new link to his chain; at every repetition it grows heavier and heavier, till that, which at first he bore lightly and cheerfully, now presses him like a coat of iron, and galls like fetters of steel. There is a great and fearful law of his nature bearing him down to destruction. Every indulgence is the addition of a new weight to what was before placed upon him, thus lessening the probability of escape, and accelerating his gloomy, fearful, and interminable sinking. We do not mean to say, that he is the subject of an implacable destiny, and cannot help himself. But it would seem that he can help himself only in this way; by a prompt, absolute, and entire suspension of the practice in all its forms, which has led him into this extremity. But few however have the resolution to do this; the multitude make a few unwilling and feeble efforts, and resign themselves to the horrors of their fate.

Some years since there was a pamphlet published in England, entitled the Confessions of a Drunkard. The statements made in it are asserted on good authority to be authentic. And what does the writer say?"Of my condition. there is no hope that it should ever change; the waters have gone over me; but out of the black depths could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is, when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will,-to see his destruction, and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself; to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self ruins could he see my fevered eye, feverish with the last

night's drinking, and feverishly looking for this night's repetition of the folly; could he feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly, with feebler and feebler outcry, to be delivered, it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation."*

§. 100. Of habit in relation to the hearing.

There is undoubtedly a natural difference in the quickness and discrimination of hearing. This sense is more acute in some than in others; but in those, who possess it in much natural excellence, it is susceptible of a high degree of cultivation. Musicians are a proof of this, whose sensibility to the melody and concord of sweet sounds continually increases with the practice of their art.

This increase of sensibility in the perceptions of hearing is especially marked and evident, when uncommon causes have operated to secure such practice. And this is the state of things with the Blind. The readers of Sir Walter Scott may not have forgotten the blind fiddler, who figures so conspicuously with verse and harp in Red Gauntlet; a character sufficiently extraordinary, but by no means an improbable exaggeration. The blind necessarily rely much more than others on the sense of hearing. By constant practice they increase the accuracy and power of its perceptions. Shut out from the beauties that are seen, they please themselves with what is heard, and greedily drink in the melodies of song. Accordingly music is made by them not only a solace, but a business and a means of support; and in the Institutions for the Blind this is considered an important department of instruction. ·

Many particular instances on record and well authenticated confirm the general statement, that the ear may be trained to habits, and that thus the sensations of sound may come to us with new power and meaning. It is related of a celebrated blind man of Puiseaux in France, that he could determine the quantity of fluid in vessels by the sound it produced while running from one vessel into another. "Dr. Rush, (as the statement is given in Abercrombie's Intellectual Powers,) relates of two blind young men, brothers, of the city of Phil

* London Quarterly Review, Vol. XXVII, p. 130.

adelphia, that they knew when they approached a post in walking across a street, by a peculiar sound which the ground under their feet emitted in the neighborhood of the post; and that they could tell the names of a number of tame pigeons, with which they amused themselves in a little garden, by only hearing them fly over their heads." Dr. Saunderson, who became blind so early as not to remember having seen, when happening in any new place, as a room, piazza, pavement, court, and the like, gave it a character by means of the sound and echo from his feet; and in that way was able to identify pretty exactly the place, and assure himself of his position afterwards. A writer in the First Volume of the Manchester Philosophical Memoirs, who is our authority also for the statement just made, speaks of a certain blind man in that city as follows;-"I had an opportunity of repeatedly observing the peculiar manner, in which he arranged his ideas, and acquired his information. Whenever he was introduced into company, I remarked that he continued some time silent. The sound directed him to judge of the dimensions of the room; and the different voices, of the number of persons that were present. His distinction in these respects was very accurate; and his memory so retentive, that he was seldom mistaken. I have known him instantly recognize a person, on first hearing him, though more than two years had elapsed since the time of their last meeting. He determined pretty nearly the stature of those he was conversing with, by the direction of their voices; and he made tolerable conjectures respecting their tempers and dispositions, by the manner in which they conducted their conversation."

§. 101. Of certain universal habits based on sounds.

There are certain habits of hearing, (perhaps we should say classes of habits,) which all men, by the aid of the other senses, combined with that of the judgment, form at an early period of life. The first class of habits here referred to are those, which have relation to the particular cause and the distance of sounds. The manner, in which we learn these, has been pointed out in a previous section. (§. 66.) The mere sensations of sound are entirely a distinct thing from the ideas of cause, place, and direction, which we generally

combine with them. Owing to frequent repetition from early life, this combination is effected so rapidly, that we are unable to retrace the successive steps of the process, and the whole seems to be involved in a single sensation. Perhaps it may be said, that the effect of repetition, (that is to say, the HABIT,) has a more direct and special relation to the act of judgment, which combines the reference with the sensation, than to the sensation itself. However that may be, it may still be proper to speak of habits of hearing in the respect now under consideration, when we remember, that the reference has been so long and closely interwoven with the sensation, as to be apparently and practically, though not really identical with it.

In respect to spoken language also, our habits are so laboriously and deeply founded, that we may almost consider ourselves as having a new sense superadded to that of hearing. In our ordinary conversation with others, we seem to hear the whole of what is said; nothing is lost as we imagine. But that this is not the fact, and that we are sustained in such cases not wholly by an actual sensation of sound, but in part at least by an acquired power of HABIT, is evident from this. When we hear proper names, whether of persons, places, or natural objects, pronounced for the first time, we often hesitate in respect to them; are not certain that we possess the syllables intended to be conveyed; and ask for the repetition of them. We experience the same difficulty and uncertainty, as every one must have known who has tried it, when we hear a person read or converse in a foreign language. But when the conversation is in our own language, and relates to persons and objects we are acquainted with, it is altogether different, as has already been intimated. But what is the ground of the difference? Why are we perplexed in one case, and not in the other?In our intercourse with others in conversation it almost constantly happens, (at least as much so as on any other occasions,) that the ear catches nothing but imperfect syllables, half-uttered words, sounds jumbled and commingled together; but we are nevertheless not commonly at a loss and perplexed, as in the cases before mentioned. By the aid of judgment and the power of conception, whose action has in this case by long repetition formed itself