O F T H E EXTERNAL SENSES. 299

notice of, between visible and tangible objets.In this language of Nature, it may be faid, theanalogies are more perfeft ; the etymologies, thedeclensions, and conjugations, if one may fay fo,are more regular than those of any human lan-guage. The rules are fewer, and those rules ad-mit of no exceptions.

But though it may have been altogether by theflow paces of observation and experience that thisyoung gentleman acquired the knowledge of theconnexion between visible and tangible objeéls;we cannot from thence with certainty infer, thatyoung children have not some inftinûive percep-tion of the fame kind. In him this inftindlive pow-er , not having been exerted at the proper sea-son , may, from disuse, have gone gradually todecay, and at laft have been completely oblitera-ted. Or, perhaps, ( what seems likewise very pos-sible, ) some feeble and unobserved remains of itmay have somewhat facilitated L.s acquisition olwhat he might otherwile have found it much moredifficult to acquire.

That, antecedent to all experience, the youngof at leaft the greater part of animals possess someînflinâive perception of this kind, seems abundant-ly evident. The hen never feeds her young bydropping the food into their bills, as the linnetand the thruffi feed theirs. Almoft as foon as herchickens are hatched, ffie does not feed them, butcarries them to the field to feed, where they walkabout at their eafe, it would feem, and appearto have the moft diftinft perception of all the

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