speaking in a general
way, our thoughts, in themselves appear very much as the shadows or
reflection of our perceptions. As we are but little capable of
communicating the nature of our perceptions, independently of language,
we must have recourse to inference and conjecture. It is fully
understood that our visual perceptions, through the medium of
recollection, may be represented by the skilful execution of the hand;
and that those of smell, taste, and touch do not directly admit of such
delineation. We might next inquire, if the odours we perceive are as
strongly impressed on the olfactory organ, as the subjects of visual
perception on the eye? Are they as fully and distinctly recollected? and
are they capable by themselves of affording the materials for thought or
reflection? Animals possess certain senses in common with ourselves;
and, in many, the organs are more susceptible than our own; but there
are no circumstances which have yet transpired, to induce us to suppose
that the perceptions they have acquired are reviewed by their minds,
when the objects which excited them are absent. The memory they possess
of the perceptions they have experienced, is perhaps superior to that
of human beings; still it does not appear, from any manifestations they
afford, that it is actively exercised, as with ourselves, but
occasionally excited by the recurrence of the object which originally
produced it. Language is the pencil which marks the bold outline, and
lends a colouring to our different perceptions; and with this boon man
is exclusively gifted. A rational curiosity will prompt the reader to
inquire, in what our perceptions consist independently of the language
in which we ordinarily clothe them. In the instance of optical
perception, we know that it is _something_ which is retained by the
memory, and may be traced by the hand, so as to convince others that it
is truly remembered or recollected[15]; but let the same enquiry be
made concerning the perceptions we receive by the touch, the smell, and
the taste: in this investigation we shall experience much greater
difficulty, as it is an endeavour to conceive the nakedness of a figure
which is always clothed. That these perceptions must also be _something_
abstracted from the terms which represent them, is proved, by the
circumstance, that they are recollected when they occur again. As we are
educated by language, and acquire a facility of employing it as the
vehicle of our th