Buffon's Natural History. Volume 05 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c — John Shaqi
Buffon's Natural History. Volume 05 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &cBuffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History. Volume 05 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
In proportion as these senses are acute and perfect does the animal
shew itself active and intelligent. In man the improvement is not
so conspicuous, because he exercises his ear and his eye by means
more rational and ingenious. Those persons who see, hear, or smell,
imperfectly, are of no less intellectual capacity than others; an
evident proof that in man there is something more than an internal
animal sense. This is the soul of man, which is a superior sense, a
spiritual substance, entirely different in its essence and action from
the nature of the external senses.
From this, however, we are not to deny that there is in man an internal
material sense corresponding with the external senses. But what I
maintain is, that the latter is infinitely subordinate to the other;
that the spiritual substance governs it, and either destroys or creates
its operations. In the animal this sense is the determinating principle
of motion, but in man only the means, or the secondary cause.
Let us endeavour to clear up this important point, and let us see what
power this internal material sense possesses, and what it is capable
of producing. The internal material sense receives promiscuously all
the impressions the external senses transmit to it. These impressions
proceed from the action of objects; they only pass over the external
senses, and produce in them but an instantaneous vibration; they
rest, however, upon the internal sense, and produce in the brain,
which is its organ, durable and distinct agitations. These vibrations
create appetite or disgust, inclination or repugnance, according
to the present state and disposition of an animal. An animal, the
instant after its birth, begins to breathe, and to feel the want of
nourishment; the smell, which is the sense of appetite, receives the
emanations of the milk which is contained in the teats of its mother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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