It is as _signs_, indeed, far more than as mere pleasures in themselves, that our sensations are to us of such inestimable value. Even in the case to which I before alluded, of the symbolic or arbitrary characters of a language, when we consider all the important purposes to which these are subservient, as raising us originally from absolute barbarism, and saving us from relapsing into it, there might be an appearance of paradox, indeed, but there would be perfect truth in asserting, that the sensations which are themselves indifferent, are more precious, even in relation to happiness itself, than the sensations which are themselves accompanied with lively delight, or rather, of which it is the very essence to be delightful. Happiness, though necessarily involving present pleasure, is the direct or indirect, and often the very distant result of feelings of every kind, pleasurable, painful, and indifferent. It is like the beautiful profusion of flowers, which adorn our summer fields. In our admiration of the foliage, and the blossoms, and the pure airs and sunshine, in which they seem to live, we almost forget the darkness of the soil in which their roots are spread. Yet how much should we err, if we were to consider them as deriving their chief nutriment from the beams that shine around them, in the warmth and light of which we have wandered with joy. That delightful radiance alone would have been of little efficacy, without the showers, from which, in those very wanderings, we have often sought shelter at noon; or at least without the dews, which were unheeded by us, as they fell silently and almost insensibly on our evening walk. With the common division of our sensations into five classes,--those of smell, taste, hearing, sight, touch, we have been familiar, almost from our childhood; and though the classification may be far from perfect, in reference to our sensations themselves, considered simply as affections of the mind, it is sufficiently accurate, in reference to the mere organs of sense; for, though our sensations of _heat_ and _cold_, in one very important respect, which is afterwards to be considered by us, have much less resemblance to the other sensations which we acquire by our organs of touch, or at least to sensations, which we are generally supposed to derive from that organ, than to sensations, which we receive by the medium of other organs, our sensations of smell and sound for example--still, as they arise from an affection of the same organ, they may be more conveniently referred to the same, than to any other class; since, if we quit that obvious line of distinction, which the difference of organs affords, we shall not find it easy to define them by other lines as precise.