EV. And do you not see, dear Astrophel, the dilemma of this argument? Before the deaf and dumb pupil can adopt a language, by which to make his preceptor sensible of his thoughts or sentiments, he must have had certain facts or knowledge imparted to _him_, by _signs_ or other modes of instruction. The modes of mutual understanding must first emanate from the tutor, and with these ideas may be excited, which, at first sight, may seem to be innate or _unassisted_. Believe not that I deny a moral consciousness of the existence of the Deity and of our immortality; but how can we _prove_ it, in those who have no sense to explain it? If it were possible to find a creature so wretched as to be endued with no external sense from his birth, such a being would neither dream nor think; he would lead the life almost of a zoophyte, ceasing, of course, to be a responsible agent! Caspar Hauser never dreamed, till he slept at Professor Daunay’s, and had been introduced to intellectual society, and been _taught_; and then, even, he could not comprehend the _nature_ of his dreams. The arguments in the “Phædo” of Plato point to this truth, that the _germ_ of all ideas is _sown_ in the mind by the _senses_. So, also, the metaphysics of Kant teach that the senses are feelers or conductors, by which we obtain materials of our knowledge; and indeed that matter and sensation are synonymous; that matter exists _à priori_ in the mind. This was the belief of Coleridge, that there can be nothing fancied in our dreams, without an _antecedent quasi cause_, a Roman having written, before him, the same sentiment:— “Nihil in _intellectu_, quod non prius in _sensu_.” Remember still that this philosophy is apart from revelation. I am aware that among the deaf and dumb high moral sentiments may exist. But if they can read essays, these sentiments may be imbibed in their reading. And yet a very learned lord has asserted, that a being, doomed to absolute solitude and estrangement from his very birth, could discover the principles of algebra! At this sophism, oh shade of Epictetus! thou mightest rise, to vindicate the importance of our beautiful senses; of the eye, beyond all, that achromatic globe of brightest crystal, the contemplation of which first convinced thee of _design_ in the Creator, and prompted thee to pen the first “Bridgewater Treatise.” On the opening, or even the restoration of a sense, in this forlorn “plant animal,” all his associations would be erroneous. He would, at first, _see double_; he would, like children, consider all bodies, however distant, within his grasp; and, like the idiot, draw all his figures _topsy-turvy_, as they are really painted on the retina, until judgment and practice rectified his error. I do not reason hypothetically, for these truths were illustrated in the youth whose pupils were opened by the operation of Cheselden.