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erienced by the blind on approaching any tall or broad object. We feel their presence when we are several yards from them. I have sometimes been startled by the sudden impression produced by a lamp-post, or tree when in fact it was a yard or more from me. The sensation is somewhat like receiving a smart blow in the face. I am frequently aware of passing a building while riding along a country road, and the proximity of trees, fences and other objects is quite perceptible. This is not a latent sense, developed by circumstances, as some have supposed, but a wonderful acuteness of the nerves of the face, and more particularly of the nerves of the eye-lids. These phenomena may, I think, be explained in this way. When one of the superior senses is absent, the perceptive force that has watched at the eye, or listened at the ear, is now transferred to other nerves of sensation. In other words, a deaf person is all eyes, and extremely alive to tangible percussions, as will be seen in the case of Dr. Kitto and others. The blind are all ears and fingers, and certain of the inferior animals are all ears and heels; I am not sure but there is some neck in both cases. Since it has been shown that new perceptions and conditions have been developed in the absence of one or more of the superior senses, that the deaf are so keenly cognizant of vibration or jar, which is the father of sound; that the blind can feel the presence of objects at short distances, which is analogous to sight, it should not be thought strange that we make such frequent use of the word _see_, or that the deaf should make use of the word _hear_, and that these words are not without significance or import. Besides this there is a mental perception (doubtless through a magnetic medium,) of the presence or nearness of other minds. This accords with the experience of many persons. I have frequently entered rooms that I supposed to be unoccupied, judging from the silence that reigned, but on taking an inventory of my feelings I found a consciousness of some one's presence, and this I have done when not the slightest sound aroused my suspicions. A little incident that occurred while I was a teacher in the New York Institution for the Blind will, perhaps, better illustrate this point. I called one evening at the matron's room to ask her to read a letter which had just been handed me. Supposing it to be a confidential one, and wishing to make sure that no one else was
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