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o futurity. It is capable of penetrating into the causes of events, and discovering the connexion that exists between them. Governed by invariable laws, which connect him with all the beings, whether animate or inanimate, among which he exists, man has certain relations of convenience, and inconvenience, arising from the particular constitution of the surrounding objects, as well as of his own body. These external objects possess qualities which may be useful or prejudicial to him; and his interest requires, that he should be capable of ascertaining and appreciating these properties. It is by sensation, or feeling, that the knowledge of external objects is obtained. The faculty of feeling, modified in every organ, perceives those qualities for which the peculiar structure of the organ is fitted; and all the various sensations of sound, colour, taste, smell, resistance, and temperature, find appropriate organs by which they are perceived, without mixing with, or confounding each other. External objects, therefore, act upon the parts of the body endowed with feeling, and their action is diversified in such a manner, as to give us a great number of sensations, which appear to have no resemblance to each other, and which make us acquainted with the various properties of surrounding objects. It would not, however, have been sufficient for man, merely to have possessed this power of perceiving the different properties of the objects which surround him: it was necessary likewise, that he should be possessed of motion, that he might be able to approach or avoid them, to seize or repulse them, as it suited his convenience or advantage. By the extreme mobility of his limbs, he is able to move his body, and transport it from place to place; to bring external objects nearer to him, to remove them to a greater distance, and to place them in such situations and such circumstances, as may enable them to act on each other, and produce the changes which he wishes. The human body, therefore, may be regarded as a machine composed (besides the moving parts which have formerly been noticed) of divers organs upon which external objects act, and produce those impressions which convince us of their presence, and make us acquainted with their properties. These impressions are transmitted to the sentient principle, or mind; and the faculty we possess of perceiving these impressions has been called by physiologists, sensibility. Sensat
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