THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For JUL Y, 1764. Conclufion of the Account of an Enquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Senfe. A Great part of what Dr. Reid has advanced, concerning the fenfe of Smelling, (of which we gave a full account in our Review for May) is fo easily applied to those of Tafting and Hearing, that he faves his Keaders the trouble of a tedious repetition, and leaves the application entirely to their own judgments. He introduces what he fays concerning Touch, with obferving, that the fenfes, already confidered, are very fimple and uniform, each of them exhibiting only one kind of fenfation, and thereby indicating only one quality of bodies. By the ear we perceive founds, and nothing elfe; by the palate, taftes; and by the nofe, odours: thefe qualities are all likewife of one order, being all fecondary qualities: whereas by touch we perceive not one quality only, but many, and those of very different kinds. The chief of them are heat and cold, hardness and softness, roughness and fmoothness, figure, folidity, motion, and extenfion. These our Author confiders in order. As to heat and cold, it will eafily be allowed, that they are fecondary qualities, of the fame order with fmell, tafte, and found. And, therefore, what has been faid of fmell, is eafily applicable to them; that is, that the words heat and cold have each of them two fignifications; they fometimes fignify certain fenfations of the mind, which can have no existence when they are not felt, nor can exift any where but in a mind, or fentient being; but more frequently they fignify a quality in bodies, which, by the laws of nature, occafions the fenfations of heat and cold in us: a quality which, though connected by custom fo closely with the fenfation, that we cannot without difficulty VOL. XXXI. B separate |