SECT.  XLI.  Of the Smell, Taste, and Hearing.

Who were able to explain the niceness of the organs by which man discerns the numberless savours and odours of bodies?  But how is it possible for so many different voices to strike at once my ear without confounding one another, and for those sounds to leave in me, after they have ceased to be, so lively and so distinct images of what they have been?  How careful was the Artificer who made our bodies to give our eyes a moist, smooth, and sliding cover to close them; and why did He leave our ears open?  Because, says Cicero, the eyes must be shut against the light in order to sleep; and, in the meantime, the ears ought to remain open in order to give us warning, and wake us by the report of noise, when we are in danger of being surprised.  Who is it that, in an instant, imprints in my eye the heaven, the sea, and the earth, seated at almost an infinite distance?  How can the faithful images of all the objects of the universe, from the sun to an atom, range themselves distinctly in so small an organ?  Is not the substance of the brain, which preserves, in order, such lively representations of all the objects that have made an impression upon us ever since we were in the world, a most wonderful prodigy?  Men admire with reason the invention of books, wherein the history of so many events, and the collection of so many thoughts, are preserved.  But what comparison can be made between the best book and the brain of a learned man?  There is no doubt but such a brain is a collection infinitely more precious, and of a far more excellent contrivance, than a book.  It is in that small repository that a man never misses finding the images he has occasion for.  He calls them, and they come; he dismisses them, and they sink I know not where, and disappear, to make room for others.  A man shuts or opens his fancy at pleasure, like a book.  He turns, as it were, its leaves; and, in an instant, goes from one end to the other.  There is even in memory a sort of table, like the index of a book, which shows where certain remote images are to be found.  We do not find that these innumerable characters, which the mind of man reads inwardly with so much rapidity, leave any distinct trace or print in the brain, when we open it.  That admirable book is but a soft substance, or a sort of bottom made up of tender threads, woven one with another.  Now what skilful hand has laid up in that kind of dirt, which appears so shapeless, such precious images, ranged with such excellent and curious art?