CHAPTER IX.
Note 1, p. 109. And there seems to be an analogy,
&c.] Aristotle[1] in thus making Touch superior to, and
more influential than any other sense, (for it is the most
perfect, he observes, of man's senses, although with respect
to some others he is inferior to many animals,) is sup-
ported by Cuvier[2], who says, "that Touch is the most
important of all the senses, and that its several degrees of
perfection exercise a surprising influence over the nature
of different animals; and that of all the vertebrata man
has the most perfect Touch." It is difficult to attach a
sense to the term hard or soft applied to flesh, which,
by anatomical[3] description, corresponds with the muscular
substance of the body; but man is said to have softer
flesh than any animal[4], and on this account, through the
delicacy of his sense of Touch, to be of all creatures the
most intelligent. It is presumable that Aristotle was led
to suppose, from this sense being spread, so to say, like
the muscular substance, over the surface of the body, that
its organ lies somewhere in or beneath the flesh, and thus
to have concluded that a relative hardness or density of
that substance, by impeding tangible impressions, may be
