II. Variety of objects. Those distant objects which we know by touch, are of necessity little varied; and for the same reason the ideas resulting from it will be liable to a deplorable confusion and to great uncertainty. Hearing, on the contrary, informs us of infinite and exceedingly different objects, and that, too, with perfect precision and exactness.
III. Rapidity of the succession of impressions. It is evident that hearing has here an incalculable superiority over touch. When touch perceives by juxtaposition, it is under the necessity of successively going over the objects and even their different parts if it would receive varied impressions; and this, however small their number, requires much time. If the objects do not act by juxtaposition, but by some medium, the succession will require much more time, and there will be much less variety. Compare this slowness to the rapidity with which hearing perceives a whole series of sounds in musical combinations, the infinite inflexions of the voice, the countless number of distinct articulations, the infinity of noises of all kinds which we uninterruptedly perceive and classify, and refer to their corresponding objects.
IV. The simultaneousness of sensations so vast in hearing, is extremely limited in touch; for in the latter it can only be in relation to a few objects; but in the other it extends to many very different objects.
V. But what most triumphantly indicates the superiority of hearing to touch, is the facility it affords us of placing ourselves in communication, by means of speech, with the mind of our fellow-mortals,—a facility, resulting from the rapidity of succession already remarked. Undoubtedly, this communication of mind with mind, may be established by touch, if we express our words by characters sufficiently raised to be distinguished: but what an immense difference between these impressions and those of hearing? Even if we suppose habit and a concentration of all the sensitive forces to have produced such a facility in passing the fingers over lines, as far to surpass all that we see in the most dexterous players of musical instruments, what comparison can there be instituted between this velocity and that of hearing? How much time would be requisite only to go over tablets whereon is written a discourse which we hear in a few minutes? Moreover, all men have means of hearing, they need only make use of their organs. But in order to converse by touch, it is necessary to prepare tablets, which can only serve for one object, and cannot be at the same time used by two persons; whereas by means of hearing, one man alone may in brief time communicate an infinity of ideas to thousands of listeners.
[CHAPTER XII.]
CAN SIGHT ALONE GIVE US THE IDEA OF A SURFACE?
64. I have, I believe, made the inferiority of touch to sight and hearing palpable, and have, consequently, shown the extravagance of endeavoring to make it the basis of all cognitions, to found upon it the certainty of the judgments to which our other senses lead us, and to make it a supreme judge to decide in the last appeal upon the doubts that may arise.
I hold it to be manifestly untrue that we cannot make the transition from the internal to the external world, or from the existence of sensations to that of the objects causing them, otherwise than by means of touch; for not only have I combated the principal, or rather the solitary reason upon which it is pretended to found this privilege, but I have also demonstrated the mode of making this transition with respect to all the senses, reasoning from the very nature and connection of internal phenomena.
I have likewise said and proved that the sensation of extension is the only one that is representative, and that in all others there was only a relation of causality, that is, a connection of some sensation or an internal phenomenon with an external object, without our transferring to this any thing resembling what we experienced in that.