SECTION II.

HEARING.

In Hearing, the same three particulars, the ORGAN, the OBJECT, and the FEELING, require to be distinguished.

The name of the organ is the Ear; and its nice and complicated structure has been described with minuteness and admiration by anatomists and physiologists.

In vulgar discourse, the object of our Sense of Hearing is a sounding body. We say that we hear the bell, the trumpet, the cannon. This language, however, is not correct. That which precedes the feeling received through the ear, is the approach of vibrating air to the ear. Certain bodies, made to vibrate in a certain way, communicate vibrations to the air, and the vibrating air, admitted into the ear, is followed by the sensation of hearing. If the air which the body makes to vibrate does not enter the ear, however the body itself may vibrate, sensation does not follow; hearing does not take place. There is, in fact, no sound. Of the circumstances in which sound is generated, part only were present. There was the organ, and there was the object, but not that juxta-position which is needed to make the antecedent of the sensation complete. Air vibrating in juxta-position to the organ, is the object of Hearing.

How air in vibration should produce the 17 remarkable effect, called hearing, in the nerves of the ear, and no effect in those of the eye, in those of smelling, or those of taste, our knowledge does not enable us to tell.

It is not very difficult to think of the sensation of hearing, apart from the organ, and from the object, as well as from every other feeling. I hear the hum of bees. The feeling to which I give this name is a point of my own consciousness; it is an elementary part of my sensitive being; of that thread of consciousness, drawn out in succession, which I call myself. I have the hearing; it is a sensation of my own; it is my feeling, and no other man’s feeling; it is a very different feeling from taste, and a very different feeling from smell, and from all my other feelings.

I hear the song of birds, I hear the lowing of oxen, I hear the sighing of the wind, I hear the roaring of the sea. I have a feeling, in each of these cases; a consciousness, which I can distinguish not only from the feelings of my other senses, but from the other feelings of the same sense. If I am asked, what takes place in me, when a trumpet is unexpectedly sounded in the next room, I answer, a sensation, a particular feeling. I become conscious in a particular way.

The number of those feelings which we are able to distinguish is very great. In this respect, the organ of hearing in man, is much more perfect than the organ of smell. The organ of hearing can distinguish, not only the voices of different classes, but of different individuals in the same class. There never, probably, 18 was a man whose voice was not distinguishable from that of every other man, by those who were familiarly acquainted with it.

The most simple case of sound is that perhaps of a single note on a musical instrument. This note may be sounded on an endless number of instruments, and by an endless number of human voices, from no two of which will the same sound exactly be returned.

We can think of ourselves as having the feelings of this class, and having no other. In that case, our whole being would be a series of Hearings. It would be one sensation of hearing, another sensation of hearing, and nothing more. Our thread of consciousness would be the sensation, which we denominate sound. Life and sound would be two names for the same thing.

The language by which we speak of the “sense of hearing,” is also imperfect. We have, indeed, the term Ear, to express the ORGAN, but we have no appropriate name for the SENSATION, nor for the OBJECT. The term sound is a name both of the sensation and the object. If I were asked, when the bell rings, whether the sound is in me, or in the bell, I might answer, in both; not that the same thing is in both; the things are different; having the same name. The sensation called a sound is in me, the vibration called a sound is in the bell. Hearing is equally ambiguous; a name both of the organ and the feeling. If asked, by which of my organs I have the knowledge of sound, I should answer, my hearing. And if asked what feeling it is I have by the ear, I still should say, hearing. Hearing is rarely made use of to denote 19 the object of hearing, and hardly at all except by figure.

Noise is a name which denotes the object, in certain cases. There is a certain class of sounds, to which we give the name noise. In those cases, however, noise is also the name of the sensation. In fact, it is the name of the sensation first, and only by transference that of the object.

In the phrase, sense of hearing, the word has the same complexity of meaning, which we found in the word smelling, in the corresponding application of that term. When I say that I have the sense of hearing, I mean to say, that I have an organ, which organ has an appropriate object; and that when the organ and the object are in the appropriate position, the sensation of hearing is the consequent. In the term, sense of hearing, then, is included, the organ, the object, and the sensation, with the idea of a synchronous order of the two first, and a successive order of the third. “Sense of hearing” is thus seen to be the name of a very complex idea, including five distinguishable ingredients, the idea of the organ of hearing, the idea of the sensation, the idea of the object of hearing, the idea of a synchronous order, and the idea of a successive order.4

4 In the case of hearing, as of smell, one of the ambiguities brought to notice by the author is of questionable reality. It is doubtful if “hearing” is ever used as a name of the organ. To the question supposed in the text, “by which of my organs do I have the knowledge of sound” the correct answer would surely be, not “my hearing”—an expression which, so 20 applied, could only be accepted as elliptical,—but “my organ of hearing,” or (still better) “my ear.” Again, the phrase “I have the sense of hearing” signifies that I have a capacity of hearing, and that this capacity is classed as one of sense, or in other words, that the feelings to which it has reference belong to the class Sensations: but the organ, though a necessary condition of my having the sensations, does not seem to be implied in the name.—Ed.

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