Decay of perception in old age. But yet I cannot but think there
is some small dull perception, whereby they are distinguished from
perfect insensibility. And that this may be so, we have plain
instances, even in mankind itself. Take one in whom decrepit old age
has blotted out the memory of his past knowledge, and clearly wiped
out the ideas his mind was formerly stored with, and has, by
destroying his sight, hearing, and smell quite, and his taste to a
great degree, stopped up almost all the passages for new ones to
enter; or if there be some of the inlets yet half open, the
impressions made are scarcely perceived, or not at all retained. How
far such an one (notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate
principles) is in his knowledge and intellectual faculties above the
condition of a cockle or an oyster, I leave to be considered. And if a
man had passed sixty years in such a state, as it is possible he
might, as well as three days, I wonder what difference there would be,
in any intellectual perfections, between him and the lowest degree
of animals.
15. Perception the inlet of all materials of knowledge. Perception
then being the first step and degree towards knowledge, and the
inlet of all the materials of it; the fewer senses any man, as well as
any other creature, hath; and the fewer and duller the impressions are
that are made by them, and the duller the faculties are that are
employed about them,- the more remote are they from that knowledge
which is to be found in some men.
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