feel, according to what has been said, is to receive an impulse, to be
moved, to have a consciousness of the changes operated on his system. To
have sensibility is nothing more than to be so constituted as to feel
promptly, and in a very lively manner, the impressions of those objects
which act upon him. A sensible soul is only man's brain, disposed in a
mode to receive the motion communicated to it with facility, to re-act
with promptness, by giving an instantaneous impulse to the organs. Thus
the man is called sensible, whom the sight of the distressed, the
contemplation of the unhappy, the recital of a melancholy tale, the
witnessing of an afflicting catastrophe, or the idea of a dreadful
spectacle, touches in so lively a manner as to enable the brain to give
play to his lachrymal organs, which cause him to shed tears; a sign by
which we recognize the effect of great grief, of extreme anguish in the
human being. The man in whom musical sounds excite a degree of pleasure,
or produce very remarkable effects, is said to have a _sensible_ or a
fine ear. In short, when it is perceived that eloquence--the beauty of
the arts--the various objects that strike his senses, excite in him very
lively emotions, he is said to possess a soul full of sensibility.

_Wit_, is a consequence of this physical sensibility; indeed, wit is
nothing more than the facility which some beings, of the human species
possess, of seizing with promptitude, of developing with quickness, a
whole, with its different relations to other objects. _Genius_, is the
facility with which some men comprehend this whole, and its various
relations when they are difficult to be known, but useful to forward
great and mighty projects. Wit may be compared to a piercing eye which
perceives things quickly. Genius is an eye that comprehends at one view,
all the points of an extended horizon: or what the French term _coup
d'oeil_. True wit is that which perceives objects with their relations
such as they really are. False wit is that which catches at relations,