DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18826#0015
LECT. ON PERSPECTIVE. p
whose creative omnipotence originally formed and
planted the organs of vision !
I beg leave here to offer an instance of the recep-
tion of sight, in which its progress is very distinctly
related. It is the case of a young man, horn-blind,
and couched at fourteen years of age, by Mr. Gubs*
seldex {Philosophical Transaclious, 3So. 402),i It is
related of him,' that,
When he first saw, he was so far from making
anv judgement about distances, that he thought all
objects whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed
■it) in like manner, as what he felt touched his skin ;
-and he thought no objects .so agreeable as those
which were smooth, and regular, though he could
form no judgment of their shape, or guess what it
wras in any object that was pleasing to him, tie knew
not the shape of any thing, nor any one thing from
another, however different in shape, or in magni-
tude ; but, upon being told what those things were
whose form«vhe knew before from feeling, he would
carefully observe, that he might know them again ;
but having too many objects to learn at once, he
forgot many of them ; and, as he said, at first he
learned to know, and again forgot, a thousand tilings
•in a day. One particular only, though it may ap-
pear trifling, I will relate. Having often forgot
which was the cat and which the dog, he was
ashamed to ask ; but catching the cat, which he
knew by feeling, he was observed to look at her sted-
fastly, and then setting her down, said, ' So, Puss,,
I shall know you another lime.''—We thought he soon
knew what pictures represented which were shewed
him,
whose creative omnipotence originally formed and
planted the organs of vision !
I beg leave here to offer an instance of the recep-
tion of sight, in which its progress is very distinctly
related. It is the case of a young man, horn-blind,
and couched at fourteen years of age, by Mr. Gubs*
seldex {Philosophical Transaclious, 3So. 402),i It is
related of him,' that,
When he first saw, he was so far from making
anv judgement about distances, that he thought all
objects whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed
■it) in like manner, as what he felt touched his skin ;
-and he thought no objects .so agreeable as those
which were smooth, and regular, though he could
form no judgment of their shape, or guess what it
wras in any object that was pleasing to him, tie knew
not the shape of any thing, nor any one thing from
another, however different in shape, or in magni-
tude ; but, upon being told what those things were
whose form«vhe knew before from feeling, he would
carefully observe, that he might know them again ;
but having too many objects to learn at once, he
forgot many of them ; and, as he said, at first he
learned to know, and again forgot, a thousand tilings
•in a day. One particular only, though it may ap-
pear trifling, I will relate. Having often forgot
which was the cat and which the dog, he was
ashamed to ask ; but catching the cat, which he
knew by feeling, he was observed to look at her sted-
fastly, and then setting her down, said, ' So, Puss,,
I shall know you another lime.''—We thought he soon
knew what pictures represented which were shewed
him,