DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18826#0018
12 ©3ST PERSPECTIVE. [lECI. 1*
from right to left, or from left to right: the- cause
of this is obvious ; for, a spectator having no
other rule whereby to judge than the brilliancy of
the lamps, if a-lamp at the further end happens to
appear brightest, it immediately persuades the eye
that it is nearest • or, if they appear equally luminous,
the eye is biassed to suppose them equally distant;
and thus, if the imagination assume such, or such a
direction, or bearing, of the lamps, to be the true one*
the Eye coincides with that assumption, and report*
accordingly.
Neither is it by night only that the eye is liable to
such deception, though night is certainly favorable
to this effect; for, that by proper objects the eye
may easily be deceived, in the day-time, appears
from a customary question put to strangers on their
entrance into rhe church of St. Peter, at Rome,
Having advanced a few paces, the visitor is asked, of
what size he supposes the angels to be who attend
the great altar ? as they appear to be human figures;
" the size of life, .or perhaps a little larger," is the
usual reply; whereas, they are, in reality, much
more than double that size.
I remember having observed, in passing a long
street, where the tops of the houses were nearly uni-
form, a ladder set by some workmen in a position
exactly corresponding to the apparent gradation of
the parapets; whereby it very much confused, if it
did not destroy, the pers-peti'iv-ity, and distance, of that
side of th'e street.
Baron »e Tott has given us some remarks on
visiting the Pyramids of Egypt; which, as the sub-
from right to left, or from left to right: the- cause
of this is obvious ; for, a spectator having no
other rule whereby to judge than the brilliancy of
the lamps, if a-lamp at the further end happens to
appear brightest, it immediately persuades the eye
that it is nearest • or, if they appear equally luminous,
the eye is biassed to suppose them equally distant;
and thus, if the imagination assume such, or such a
direction, or bearing, of the lamps, to be the true one*
the Eye coincides with that assumption, and report*
accordingly.
Neither is it by night only that the eye is liable to
such deception, though night is certainly favorable
to this effect; for, that by proper objects the eye
may easily be deceived, in the day-time, appears
from a customary question put to strangers on their
entrance into rhe church of St. Peter, at Rome,
Having advanced a few paces, the visitor is asked, of
what size he supposes the angels to be who attend
the great altar ? as they appear to be human figures;
" the size of life, .or perhaps a little larger," is the
usual reply; whereas, they are, in reality, much
more than double that size.
I remember having observed, in passing a long
street, where the tops of the houses were nearly uni-
form, a ladder set by some workmen in a position
exactly corresponding to the apparent gradation of
the parapets; whereby it very much confused, if it
did not destroy, the pers-peti'iv-ity, and distance, of that
side of th'e street.
Baron »e Tott has given us some remarks on
visiting the Pyramids of Egypt; which, as the sub-