Essays / by Adam Smith.

  • Adam Smith
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays / by Adam Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    460/482 page 454
    Visible objects, Colour, and all its different modifications, are in themselves mere shadows or pictures, which seem to float, as it were, before the organ of Sight. In themselves, and independent of their connection with the tangible objects which they represent, they are of no importance <-o us, and can essentially neither benefit us nor hurt us. Even while we see them we are seldom thinking of them. Even when we appear to be looking at them with the greatest earnestness, our whole attention is frequently employed, not upon them, but upon the tangible objects represented by them. It is because almost our whole attention is employed, not upon the visible and representing, but upon the tangible and represented objects, that in our imaginations we are apt to pscribe to the former a degree of magnitude which does not belong to them, but which belongs alto- gether to the latter. If you shut one eye, and hold immediately before the other a small circle of plain glass, of not more than half an inch in diameter, you may see through that circle the most extensive pros- pects ; lawns and woods, and arms of the sea, and distant mountains. You are apt to imagine that the Landscape which is thus presented to you, that the visible Picture which you thus see, is immensely great and extensive. The tangible objects which this visible Picture repre- sents, undoubtedly are so. But the visible Picture which represents them can be no greater than the little visible circle through which you see it. If while you are looking through this circle, you could conceive a fairy hand and a fairy pencil to come between your eye and the glass, that pencil could delineate upon that little glass the outline of all those extensive lawns and woods, and arms of the sea, and distant mountains, in the full and the exact dimensions with which they are really seen by the naked eye. Every visible object which covers from the eye any other visible object, must appear at least as large as that other visible object. It must occupy at least an equal portion of that visible plain or surface w'hich is at that time presented to the eye. Opticians accordingly tell us, that all the visible objects which are seen under equal angles must to the eye appear equally large. But the visible object, which covers from the eye any other visible object, must necessarily be seen under angles at least equally large as those under which that other object is seen. When I hold up my finger, however, before my eye, it appears to cover the greater part of the visible chamber in which I am sitting. It should therefore appear as large as the greater part of that visible chamber. But because I know that the tangible finger bears but a very small proportion to the greater part of the tangible chamber, I am apt to fancy that the visible finger bears but a like proportion to the greater part of the -vnsible chamber. My judgment corrects my eye- sight, and, in my fancy, reduces the visible object, which represents the little tangible one, beiow its real visible dimensions; and, on the con-
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