Essays / by Adam Smith.

  • Adam Smith
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    ‘ objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them; and (as he said) at ‘ first learned to know, and again forgot a thousand things in a day. ‘ One particular only (though it may appear trifling) I will relate: ‘ Having often forgot which was the cat and which was the dog, he ‘ was ashamed to ask ; but catching the cat (which he knew by feeling) ‘ he was observed to look at her steadfastly, and then setting her down, ‘ said. So, puss ! I shall know you another time.’ When the young gentleman said, that the objects which he saw touched his eyes, he certainly could not mean that they pressed upon or resisted his eyes; for the objects of sight never act upon the organ in any way that resembles pressure or resistance. He could mean no more than that they were close upon his eyes, or, to speak more properly, perhaps, that they were in his eyes. A deaf man, who was made all at once to hear, might in the same manner naturally enough say, that the sounds which he heard touched his ears, meaning that he felt them as close upon his ears, or, to speak perhaps more properly, as in his ears. Mr. Cheselden adds afterwards: ‘We thought he soon knew what ‘ pictures represented which were showed to him, but we found after- ‘ wards we were mistaken; for about two months after he was couched, ‘ he discovered at once they represented solid bodies, when to that ‘ time, he considered them only as party-coloured planes, or surfaces ‘ diversified with variety of paints; but even then he was no less sur- ‘ prised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things they repre- ‘ sented, and was amazed when he found those parts, which by their ‘ light and shadow appeared now round and uneven, felt only flat like ‘ the rest; and asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing?’ Painting, though, bycombinations of light and shade, similar to those which’Nature makes use of in the visible objects which she presents to our eyes, it endeavours to imitate those objects; yet it never has been able to equal the perspective of Nature, or to give to its pro- ductions that, force and distinctness of relief and rejection which Nature bestows upon hers. When the young gentleman was just be- ginning to understand the strong and distinct perspective of Nature, the faint and feeble perspective of Painting made no impression upon him, and the picture appeared to him what it really was, a plain sur- face bedaubed with different colours. When he became more familiar with the perspective of Nature, the inferiority of that of Painting did not hinder him from discovering its resemblance to that of Nature. In the perspective of Nature, he had always found that the situation and distance of the tangible and represented objects, corresponded exactly to what the visible and representing ones suggested to him. He ex- pected to find the same thing in the similar, though inferior perspective of Painting, and was disappointed when he found that the visible and tangible objects had not, in this case, their usual correspondence.
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