Copy 1, Volume 1

A treatise on man; his intellectual faculties and his education / By M. Helvétius ... Translated from the French, with additional notes, by W. Hooper, M.D.

  • Helvétius, 1715-1771
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on man; his intellectual faculties and his education / By M. Helvétius ... Translated from the French, with additional notes, by W. Hooper, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/424 (page 19)
    The impressions of objects dépend on accidentai circumstanc.es. the impressions they make on our memory are mucli more complété and durable. Occurrences of this sort are very conimon, especi-* ally in early youth. A child commits a fault, and for punishment is shut up b} himself in a chamber* What does he do ? He sees in the. windovv some pots with flowers, he plucks some of them, he considers their coiourSj and remarks their shades ; h is idle si- tuation seems to give an additional discernment to liis sight. It is then with the child as with the blind ; if the latter hâve commonly the senses of hearing and feeling more keen than other men, it is because he is not like them disturbed by the action of the light npon his eyes, because he is the more attentive, and more concentered within himself ; and, lastly, to sup- ply the sense he wants, he is, as M. Diderot remarks, more interested to improve those senses that remain. The impressions that objects make on us dépend principally on the moment at whicll those objectâ strike us. In the example just mentioned, it is the at- tention that the child is, as it were, forced to give to the only objects that are exposed to his sight, which makes lum discover in the colours and form of the flowers, those nice différences that a distracted view^ or a superficia] glance vvould not hâve permitted him to observe. , It is thus that a punishment, or some si- milar incident, frequently détermines the taste of a young ni an, and makes him a pain ter of flowers ; by first giving him some knowledge of their beauty* and • lien a love for those pictures that represent them. c 2 Now