Volume 1

The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design.

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    invigoratingthe circulation,and imparting health. In relation to our present subject, it seems more rational to consider light as second only to attrac- tion, in respect to its importance in nature, and as a link connecting systems of infinite remoteness. To have a conception of this we must tutor our minds, and acquire some measure of the velocity of light, and of the space which it fills. It is not sufficient to say that it moves 200,000 miles in a second; for we can compre- hend no such degree of velocity. If we are further informed that the earth is distant from the sun 95,000,000 of miles, and that light tra- verses the space in 8 minutes‘and 1-8th, it 1s but another way of affirming the inconceivable rapi- dity of its transmission. Astronomers, whose powers of mind afford us the very highest estimate of human faculties, whose accuracy of calculation is hourly visible to us, have affirmed that light emanates from celestial bodies at such vast distance, that thousands of years shall elapse during its progress to our earth: yet matter impelled by a force equal to its transmis- sion through this space, shall enter the eye, and strike upon the delicate nerve with no other effect than to produce vision. Instead of saying that light is created for the eye, and to give us the sense of vision, is it not more conformable toa just manner of consi- dermg these things that our wonder and our