NOTES.

Note (I) page 280.

THE following account of a person born blind, and couched by Mr. Chesselden, (extracted from the Philosophical Transactions) affords an interesting illustration of some of my remarks.

"Observations made by Mr. W. Chesselden, on a young gentleman who was born blind, or lost his sight so early that he had no recollection of ever having seen, and was couched between thirteen and fourteen years of age.

"When he first saw, he was so far from making any judgment about distances, that he thought all objects whatever touched his eyes, (as he expressed it) as what he felt did his skin; and thought no objects so agreeable as those which were smooth and regular, though he could form no judgment of their shape, or guess what it was in any object that was pleasing to him; he knew not the shape of any thing, nor any one thing from another; but upon being told what things were, whose form he knew before from feeling, he would

carefully observe that he might know them again; but having too many objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them, and, as he said, at first, learned to know, and forgot again a thousand things in a day. One particular I will relate having often forgotten which was the cat and which 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.'

"He was very much surprised that those things which he had liked best did not appear most agreeable in his eyes; expecting those persons would appear most beautiful whom he loved most, and such things to be most agreeable to his sight that were so to his taste. We thought he soon knew what pictures represented; but we found afterwards, we were mistaken; for about two months after he was couched, he discovered all at once that they represented solid bodies; whereas to that time he considered them only as party-coloured planes, or surfaces diversified with variety of paint; but even then he was no less surprised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things they represented; and was amazed when he found those parts, which by their light and shadow appeared round and uneven, felt flat like the rest; and he asked what was the lying sense, feeling or seeing?

"Being shewn his father's picture in a locket at his mother's watch, and told what it was, he acknowledged it a likeness, but was vastly surprised, asking how it

could be that a large face could be expressed in so little room; saying it should have seemed as impossible to him, as to put a bushel of any thing into a pint. At first he could bear but very little sight, and the things he saw he thought extremely large; but on seeing things larger, those first seen he conceived less, never being able to imagine any lines beyond the bounds he saw; the room he was in, he said, he knew to be but part of the house, yet he could not conceive that the whole house could look bigger. Before he was couched he expected little advantage from seeing, worth undergoing an operation for, except reading and writing; for he said he thought he could have no more pleasure in walking abroad than he had in the garden, which he could do very safely and readily. And even blindness, he observed, had this advantage, that he could go any where in the dark, much better than those who can see; and after he had seen he did not soon lose this quality, nor desire a light to go about the house in the night. He said every new object was a new delight, and the pleasure was so great, that he wanted ways to express it; but his gratitude to his operator he could not conceal; never seeing him for some time without tears of joy in his eyes, and other marks of affection; and if he did not happen to come, at any time when he was expected, he would be so grieved that he could not forbear crying at his disappointment.

"A year after first seeing, being carried upon Epsom Downs, and observing a large prospect, he

Y

was exceedingly delighted with it, and called it a new kind of seeing.

"And now being lately couched of his other eye, he says that objects at first appeared large to this eye, but not so large as they did at first to the other; and looking upon the same object with both eyes, he thought it looked about twice as large as with the first couched eye only, but not double, that we can discover."

Note (K) page 314.

The sentiments here expressed, are more fully developed and explained in the Appendix (No. 2.) to Dr. King's Discourse on Predestination; from which I take the liberty of citing one passage, as necessary to illustrate what has been said: "Our notions of the moral attributes of the Deity are not derived (as Dr. Paley contends they are) from a bare contemplation of the created universe, without any notions of what is antecedently probable, to direct and aid our observations. Nor is it true (few indeed would now, I apprehend, assent to that part of his doctrine) that man has no moral faculty-no natural principle of preference for virtue rather than vice-benevolence rather than malice; but that being compelled by the view of the universe to admit that God is benevolent, he is thence led, from prudential motives alone, to cultivate benevolence in himself, with a view to secure a future reward.

a See Paley's Moral Philosophy, book ii. ch. 3.

The truth I conceive is exactly the reverse of this; viz. that man having in himself a moral faculty, or taste, as some prefer to call it, by which he is instinctively led to approve virtue and disapprove vice, is thence disposed and inclined antecedently, to attribute to the Creator of the Universe, the most perfect and infinitely highest of Beings, all those moral (as well as intellectual) qualities which to himself seem the most worthy of admiration, and intrinsically beautiful and excellent: for to do evil rather than good, appears to all men (except to those who have been very long hardened and depraved by the extreme of wickedness) to imply something of weakness, imperfection, corruption, and degradation. I say, "disposed and inclined," because our admiration for benevolence, wisdom, &c. would not alone be sufficient to make us attribute these to the Deity, if we saw no marks of them in the creation; but our finding in the creation many marks of contrivance, and of beneficent contrivance, together with the antecedent bias in our own minds, which inclines us to attribute goodness to the supreme Being— both these conjointly, lead us to the conclusion that God is infinitely benevolent, notwithstanding the admixture of evil in his works, which we cannot account for. But these appearances of evil would stand in the way of such a conclusion, if man really were, what Dr. Paley represents him, a Being destitute of all moral sentiment, all innate and original admiration for goodness: he would in that case be more likely to come to the conclusion (as many of the heathen seem