If we attentively consider the phenomenon before us, we shall find
the not discerning between the mediate and immediate objects of sight to
be the chief cause of the difficulty that occurs in the explication of
it. The magnitude of the visible moon, or that which is the proper and
immediate object of vision, is not greater when the moon is in the
horizon than when it is in the meridian. How comes it, therefore, to seem
greater in one situation than the other? What is it can put this cheat on
the understanding? It has no other perception of the moon than what it
gets by sight: and that which is seen is of the same extent, I say, the
visible appearance hath the same, or rather a less, magnitude when the
moon is viewed in the horizontal than when in the meridional position:
and yet it is esteemed greater in the former than in the latter. Herein
consists the difficulty, which doth vanish and admit of a most easy
solution, if we consider that as the visible moon is not greater in the
horizon than in the meridian, so neither is it thought to be so. It hath
been already shown that in any act of vision the visible object
absolutely, or in itself, is little taken notice of, the mind still
carrying its view from that to some tangible ideas which have been
observed to be connected with it, and by that means come to be suggested
by it.
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