82. Of these visible points we see at all times an equal number. It is
every whit as great when our view is contracted and bounded by near
objects as when it is extended to larger and remoter. For it being
impossible that one MINIMUM VISIBILE should obscure or keep out of sight
mote than one other, it is a plain consequence that when my view is on
all sides bounded by the walls of my study see just as many visible
points as I could, in case that by the removal of the study-walls and all
other obstructions, I had a full prospect of the circumjacent fields,
mountains, sea, and open firmament: for so long as I am shut up within
the walls, by their interposition every point of the external objects is
covered from my view: but each point that is seen being able to cover or
exclude from sight one only other corresponding point, it follows that
whilst my sight is confined to those narrow walls I see as many points,
or MINIMA VISIBILIA, as I should were those walls away, by looking on all
the external objects whose prospect is intercepted by them. Whenever
therefore we are said to have a greater prospect at one time than
another, this must be understood with relation, not to the proper and
immediate, but the secondary and mediate objects of vision, which, as
hath been shown, properly belong to the touch.
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