To which I answer: in the forementioned instance the eye A takes the
little images, included within the representation of the other eye B, to
be pictures or copies, whereof the archetypes are not things existing
without, but the larger pictures projected on its own fund: and which by
A are not thought pictures, but the originals, or true things themselves.
Though if we suppose a third eye C from a due distance to behold the fund
of A, then indeed the things projected thereon shall, to C, seem pictures
or images in the same sense that those projected on B do to A.
119. Rightly to conceive this point we must carefully distinguish between
the ideas of sight and touch, between the visible and tangible eye; for
certainly on the tangible eye nothing either is or seems to be painted.
Again, the visible eye, as well as all other visible objects, hath been
shown to exist only in the mind, which perceiving its own ideas, and
comparing them together, calls some PICTURES in respect of others. What
hath been said, being rightly comprehended and laid together, doth, I
think, afford a full and genuine explication of the erect appearance of
objects; which phenomenon, I must confess, I do not see how it can be
explained by any theories of vision hitherto made public.
120. In treating of these things the use of language is apt to occasion
some obscurity and confusion, and create in us wrong ideas; for language
being accommodated to the common notions and prejudices of men, it is
scarce possible to deliver the naked and precise truth without great
circumlocution, impropriety, and (to an unwary reader) seeming
contradictions; I do therefore once for all desire whoever shall think it
worth his while to understand what I have written concerning vision, that
he would not stick in this or that phrase, or manner of expression, but
candidly collect my meaning from the whole sum and tenor of my discourse,
and laying aside the words as much as possible, consider the bare notions
themselves, and then judge whether they are agreeable to truth and his
own experience, or no.
Pages:
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95