Those words in their
wonted application always marked out to his mind bodies or solid things
which were perceived by the resistance they gave: but there is no
solidity, no resistance or protrusion, perceived by sight. In short, the
ideas of sight are all new perceptions, to which there be no names
annexed in his mind: he cannot therefore understand what is said to him
concerning them: and to ask of the two bodies he saw placed on the table,
which was the sphere, which the cube? were to him a question downright
bantering and unintelligible; nothing he sees being able to suggest to
his thoughts the idea of body, distance, or in general of anything he had
already known.
136. It is a mistake to think the same thing affects both sight and
touch. If the same angle or square which is the object of touch be also
the object of vision, what should hinder the blind man at first sight
from knowing it? For though the manner wherein it affects the sight be
different from that wherein it affected his touch, yet, there being
beside his manner or circumstance, which is new and unknown, the angle or
figure, which is old and known, he cannot choose but discern it.
137. Visible figure and extension having been demonstrated to be of a
nature entirely different and heterogeneous from tangible figure and
extension, it remains that we inquire concerning.
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