[121] Young's Paraphrase on a part of the Book of Job, v. 235–240.
[LECTURE XXIX.]
ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO VISION, CONTINUED.
The chief part of my last Lecture was employed in considering the Phenomena of Vision, and particularly in proving, that vision,—simple and immediate, as it now seems to us, even in its most magnificent results,—is truly the application of an art, of long and tedious acquirement,—of that art with which we learn to measure forms and distances, with a single glance, by availing ourselves of the information, previously received from other sources;—the mixed product of innumerable observations, and calculations, and detections of former mistakes—which were the philosophy of our infancy, and each of which, separately, has been long forgotten,—recurring to the mind, in after-life, with the rapidity of an instinct.
Of all the arts, which man can acquire, this is, without question, the richest, both in wonder and in value—so rich in value, that if the race of man had been incapable of acquiring it, the very possibility of their continued existence seems scarcely conceivable; and so rich in subjects of wonder, that to be most familiar with these, and to study them with most attention, is to find at every moment new miracles of nature, worthy of still increasing admiration.
“Per te quicquid habet mundus, mirabile nobis,
Panditur; acceptumque tibi decus omne refertur
Terrarum. Gentes nequicquam interluit æstu
Vicinas pelagus; tu das superare viarum