Without the privilege of contradiction: But see, my friends, this bold defiance made Is, then, all arguing frivolous or absurd? All this, I grant, is good. But mark the ill: * What a national disgrace, that this allusion to Ireland is as correct sixty years after it was written as ever!-T. Not truth itself should always find a tongue: In earlier days, by vice and crime unstained, Now vain Opinion governs every age, To hold up to mankind's admiring gaze Tosway o'er Beauty-this world's other queen! And for the learned-even for the wise- That rage for systems, which, in dreamy thought, And then, from contrarieties of speech, What countless feuds have sprung! For you may teach, How shall I paint the conscientious strife? The holy transports of each heavenly soul- With torch, with dagger, and with poisoned bowl: Homes desolate, and parents massacred, A sister in his victim's dying form! Offering to God the venom he distils. 66 By instinct only should be driven along." "It's true, you've artfully disguised your meaning; "But, Sir, my judgment ever is correct," Sir, in this case 'tis rather overweening. My son, all thinking is a grievous crime; Blest would be they who, from fanatic power, So does the farmer, in his healthy fields, Far from the ills in swarming towns that spring, DISTANCE. A MAN who knows how to reckon the paces from one end of his house to the other, might imagine that nature had all at once taught him this distance, and that he has only need of a coup d'œil, as in the case of colours. He is deceived; the different distances of objects can only be known by experience, comparison, and habit. It is that which makes a sailor, on seeing a vessel afar off, able to say without hesitation what distance his own vessel is from it, of which distance a passenger would only form a very confused idea.. J Distance is only the line from a given object to ourselves. This line terminates at a point; and whether the object be a thousand leagues from us or only a foot, this point is always the same to our eyes. We have then no means of directly perceiving distances, as we have of ascertaining by the touch whether a body is hard or soft; by the taste if it is bitter or sweet; or by the ear whether of two sounds the one is grave and the other lively. For if I duly notice, the parts of a body which give way to my finger are the immediate cause of my sensation of softness; and the vibrations of the air, excited by the sonorous body, are the immediate cause of my sensation of sound. But as I cannot have an immediate idea of distance, I must find it out by means of an intermediate idea; but it is necessary that this intermediate idea be clearly understood, for it is only by the medium of things known that we can acquire a notion of things unknown. I am told that such a house is distant a mile from such a river; but if I do not know where this river is, I certainly do not know where the house is situated. A body yields easily to the impression of my hand; I conclude immediately that it is soft. Another resists; I feel at once its hardness. I ought therefore to feel the angles formed in my eye, in order to determine the distance of objects. But most men do not even know that these angles exist; it is evident, therefore, that they cannot be the immediate cause of our ascertaining distances. He who, for the first time in his life, hears the noise of a cannon or the sound of a concert, cannot judge whether the cannon be fired, or the concert be performed, at the distance of a league or of twenty paces. He has only the experience which accustoms him to judge of the distance between himself and the place whence the noise proceeds. The vibrations, the undulations of the air, carry a sound to his ears, or rather to his sensorium; but this noise no more carries to his sensorium the place whence it proceeds, than it teaches him the form of the cannon or of the musical instruments. It is the same thing precisely with regard to the rays of light which proceed from an object, but which do not at all inform us of its situation. Neither do they inform us more immediately of magnitude or form. I see from afar a little round tower; I approach, perceive, and touch a great quadrangular building. Certainly, this which I now see and touch cannot be that which I saw before. The little round tower which was before my eyes cannot be this large square building. One thing in relation to us, is the measurable and tangible object, another the visible object. I hear, from my chamber, the noise of a carriage; I open my window and see it; I descend and enter it. Yet this carriage that I have heard, this carriage that I have seen, and this carriage which I have touched, are three objects absolutely distinct to three of my senses, which have no immédiate relation to one another. Further, it is demonstrated that there is formed in my eye an angle a degree larger when a thing is near, when I see a man four feet from me, as when I see the same man at a distance of eight feet. However, I always see this man of the same size. How does my mind thus contradict the mechanism of my organs? The object is really a degree smaller to my eyes, and yet I see it the same. It is in vain that |