MAMMALIA— MAN. 39 



then shown a miniature portrait of his father, which was contained in his 

 mother's watch-case ; and though he readily perceived the resemblance, yet 

 he expressed his amazement how so large a face could be comprised in so 

 small a compass. To him it appeared as strange as that a pint vessel should 

 contain a bushel. At first, he could bear but a very small quantity of light, 

 and he saw every object much larger than life ; but in proportion as he 

 observed objects that were in reality large, so in proportion he conceived 

 the others to be diminished. Beyond the limits of what he saw, he had no 

 conception of any thing. He knew that the apartment he occupied was 

 only a part of the house ; and yet he could not imagine how the latter 

 should appear larger than the former. Before the operation, he formed no 

 great expectations of the pleasures he should receive from the new sense he 

 was promised. That he might be enabled to read and write, was his grand 

 object. He said, among other things, that he could enjoy no greater delight 

 from walking in the garden, with this sense, than without it ; because there 

 he already walked at his ease, and was acquainted with all the walks. 

 With great truth he also remarked, that his blindness gave him one advan- 

 tage over the rest of mankind ; an advantage which, indeed, he preserved 

 for a long time after he had obtained the sense of seeing ; namely, that of 

 being able to walk in the night with confidence and security. No sooner, 

 however, had he began to enjoy this new sense, than he was transported 

 beyond measure ; and he declared that every new object was a new source 

 of delight to him ; that his pleasure was so great, he had not language to 

 express it. About a year after, he was carried to Epsom, where there is a 

 very beautiful and a very extensive prospect ; with this he seemed greatly 

 charmed ; and the landscape before him, he called a new method of seeing. 

 He was couched in the other eye a year after the former, and of both opera- 

 tions the success was equally great, When he saw with both eyes, every 

 object appeared to him twice as large as when he saw with but one eye, 

 though he did not see double, or at least he showed no marks from which 

 any such conclusion might be drawn. 



There is now a living instance of Cheselden's blind man, of whom a 

 curious account has just been published. This person, whose name is 

 Caspar Hauser, was by some foul means kept confined in a cell, from 

 infancy to the age of about seventeen, and never had seen any object but 

 the walls of his cell and a few toys. When directed to look out of the 

 window upon a wide and extensive prospect, in all the glory of summer, he 

 drew back with visible horror, exclaiming, ugly ! ugly ! About two years 

 afterwards, in 1831, he was shown the same prospect, and asked why he 

 called it ugly when he formerly saw it. He replied, "what I then saw was 

 indeed very ugly. For when I looked at the window, it always appeared to 

 me as if a window shutter had been placed close to my eyes, upon which a 

 wall painter had spattered the contents of his different brushes, filled with 

 white, blue, green, yellow, and red paint, all mingled together. Single things, 



