only to inform us of the connexion and re!a 

 tion between the bodies surrounding us, and our 

 own f in subserviency to our happiness in this life : 

 * whence it is obvious, that our sensations are always 

 true, though the judgments we many times form re. 

 spectaig their objects are sometimes false ; as must 

 always be the case, whenever we alter those objects 

 themselves which are the exterior causes of our sen. 

 nations, fry either adding something foreign to them 

 or retrenching from them what is properly their own. 

 <c If any think thfy are imposed upon by the different 

 appearances, which result from one and the same 

 object, as for example, when a body seen at a dis- 

 tance appears of one colour, and when nigh of ano 

 thec ; it is themselves who are guilty of the decep- 

 tion, in imagining that the one appearance is true, and 

 the other illusory, for in that they form a false 

 judgment, not rightly considering the nature of things; 

 Mhereas they ought on the contrary, to havt$ con* 

 eluded that both colours were true, though different, 

 occasioned by the change of situations in which they 

 Mere viewed, which produced two sensations not the 

 same, but equally true. Whence it also happens, that 

 it is not the sound in the brass that is beaten, or the 

 voice itself of a person who sings, that are the object? 

 of our perception, but only that which acts upon 

 our car, for x>ne and the same thing cannot be in 

 two different places at once. And as no man says, 

 that his judgment is imposed upon, because a sound 

 strikes him more feebly at a distance, than when 

 he hath approached the place whence it comes ; 

 neither can we say, that our sight illudos us, when 

 at a distance, a tower appears small and round', which 

 upon our approach to it, would be found large and 

 square : for the representative size of the object is 

 in exact proportion to that of the angle formed by 

 it in the eye, which varies according to the difference 

 of the distance. In a word, the use of the senses is 

 to represent objects to us under certain appearances, 

 but not at all to judge of what they are in themselves: 

 -VOL. v. D 



