THE ARGUMENT APPLIED. ^^ 



There is one property however, common, I believe, to ail 

 eyes, at least to all wliich have been examined,*" namely, 

 that the optic nerve enters the bottom of the eye not in the 

 centre or middle, but a Uttle on one side — not in the point 

 where the axis of the eye meets the retina, but between that 

 point and the nose. The difference which this makes is, 

 that no part of an object is unperceived by both eyes at the 

 same time. 



In considermg vision as achieved by the means of an 

 image formed at the bottom of the eye, we can never reflect 

 without wonder upon the smallness yet correctness of the 

 picture, the subtilty of the touch, the fineness of the Hnes. 

 A landscape of five or six square leagues is brought into a 

 space of half an inch diameter, yet the multitude of objects 

 which it contains are all preserved, are all discriminated in 

 their magnitudes, positions, figures, colors. The prospect 

 from Hampstead-hill is compressed into the compass of a 

 sixpence, yet circumstantially represented. A stage-coach, 

 travelling at an ordinary speed for half an hour, passes in 

 the eye only over one-twelfth of an inch, yet is this change 

 of place in the image distinctly perceived throughout its 

 whole progress ; for it is only by means of that perception 

 that the motion of the coach itself is made sensible to the 

 eye. If any thing can abate our admiration of the small- 

 ness of the visual tablet compared with the extent of vision, 

 it is a reflection which the view of nature leads us every 

 hour to make, namely, that in the hands of the Creator, 

 great and little are nothing. 



Sturmius held that the examination of the eye was a 

 cure for atheism. Besides that conformity to optical prin- 

 ciples which its internal constitution displays, and which 

 alone amounts to a manifestation of intelligence having been 

 exerted in the structure — besides this, which forms, no doubt, 

 the leading character of the organ, there is to be seen, in 



* The eye of the seal or sea-calf, I understand, is an sxception 

 Dffem. Acad. Pari«?, 1710, p 123. 



