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B L I N D. 



The following striking picture of tlic condition of 

 the blind, is delineated by one who had the misfor- 

 tune to be completely deprived of his eye-sight at 

 the early age of five months, the well-known and 

 much esteemed Dr T. Blacklock of Edinburgh. 



" There is not perhaps any sense or faculty of the 

 corporeal frame, which affords so many resources of 

 utility and entertainment, as the power of vision ; 

 nor is there any loss or privation which can be pro- 

 ductive of disadvantages or calamities so multiform, 

 so various, and so bitter, as the want of sight. By no 

 avenue of corporeal perception is knowledge in her 

 full extent, and in all her forms, so accessible to the 

 rational and enquiring soul, as by the glorious and 

 delightful medium of light. For this not only re- 

 veals external things in all their beauties, in all their 

 changes, and in all their varieties ; but gives body, 

 form, and colour, to intellectual ideas and abstract 

 essences ; so that the whole material and intelligent 

 creation lie m open prospect ; and the majestic frame 

 of nature in its whole extent is, if we may speak so, 

 perceived at a siBgle glance. To the blind, on the 

 contrary, the visible universe is totally annihilated ; 

 he is perfectly conscious of no space but that on 

 which he stands, or to which his extremities can 

 reach. Sound, indeed, gives him some ideas of dis- 

 tant objects ; but those ideas are extremely obscure 

 and indistim-t. They are obscure, because they con- 

 sist alone of the objects whose oscillations vibrate in 

 his ear ; and do not necessarily suppose any other 

 bodies with which the intermediate space may be oc- 

 cupied, except that which gives the sound alone : 

 they are indistinct, because sounds themselves are 

 frequently ambiguous, and do not uniformly and ex- 

 clusively indicate their real causes. And though by 

 them the idea of distance in general, or even of some 

 particular distances, may be obtained ; yet they never 

 fill the mind with those vast and exalting ideas of 

 extension, which are inspired by ocular perception. 

 For though a clap of thunder, or an explosion of 

 ordnance, may be distinctly heard after they have 

 traversed an immense region of space $ yet, when the 

 distance is uncommonly great, it ceases to be indi- 

 cated by sound j and, therefore, the ideas acquired 

 by auricular experiment, of extension and interval, 

 are extremely confused and inadequate. The living 

 and comprehensive eye darts its instantaneous view 

 over expansive valleys, lofty mountains, protracted 

 rivers, illimitable oceans. It measures, in an indivi- 

 sible point of time, the mighty space from earth to 

 iieaven ; or from one star to another. By the assist- 

 ance of telescopes, its horizon is almost indefinitely 

 extended ; its objects prodigiously multiplied ; and 

 the sphere of its observation nobly enlarged. By 

 these means, the imagination, inured to vast impres- 

 sions of distance, can not only recal them in their 

 greatest extent, with as much rapidity as they were 

 at first imbibed ; but can multiply them, and add 

 one to another, till all particular boundaries and 

 distances be lost in immensity. 



" Thus nature, by profusely irradiating the face 

 of things, and clothing objects in a robe of diversi- 

 fied splendour, not only invites the understanding to 

 expatiate on a theatre so extensive, 50 diversified, and 



so attractive ; but entertains and inflames the imagi- Blind, 

 nation with every possible exhibition of the sublime / 



or beautiful. 'I he man of light and colours beholds 

 the objects of his attention and curiosity from afar. 

 Taught by experience, he measures their relative dis- 

 tances ; distinguishes their qualities ; determines their 

 situations, positions, and attitudes ; presages what 

 these tokens may import ; selects his favourites ; tra- 

 verses, in security, the space which divides them 

 from him ; stops at the point where they are placed ; 

 and either obtains them with ease, or immediately 

 perceives the means by which the obstacles that in- 

 tercept his passage to them,may be surmounted. The 

 blind not only may be, but really are, during a con- 

 siderable period, apprehensive of danger, in every 

 motion towards any place from whence their con- 

 tracted power of perception can give them no intelli- 

 gence. All the various modes of delicate propor- 

 tion ; all the beautiful varieties of light and colours, 

 whether exhibited in the works of nature or art, are 

 to them irretrievably lost. Dependent for every 

 thing but mere subsistence, on the good offices of 

 others ; obnoxious to injury from every point, which 

 they are neither capacitated to perceive nor qualified 

 to resist : they are, during the present state of being, 

 rather to be considered as prisoners at large, than 

 citizens of nature. The sedentary life, to which by 

 privation of sight they are destined, relaxes their 

 frame, and subjects them to all the disagreeable sen- 

 sations which arise from dejection of spirits. Hence 

 the most fteble exertions create lassitude and uneasi- 

 ness. Hence the native tone of the nervous system, 

 which alone is compatible with health and pleasure, 

 destroyed by inactivity, exasperates and embitters 

 every disagreeable impression. Natural evils, how- 

 ever, are always supportable ; they not ouly arise 

 from blind and undesigning causes, but are either 

 mild in their attacks, or short in their duration ; it 

 is the miseries which are iuflicted by conscious and 

 reflecting agents alone, that can deserve the name of 

 evils. These excoriate the soul with ineffable poig- 

 nancy, as expressive of indifference or malignity in 

 those by whom such bitter potions are cruelly admi- 

 nistered. The negligence or wantonness, therefore, 

 with which the blind are too frequently treated, is 

 an enormity which God alone has justice to feel, or 

 power to punish." 



That this affecting appeal should be somewhat too 

 querulous and gloomy, will not excite the wonder of 

 those who are aware that its author, though endow- 

 ed with a powerful mind, was liable to frequent fits 

 of despondency and extreme depression of spirits ; 

 in consequence of which, the natural evils of his 

 situation occasionally presented themselves to his ima- 

 gination, iu too aggravated and distorted a form. 

 For this, he seems anxious to apologise ; when, in a 

 subsequent part of his appeal, he exclaims : " Thus 

 dependent on every creature, and passive to every 

 accident, can the world, the uncharitable world, be 

 surprised to observe moments when the blind are at 

 variance with themselves, and with every thing else 

 around them ? With the same instincts of self pre- 

 servation, the same irascible passions which are com- 

 mon to the species, and exasperated by a sense of 



