NATURAL THEOLOGY. 35 



bottom of the eye, not in the centre or middle, but 

 a little 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 considering vision as achieved by the means 

 of an image formed at the bottom of the eye, we 

 can never reflect without wonder upon the small- 

 ness yet correctness of the picture, the subtility of 

 the touch, the fineness of the lines. A landscape 

 of five or six square leagues is brought into a space 

 of half an inch diameter ; yet the multitude of ob- 

 jects which it contains are all preserved, are all dis- 

 criminated in their magnitudes, positions, figures, 

 colours. The prospect from Hampstead-hill is com- 

 pressed into the compass of a sixpence, yet circum- 

 stantially 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 smallness of 

 the visual tablet compared with the extent of vis- 

 ion, it is a reflection w^hich the view of nature leads 

 up every hour to make, viz., 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 



