38 CHEERFULNESS OF THE BLIND. 



and he could seize happiness in the dark. It is 

 a common observation, that blind people are al- 

 ways cheerful ; and the fact is nearly as general, 

 that they are all musical. Now, as these are 

 general truths, like all general truths, there is 

 instruction in them ; and it is instruction that any 

 one may obtain without the form or intricate pre- 

 paration of any thing that can be called learning 

 or science. It is delightful to look on the glowing 

 heavens and the green earth ; and as there are few 

 things more calculated to afford us pleasure than 

 our sight, so there are few things that we suffer 

 more by neglecting or using improperly. But 

 from the proverbial happiness of the blind, and 

 their fondness for music, it is extremely probable 

 that all nature becomes to them as if it were one 

 vast musical instrument. Nor is there any doubt 

 that sounds convey to them the notions of form 

 and distance, in a manner as intelligible to the 

 mind, as that which those who have the advantage 

 of sight receive through that medium. Strange 

 as it may seem, too, the touch of blind people 

 may be so educated, as not only to distinguish one 

 colour from another, but to distinguish different 

 depths of shade in the same colour. Human per- 

 ception is a very curious matter ; and the different 

 senses so co-operate with each other, and they are 

 all so linked with nature, that it is difficult to say 

 within what limits we could confine that which 

 any one of them might reveal to us, though we 

 were deprived of all the others. It is probable, 

 indeed, that sensation itself is a much more ge- 

 neral principle than any of those modifications of 

 it which reside in the particular organs; and that 

 it is really those powers of the body, by which we 



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