ANIMALS. Sl'J 



and having diminislied even the touch itself, by all the arts oi 

 softness, the imagination is then left to riot at large, and to lead 

 the understanding without an opposer. Every incursive idea 

 then becomes a reality ; and the mind, not having one power that 

 can prove the illusion, takes them for truths. As in madness, 

 the senses, from struggling with the imagination, are at length 

 forced to submit ; so, in sleep, they seem for a while soothed in- 

 to the like submission : the smallest \dolence exerted upon any 

 one of them, however, rouses all the rest in their mutual defence ; 

 and the imagination, that had for a while told its thousand fitlse- 

 hoods, is totally driven away, or only permitted to pass under 

 the custody of such as are every moment ready to detect its 

 imposition. 



CHAP. VII. 



OF SEEINT,. ' 



" Having mentioned the sense& as correcting the errors of 

 the imagination, and, as forcing it, '"n some measure, to bring us 

 just information, it will naturally follow, that we should examine 

 the nature of those senses themselves : we shall thus be enabled 

 to see how far they also impose on us, and how far they contri- 

 bute to correct each other. Let it be observed, however, that 

 in this we are neither giving a treatise of optics or phonics, but 

 a history of our own perceptions : and to those we clitfetly con- 

 fine ourselves." 



The eyes very soon begin to be formed in the human embryo, 

 and in the chicken also. Of all the parts which the animal has 

 double, the eyes are produced the soonest, and appear the most 

 prominent. It is true, indeed, that in viviparous animals, and 

 particularly in man, they are not so large in proportion, at first, 

 as in the oviparous kinds ; nevertheless, they are more speedily 

 developed, when they begin to appear, than any other parts of 



1 Tliis chapter is taken Iroiii Mr Buffon. I believe the reader will readily 

 excuse any apology ; and, perhaps, may wish that I had t;ikcn this liherty 

 inufh more frequently. What I ;idd is marked, as iu a former instance, with 

 Inverted commas. 



2g 



