231 
inured to vast impressions of distance, can 
not only recal them m their greatest ex- 
tent, with as much rapidity as they were at 
first imbii ed, but can multiply them, and 
add one to another, till all particular bound- 
aries and distances are lost in immensity. 
The blind are apprehensive of danger in 
every motion towards any place, whence their 
contracted powers of perception can give 
them no intelligence. Ail the various modes 
of delicate proportion, all the beautiful va- 
rieties of light and colours, exhibited in the 
works of nature and art, are to them irretriev- 
ably lost. Dependant for every thing, but 
mere existence, on the good offices of others ; 
obnoxious to injury from every point, which 
they are neither capacitated to perceive nor 
qualilied to resist ; they are, during the pre- 
sent state of being, rather prisoners at large, 
than citizens o : nature. The sedentary life 
to which by privation of sight they are des- 
tined, relaxes their frame, and subjects them 
to all the miserable sensations which arise 
from dejection of spirits. Hence the most 
feeble exertions create lassitude and uneasi- 
ness. Hence the native tone of the nervous 
system, compatible with health and pleasure, 
being destroyed by inactivity, exasperates 
and embitters every disagreeable impression. 
Natural evils, however, are supportable, be- 
ing either mild in their attacks, or short in 
their duration : the miseries inflicted by con- 
scious and reflecting agents almost alone de- 
serve the name of evils. These excruciate 
the soul with ineffable poignancy, as expres- 
sive of indifference or malignity in those by 
whom such bitter potions are cruelly ad- 
ministered. The negligence or wantonness, 
therefore, with which the blind are too fre- 
quently treated, is an enormity which God 
alone has justice or power to punish. Those 
amongst them who have had sensibility to 
feel, and capacity to express, the effects of 
their misfortunes, have described them in a 
manner capable of penetrating the most 
callous heart. Homer, in the person of 
Demodocus the Phaeatian bard, has patheti- 
cally described his own situation; and Milton, 
with equal force and beauty, has deplored 
the misfortune of blindness. 
Thus dependant on every creature, and 
passive to every accident, can we be surprised 
to observe moments when the blind are at 
variance with themselves and every thing else 
around them? With the same instinct of 
self-preservation, the same irascible" passions 
which are common to the species, and exas- 
perated by a sense of debility either for re- 
taliation or defence, can the blind be really 
objects of resentment or contempt, even 
when they seem peevish or vindictive ? This, 
however, is not always their character. Their 
behaviour is often highly expressive not only 
of resignation, but even of cheerfulness ; ancl 
though they are often coldly, and even in- 
humanly, treated by men, yet they are rarely, 
if ever, forsaken of heaven. The common 
Parent of nature, whose benignity is perma- 
nent as his existence, and boundless as his 
empire, has neither left his afflicted creatures 
without consolation nor resource. 
The blind often derive advantages even 
from their loss, however oppressive and irre- 
trievable: not indeed adequate to compen- 
sate, but sufficient to alleviate their misery. 
The attention of the soul, coniined to those 
avenues of perception which she can com-* 
BLINDNESS. 
maud, is neither dissipated nor confounded 
by the immense multiplicity, nor the rapid 
succession, of surrounding objects. Hence 
her contemplations are more uniformly lixed 
upon tiie revolutions of her own internal 
irame. Hence her perceptions of such ex- 
ternal tilings as are contiguous and obvious to 
her observation, become more exquisite. 
Hence even her instruments of corporeal 
sensation are more assiduously improved: 
so that from them she derives such notices of 
app. caching pleasure, or impending danger, 
as entirely escape the attention of those who 
depend for security on the reports ot their 
eyes. He distinguishes the approach of his 
friend by the sound of his steps, by his man- 
ner ot breathing, and almost by every audible 
token which he can exhibit. Prepared for 
the dangers which lie may encounter from 
the surface of the ground upon which lie 
walks, his step is habitually turn and cau- 
tious. Hence he not only avoids tho e falls 
which might be occasioned by its less for- 
midable inequalities, but from its general 
bias he collects some ideas how far his safety 
is immediately concerned ; and though these 
conjectures may be sometimes fallacious, yet 
they are generally so true as to preserve him 
from such accidents as are not incurred by 
his own temerity. The rapid torrent and the 
deep cascade not only warn him to keep a 
proper distance, but inform him in what 
direction he moves, and are a kind of audible 
cynosures to regulate his course. In places 
to which he has been accustomed, he in a 
manner recognises his latitude and longitude 
from every breath of varied fragrance that 
tinges the gale, from every ascent or declivity 
in the road, from every natural or artificial 
sound that strikes his ear; if these indications 
be stationary, anil confined to particular 
places. Regulated by these signs, the blind 
have not only been known to perform long 
journeys themselves, but even, if we may- 
credit report, to conduct others through dan- 
gerous paths at midnight, with the utmost 
security and exactness. 
It would be endless to recapitulate the va- 
rious mechanical operations of which they 
are capable by their nicety and accuracy of 
touch. In some, the tactile powers are said 
to have been so highly improved, as to per- 
ceive tiiat texture and disposition of coloured 
surfaces by which some rays of light are re- 
flected and others absorbed, and in this man- 
ner to distinguish colours ; but the testimonies 
for this fact still appear too vague and general 
to deserve public credit. A person who. lost 
the use of iiis sight at an early period of in- 
fancy, who in the vivacity or delicacy of his 
sensations was not perhaps inferior to any 
one, and who had often heard of others in Id's 
situation capable of distinguishing colours by 
touch, stimulated, partly by curiosity to ac- 
quire a new train of ideas if possible, but still 
more by incredulity with respect to the facts 
related, tried repeated experiments by touch- 
ing the surfaces ot different bodies and ex- 
amining whether any such diversities could 
be found in them as might enable him to 
distinguish colours ; but no such diversity 
coni i he ever ascertain. Sometimes, in- 
deed, he imagined that objects which had no 
colour, or, in other words, such as were 
blank, were somewhat different and peculiar 
i i their suriaces, hut this. experiment did not 
always hold. That their acoustic perceptions 
are distinct and accurate, we may fairly con- 
clude iromthe rapidity with which they ascer- 
tain the acuteness or gravity of different 
tones, and from their exact discernment of 
the various modifications oi sound, and oi so- 
norous objects, it the sounds themselves are 
in any degree, significant of their causes. 
When we ruminate on the numberless 
advantages derived from the use of sigh*, 
and its immense importance in extend- 
ing the human capacity, and improving 
every faculty of the mind, we might be 
tempted to doubt the reports concerning 
such persons as, without the assistance of 
light, have arrived at high degrees of emi- 
nence even in those sciences which appear 
absolutely unattainable but by the interpo- 
sition of external mediums. It lias, however, 
been demonstrated by the late ingenious Dr. 
Reid, that blind men, by proper instruction, 
are susceptible of almost every idea, and 
every truth which can lie impressed on the 
mind by the mediation of light and colours, 
except the sensations of light and colours 
themselves. Yet there is one phenomenon 
of this kind which seems to have escaped 
the attention of that philosopher, and for 
which no author has offered any tolerable 
reason, though it certainly merits the atten- 
tion of a philosopher. For though we should 
admit that the blind can understand with 
great perspicuity all the phenomena of light 
and colours ; though it was allowed that on 
these subjects they might extend their specu- 
lations beyond their instructions, and investi- 
gate the mechanical principles of optics by 
the mere force of genius and application, 
from the data which they have already ob- 
tained; yet it will be difficult, if not impos- 
sible, to assign any reason why these objects 
should be more interesting to a blind man 
than any other abstract truths whatever. It 
is possible for the blind, by a retentive me- 
mory, to tell that the sky is an azure ; that 
the sun, moon, and stars, are bright ; that the 
rose is red, the lily white or yellow, and the 
tulip variegated. By continually hearing 
these substantives' and adjectives joined, he 
may bc^mechanioally taught to join them in 
the same manner; b .t if he has never had any 
sensation of colour, however accurately lie 
may speak of coloured objects, his language 
must be like that of a parrot; Without mean- 
ing, and without ideas. 
It is scarcely possible to lay down a plan, 
or enter into a detail of particulars, with r< 
spect to the mode of education proper to lie 
pursued for the blind. These must be de- 
termined by the genius, the capacity, and 
the circumstances,, of those to whom the ge- 
neral rules should lie applied. Much there- 
fore must depend on their fortunes, much on 
their temper and genius ; tor unless these 
particulars were known, every answer which 
could be given to questions of this kind must 
be extremely general, and of consequence 
extremely superficial. Besides,, the task is 
so much more arduous, because whoever at- 
tempts it can expect to derive no assistance 
from those who have written on education be- 
fore him : and though the blind have excelled 
in more than one science, yet, except in the 
case of Dr. Saunderson, it does not appear 
that any of them have been conducted to 
that degree of eminence at which they ar- 
rived upon a premeditated plan. We sh .uld 
rather imagine, that they have been led 
