An essay on blindness, in a letter to a person of distinction : reciting the most interesting particulars relative to persons born blind, and those who have lost their sight : being an enquiry into the nature of their ideas, knowledge of sounds, opinions concerning morality and religion, &c. interspersed with several anecdotes of Sanderson, Milton, and others : with copper-plates elucidating Dr. Sanderson's method of working geometrical problems / translated from the French of M. Diderot, physician to His most Christian Majesty.
- Diderot, Denis, 1713-1784. Lettre sur les aveugles
- Date:
- [1780?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay on blindness, in a letter to a person of distinction : reciting the most interesting particulars relative to persons born blind, and those who have lost their sight : being an enquiry into the nature of their ideas, knowledge of sounds, opinions concerning morality and religion, &c. interspersed with several anecdotes of Sanderson, Milton, and others : with copper-plates elucidating Dr. Sanderson's method of working geometrical problems / translated from the French of M. Diderot, physician to His most Christian Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.
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![mous philofophers have laboured with lefs fubtility in the purfuit of notions as falfe ? But how furprizing muft a looking-glafs be to this blind man ? How much muft his amazement have increafed on our inform- ing him, that there are fome of thofe ma- chines which magnify objects, others which, without duplicating them, put them out of their place, bring them nearer, remove them farther, caufe them to be perceived, and lay open the moft minute parts to the eyes of the naturalifts * that fome again multiply them by thoufands, and that fome appear totally to change the figure of ob- ]edls ? Concerning thele phenomena, he afked us abundance of ftrange queflionsj as, “ Whether none, but thofe called na- “ turalifts, faw with the microfcope j and “ whether aftronomers alone faw with the “ telefcope ? Whether the machine which “ magnifies objects be larger than that “ which leffens them ? Whether that “ which brings them nearer was fhorter “ than that which removes them farther “ off?” And not conceiving how that o- ■ v ther](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2144139x_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
