an epithet applied to a person or sensitive creature deprived of the use of his eyes; or, in other words, to one from whom light, colours, and all the glorious variety of the visible creation, are intercepted by some natural or accidental disease. Such is the literal acceptation of the term; but it is likewise used in a metaphorical sense, to signify mental or intellectual darkness; and frequently implies, at the same time, some moral or spiritual depravity in the soul thus blinded, which is either the efficient or continuing cause of this internal malady. Yet, even in metaphor, the epithet of blind is sometimes applied to a kind of ignorance, which neither involves the ideas of real guilt, nor of voluntary error. It is, however, our present intention to consider the word, not in its figurative, but in its natural and primary sense. Nor do we mean in this place to regard it as a subject of medical speculation, or to explore its causes and enumerate its cures. These are in the department of another science. It is rather our design to consider, By what means this inexpressible misfortune may be compensated or alleviated to those who sustain it; what advantages and confusions they may derive from it; of what acquisitions they may be susceptible; what are the proper means of their improvement; or by what culture they may become useful to themselves, and important members of society.

There is not, perhaps, any sense or faculty of the human corporeal frame, which affords so many resources of utility and entertainment, as the power of vision; nor is there any loss or privation which can be productive of disadvantages or calamities so multifrom, so various, and so bitter, as the want of sight. By no avenue of corporeal perception is knowledge in her full extent, and in all her forms, so accessible to the rational and inquiring soul, as by the glorious and delightful medium of light. For this not only reveals external things in all their beauties, in all their changes, and in all their varieties; but gives body, form, and colour, to intellectual ideas and abstract essences; so that the whole material and intelligent creation lie in open prospect, and the majestic frame of nature in its whole extent, is, if we may speak so, perceived at a single glance. To the blind, on the contrary, the visible universe is totally annihilated; he is perfectly conscious of no space but that in which he stands, or to which his extremities can reach. Sound, indeed, gives him some ideas of distant objects; objects; but those ideas are extremely obscure and indistinct. They are obscure, because they consist alone of the objects whose oscillations vibrate on his ear, and do not necessarily suppose any other bodies with which the intermediate space may be occupied, except that which gives the sound alone: they are indistinct, because sounds themselves are frequently ambiguous, and do not uniformly and exclusively indicate their real causes. And though by them the idea of distance in general, or even of some particular distances, may be obtained; yet they never fill the mind with those vast and exalting ideas of extension which are inspired by ocular perception. For though a clap of thunder, or an explosion of ordnance, may be distinctly heard after they have traversed an immense region of space; yet, when the distance is uncommonly great, it ceases to be indicated by sound; and therefore the ideas, acquired by auricular experiment of extension and interval, are extremely confused and inadequate. The living and comprehensive eye darts its instantaneous view over expansive valleys, lofty mountains, protracted rivers, illimitable oceans. It measures, in an indivisible point of time, the mighty space from earth to heaven, or from one star to another. By the assistance of telescopes, its horizon is almost indefinitely extended, its objects prodigiously multiplied, and the sphere of its observation nobly enlarged. By these means, the imagination, insured to vast impressions of distance, can not only recall them in their greatest extent with as much rapidity as they were at first imbibed; but can multiply them, and add one to another, till all particular boundaries and distances be lost in immensity. Thus nature, by profusely irradiating the face of things, and clothing objects in a robe of diversified splendour, not only invites the understanding to expatiate on a theatre so extensive, so diversified, and so attractive; but entertains and inflames the imagination with every possible exhibition of the sublime or beautiful. The man of light and colours beholds the objects of his attention and curiosity from far. Taught by experience, he measures their relative distances; distinguishes their qualities; determines the situations, positions, and attitudes; prefigures what these tokens may import; selects his favourites; traverses in security the space which divides them from him; stops at the point where they are placed; and either obtains them with ease, or immediately perceives the means by which the obstacles that intercept his passage to them may be surmounted. The blind not only may be, but really are, during a considerable period, apprehensive of danger in every motion towards any place from whence their contracted powers of perception can give them no intelligence. All the various modes of delicate proportion, all the beautiful varieties of light and colours, whether exhibited in the works of nature or art, are to them irretrievably lost. Dependent for every thing, but mere subsistence, on the good offices of others; obnoxious to injury from every point, which they are neither capacitated to perceive, nor qualified to resist; they are, during the present state of being, rather to be considered as prisoners at large, than citizens of nature. The sedentary life, to which by privation of sight they are destined, relaxes their frame, and subjects them to all the disagreeable sensations which arise from dejection of spirits. Hence the most feeble exertions create latitude and uneasiness. Hence

the native tone of the nervous system, which alone is compatible with health and pleasure, destroyed by inactivity, exasperates and embitters every disagreeable impression. Natural evils, however, are always supportable; they not only arise from blind and undesigning causes, but are either mild in their attacks, or short in their duration: it is the miseries which are inflicted by conscious and reflecting agents alone, that can deserve the name of evils. These excruciate the soul with ineffable poignancy, as expressive of indifference or malignity in those by whom such bitter potions are cruelly administered. The negligence or wantonness, therefore, with which the blind are too frequently treated, is an enormity which God alone has justice to feel 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. The venerable father of epic poetry, who in the person of Demodocus the Phaecean bard is said to have described his own situation, proceeds thus:

Dear to the muse, who gave his days to flow With mighty blessings mix'd with mighty woe, In clouds and darkness quench'd his visial ray, Yet gave him power to raise the lofty lay.

Milton, in his address to light, after a sublime description of his arduous and gloomy journey from the regions of primeval darkness to this our visible diurnal sphere, thus continues to apostrophise the celestial beam:

Taught by the heav'nly muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend, Though hard and rare; thee I revisit fain, And feel thy fav'ring vital lamp: but thou Reviv'st not thee eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs, Or dire infusion veil'd. Yet not the more Cease I to wander, where the muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song: but chief These, Shôn, and the flow'ry brooks beneath, That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit; nor sometimes forget These other two equall'd with me in fate, So were I equall'd with them in renown, Blind Thamyris, and blind Mazonides, And Tiresias and Phineus prophets old: Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the warbling bird Sings darkling, and in flaxfield covert hid Tunes his nocturnal tune. Thus with the year Seasons return; but not my return Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or flight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flecks, or birds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark, Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank, Of nature's works to me expung'd and rais'd, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

PAR. LOST, Book III.

The same inimitable author, in his tragedy of Sampson Agonistes, and in the person of his hero, deplores the misfortune of blindness with a pathos and energy sufficient to extort the deepest sighs from the most unfeeling hearts: But chief of all, O loss of sight, of thee I must complain! Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary, decrepit age. Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, And all her various objects of delight Annulled, which might in part my grief have eas'd, Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm. The vilest here excel me: They creep, yet see; I dark in light expos'd To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, Within doors, or without, till as a fool, In power of others, never in my own; Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. O dark, dark! death and the blaze of noon, Uncoverable dark, soul's eclipse Without all hope of day! O first-created Beam, and thou great Word, Let there be light, and light was over all; Why am I thus bereav'd thy prying decree? The sun to me is dark, And silent, as the moon When she doth set the night, Hid in her vacant lunar cave, Since light to necessity is to life, And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the soul, She all in every part; why was the fight To such a tender ball as th' eye confin'd? So obvious, and so easy to quench it? And not, as feeling, throughout all parts diffus'd, That the might look at will through ev'ry pore? Then had I not been thus exil'd from light, As in the land of darkness, yet in light To live a life half dead, a living death; And bury'd; but yet more miserable! Myself the sepulchre, a moving grave; Buried, yet not exempt By privilege of death and burial From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs, But made hereby obnoxious more To all the miseries of life.

Oflan, the Caledonian bard, who lived before the authenticated history of his nation dates its origin, who in his old age participated the same calamity, has in more than one passage of his works described his situation in a manner so delicate, yet so pathetic, that it pierces the inmost recesses and excites the finest feelings of the heart. Of these passages, take the following:

"O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O sun! whence thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty, and the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone: who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven: but thou art for ever the same; rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests; when thunder rolls and lightning glances through the heavens; thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Oflan thou lookest in vain: for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the well. But thou art, perhaps, like me, for a season; and thy years will have an end: thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning.—Exult then, O sun, in the strength of thy youth! age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills, the howling blast of the north is on the plain, the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey."

Thus dependent on every creature, and passive to every accident, can the world, the uncharitable world, be surprized to observe moments when the blind are at variance with themselves and every thing else around them? With the same instincts of self-preservation, the same irascible passions which are common to the species, and exasperated by a sense of debility either for retaliation or defence; can the blind be real 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; and tho' they are often coldly, and even unhumanly, treated by men, yet are they rarely, if ever, forsaken of heaven. The common Parent of nature, whose benignity is permanent as his existence and boundless as his empire, has neither left his afflicted creatures without consolation nor resource. Even from their loss, however oppressive and irretrievable, they derive advantages; not indeed adequate to compensate, but sufficient to alleviate, their misery. The attention of the soul, confined to those avenues of perception which she can command, is neither diffipated nor confounded by the immense multiplicity nor the rapid succession of surrounding objects. Hence her contemplations are more uniformly fixed upon herself, and the revolutions of her own internal frame. Hence her perceptions of such external things as are contiguous and obvious to her observation become more lively and exquisite. Hence even her instruments of corporeal sensation are more assiduously cultivated and improved, so that from them she derives such notices and preludes of approaching pleasure or impending danger as entirely escape the attention of those who depend for security on the reports of their eyes. A blind man, when walking swiftly, or running, is kindly and effectually checked by nature from rudely encountering such hard and extended objects as might hurt or bruise him. When he approaches bodies of this kind, he feels the atmosphere more sensibly reflect his progress; and in proportion as his motion is accelerated, or his distance from the object diminished, the resistance is increased. He distinguishes the approach of his friend from far by the sound of his steps, by his manner of breathing, and almost by every audible token which he can exhibit. Prepared for the dangers which he may encounter from the surface of the ground upon which he walks, his step is habitually firm and cautious. Hence he not only avoids those falls which might be occasioned by its less formidable 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 synoptics to regulate his course. In places to which he has been accustomed, he as it were recognizes his latitude and longitude from every breath of varied fragrance that tingles the gale, from every scent or declivity in the road, from every natural or artificial sound that strikes his ear; if these indications be stationary, and confined to particular places. Regulated by these signs, the blind have not only been known to perform long journeys themselves, but to conduct others through dangerous paths at the dark and silent hour of midnight, with the utmost security and exactness (a).

It were endless to recapitulate the various 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 perceive that texture and disposition of coloured surfaces by which some rays of light are reflected and others absorbed, and in this manner to distinguish colours. But the testimonies for this fact still appear to us too vague and general to deserve public credit. We have known a person who lost the use of his sight at an early period of infancy, who in the vivacity or delicacy of his sensations was not perhaps inferior to any one, and who had often heard of others in his own situation capable of distinguishing colours by touch with the utmost exactness and promptitude. Stimulated, therefore, partly by curiosity to acquire a new train of ideas, if that acquisition were possible; but still more by incredulity with respect to the facts related; he tried repeated experiments by touching the surfaces of different bodies, and examining whether any such diversities could be found in them as might enable him to distinguish colours; but no such diversity could he ever ascertain. Sometimes, indeed, he imagined that objects which had no colour, or (in other words) such as were black, were somewhat different and peculiar in their surfaces; but this experiment did not always nor universally hold. His scepticism therefore still continues to prevail (b). That their acoustic perceptions are distinct and accurate, we may fairly conclude from the rapidity with which they ascertain the acuteness or gravity of different tones, as relative one to another; and from their exact discernment of the various kinds and modifications of sound, and of sonorous objects, if the sounds themselves be in any degree significant of their causes. From this vivacity and accuracy of external sensation, and from the affusive and vigorous applications of a comprehensive and attentive mind, alone, we are able to account for the rapid and astonishing progress which some of them have made, not only in those departments of literature which were most obvious to their senses and accessible to their understandings, but even in the abstractest, and (if we may be allowed the expression) in the most occult sciences.

What, for instance, can be more remote from the conceptions of a blind man than the abstract relations and properties of space and quantity? yet the incomprehensible attainments of Mr Saunderson in all the branches of mathematics are now fully known and firmly believed by the whole literary world, both from the testimony of his pupils and the publication of his works. But should the fact be still uncertain, it might be sufficiently verified by a living prodigy (c) of this kind, with which our country is at present honoured. The gentleman of whom we now speak, though blind from his infancy, by the ardour and affluence of his application, and by the force of a genius to which nothing is impenetrable, has not only made incredible advances in mechanical operations, in music, and in the languages; but is likewise profoundly skilled in geometry, in optics, in algebra, in astronomy, in chemistry, and in all the other branches of natural philosophy as taught by Newton and received by an admiring world. We are sorry that neither the modelly of this amiable philosopher, nor the limits of this article, will permit us to delineate his character in its full proportions. All we can do is to exhibit his example, that by it the vulgar prejudice, which presumes to think blindness and learning incompatible, may be dissipated; and that an instance of success so noble and recent may inflame the emulation and encourage the efforts of such as have genius and opportunity to pursue the same laudable path. If these glorious attempts should neither be perceived nor rewarded by an unfeeling world, if human nature should forget to recognize its own excellence so nobly displayed in instances of this kind; yet, besides the enjoyments resulting from a sublime and comprehensive understanding, besides the immortal and inexhaustible sources of delight which are the peculiar portion of a self-approving mind, these happy pupils and favourites of nature are, as it were, indulged with her personal intercourse. They become more intimately acquainted with her laws, till, by exploring the beneficence of her economy, the sublimity of her ends, the regularity of her procedure, and the beauties of her frame, they imbibe the spirit, and feel the presence, of her glorious Author:

By swift degrees the love of nature works, And warms the bosom; till at last, sublim'd To rapture and enthusiastic heat, We feel the present deity, and taste The joys of God to fix a happy world.

Much labour has been bestowed to investigate, both Accounts of from reason a priori, and from experiment, what might the effects be the primary effects of light and luminous objects light upon upon such as have been born blind, or early deprived those who of sight, if at a maturer period they should instantaneously recover their visual powers. But upon this topic born blind, there is much reason to fear, that nothing satisfactory has yet been said. The fallacy of hypothesis and conjecture, when formed a priori with respect to any organ of corporeal sensation and its proper object, is too obvious to demand illustration. But from the nature of the eye, and the mediums of its perception, to attempt an investigation of the various and multiform phenomena of vision, or even of the varieties of which every particular phenomenon is susceptible according as the circumstances of its appearance are diversified, would be a project worthy of philosophy in a delirium. Nay, even the discoveries which are said to accrue from experiment, may still be held as extremely doubtful and suspicious; because, in these experiments, it does not appear to have been ascertained, that the organs to which visible objects were presented immediately after chirurgical operations, could be in a proper state to perceive them. Yet, after all, it is extremely probable, that figure, distance, and magnitude, are not immediate objects of ocular sensation, but acquired and adjusted

(a) We have read, in authors of good credit, of a very surprising blind guide who used to conduct the merchants through the sands and deserts of Arabia. Vide Leo Afric. Defer. Afr. lib. vi. p. 246. and Gauaub. Treat. of Enthuf. c. ii. p. 45.

(b) See, however, the extraordinary case subjoined to this article.

(c) Mr Henry Moyes, at present residing near Kirkaldy. by long and reiterated experience (n). There are, however, many desiderata, which the perceptions of a man born blind might considerably illustrate, if his instruments of vision were in a right state, and assisted by a proper medium. Such a person might perhaps give a clearer account, why objects, whose pictures are inverted upon the retina of the eye, should appear to the mind in their real positions; or why, though each particular object is painted upon the retina of both our eyes, it should only be perceived as single. Perhaps, too, this new spectacle of visible nature might equally amuse our curiosity and improve our theory, by attempting to describe his earliest sensations of colour, and its original effects upon his organ and his fancy. But, as we have already hinted, it is far from being certain, that trials of this kind have ever been fairly made. Such readers as may wish to see a more minute detail of these questions, may consult Mr Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles, a l'usage de ceux qui voyent: "A letter concerning the blind for the use of those who see." To these may be added, Mr Chelten's Anatomy, and Locke's essay on the human understanding.

When we ruminate on the numberless advantages derived from the use of sight, and its immense importance, in extending the human capacity, or in improving and cultivating every faculty and every function of the mind, we might be strongly tempted to doubt the fidelity of those reports which we have heard, concerning such persons as, without the assistance of light, have arrived at high degrees of eminence even in those sciences which appear absolutely unattainable but by the interposition of external mediums. It has, however, been demonstrated by a late ingenious author, that blind men, by proper instruction, are susceptible almost of every idea and of every truth which can be 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 great philosopher, and for which no author either of this or any former period has been able to offer any tolerable account. Still, however, it seems to merit the attention 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 were allowed, that in these subjects they might extend their speculations beyond their instructions, and investigate the mechanical principles of optics by the mere force of genius and application, from the data which they had already obtained; yet it will be difficult, if not impossible, 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 memory, to tell you, 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 be mechanically taught to join them in the same manner: but, as he never had any sensation

(d) The gentleman crouched by Mr Chelten, had no idea of distance; but thought that all the objects he saw, touched his eyes, as what he felt did his skin. It was also a considerable time before he could remember which was the cat, and which the dog, though often informed, without first feeling them.

(e) The author is here mistaken: Dr Blacklock only saw the light for five months. of eminence, at which they arrived, upon a premeditated plan. One should rather imagine, that they have been led through the general course and ordinary forms of discipline; and that, if any circumstances were favourable to their genius, they rather proceeded from accident than design.

This fact, if not supported by irrefragable evidence, should, for the honour of human nature, have been suppressed. When contemplated by a man of benevolence and understanding, it is not easy to guess whether his mortification or astonishment would be most sensibly felt. If a heart that glows with real philanthropy must feel for the whole vital creation, and become, in some measure, the sensorium of every suffering insect or reptile; how must our sympathy increase in tenderness and force, when the distressed individuals of our own species become its objects? Nor do the blind bear so small a proportion to the whole community, as, even in a political view, to be neglected. But in this, as in every other political crime, the punishment returns upon the society in which it is committed. Those abandoned and unimproved beings, who, under the influence of proper culture and discipline, might have successfully concurred in producing and augmenting the general welfare, become the nuisances and burdens of those very societies who have neglected them.

There is perhaps no rank of beings in the sensible universe, who have suffered from nature or accident, more meritorious of public compassion, or better qualified to repay its generous exertions, than the blind. They are meritorious of compassion; for their sphere of action and observation is infinitely more limited than that of the deaf, the lame, or of those who labour under any other corporeal infirmity consistent with health. They are better qualified to repay any friendly interposition for their happiness; because, free from the distraction which attends that multiplicity of objects and pursuits that are continually obvious to the sight, they are more attentive to their own internal economy, to the particular notices of good and evil impressed on their hearts, and to that peculiar province in which they are circumscribed by the nature and cultivation of their powers.

It will easily occur to the reader, that, if the pupil should not be placed in easy circumstances, music is his readiest and most probable resource. Civil and ecclesiastical employments have either something in their own nature, or in the invincible prejudices of mankind, which renders them almost entirely inaccessible to those who have lost the use of sight. No liberal and cultivated mind can entertain the least hesitation in concluding, that there is nothing, either in the nature of things, or even in the positive institutions of genuine religion, repugnant to the idea of a blind clergyman. But the novelty of the phenomenon, while it astonishes vulgar and contracted understandings, inflames their zeal to rage and madness. Besides, the adventitious trappings and ceremonies assumed by some churches as the drapery of religion, would, according to these systems, render the sacerdotal office painful, if not impracticable, to the blind.

We have, some years ago, read of a blind gentleman*, descended from the same family with the celebrated lord Verulam, who, in the city of Brussels, was with high approbation created doctor of laws; since that period we have been honoured with his correspondence. He was deprived of sight at nine years of age by an arrow from a cross-bow whilst he was attempting to shoot it. When he had recovered his health, which had suffered by the shock, he pursued the same plan of education in which he had been engaged; and having heard that one Nicasius de Vourde, born blind, who lived towards the end of the 15th century, after having distinguished himself by his studies in the university of Louvain, took his degree as doctor of divinity in the university of Cologne; this motive prevailed with him to make the same attempt. But the public, cursed with prejudices for which the meanest sensitive nature might blush, prejudices equally beneath the brutality and ignorance of the lowest animal-instinct, treated his intention with ridicule; even the professors were not far from being of that sentiment; and they admitted him into their schools, rather from an impression that it might amuse him, than become of any use to him. He had the good fortune, however, contrary to their expectations, to obtain the first places amongst his condisciples. It was then said, that such rapid advances might be made in the preliminary branches of his education; but would soon be effectually checked by studies of a more profound and abstracted nature. This, it seems, was repeated from school to school, through the whole climax of his pursuits; and when, in the course of academical learning, it became necessary to study poetry, it was the general voice that all was over, and that at length he had reached his ne plus ultra. But here he likewise confronted their prejudices, and taught them the immense difference between blindness of body and blindness of soul. After continuing his studies in learning and philosophy for two years more, he applied himself to law, took his degree in that science, commenced pleading counsellor or advocate in the council of Brabant, and has had the pleasure of terminating almost every suit in which he has been engaged to the satisfaction of his clients.

Had it not been for a fact so striking and so well authenticated, though there could have been no doubt cult, though that a blind man might discharge the office of a chamber-counsellor with success; yet, as a barrister, his difficulties must have appeared more formidable, if not absolutely insuperable. For he should remember all the sources, whether in natural equity or positive institutions, whether in common or statutory law, from whence his argument ought to be drawn. He must be able to specify, and to arrange in their proper order, all the material objections of his antagonists: there he must likewise answer as they were proposed, extemporaneous.

When, therefore, it is considered how difficult it is to temper the natural associations of memory with the artificial arrangements of judgment, the delusive flights of imagination with the calm and regular deductions of reason, the energy and perturbation of pallion with the coolness and tranquillity of deliberation, some idea may be formed of the arduous task which every blind man must achieve, who undertakes to pursue the law as a profession. Perhaps assistance might be drawn from Cicero's treatise on Topics and on Invention; which, if happily applied and improved, might lessen the disparity of a blind man to others, but could scarcely place him on an equal footing with his brethren. And it ought to be fixed as an inviolable maxim, that no blind man ought ever to engage in any province in which it is not in his power to excel. This may at first sight appear paradoxical; but it is easily explained. For the consciousness of the obvious advantages possessed by others, habitually predisposes a blind man to despondency: and if he ever gives way to despair (which he will be too apt to do when pursuing any acquisition where others have a better chance of success than himself), adieu, for ever adieu, to all proficiency. His soul sinks into irretrievable depression; his abortive attempts incessantly prey upon his spirit; and he not only loses that vigour and elasticity of mind which are necessary to carry him through life, but that patience and serenity which alone can qualify him to enjoy it.

In this recapitulation of the learned professions, we have intentionally omitted physic; because the obstructions which a blind man must encounter, whether in the theory or practice of that art, will be more easily conceived by our readers than described in detail. From this, therefore, let us pass to more general subjects.

It has been formerly hinted, that the blind were objects of compassion, because their spheres of action and observation were limited; and this is certainly true. For what is human existence, in its present state, if you deprive it of action and contemplation? Nothing then remains but the distinction which we derive from form or from sensitive and locomotive powers. But for these, unless directed to happier ends by superior faculties, few rational beings would, in our opinion, be grateful. The most important view, therefore, which we can entertain in the education of a person deprived of sight, is to redress as effectually as possible the natural disadvantages with which he is encumbered; or, in other words, to enlarge as far as possible the sphere of his knowledge and activity. This can only be done by the improvement of his intellectual, imaginative, or mechanical, powers; and which of these ought to be most assiduously cultivated, the genius of every individual alone can determine. Were men to judge of things by their intrinsic natures, less would be expected from the blind than others. But, by some pernicious and unaccountable prejudice, people generally hope to find them either possessed of preternatural talents, or more attentive to those which they have than others: For it was not Rochester's opinion alone,

That if one sense should be suppress'd, It but retires into the rest.

Hence it unluckily happens, that blind men, who in common life are too often regarded as rarities, when they do not gratify the extravagant expectations of their spectators, too frequently sink in the general opinion, and appear much less considerable and meritorious than they really are. This general diffidence of their powers at once deprives them both of opportunity and spirit to exert themselves; and they descend, at last, to that degree of insignificance in which the public estimate has fixed them. From the original dawning, therefore, of reason and spirit, the parents and tutors of the blind ought to inculcate this maxim, That it is their indispensable duty to excel, and that it is absolutely in their power to attain a high degree of eminence. To impress this notion on their minds, the first objects presented to their observation, and the first methods of improvement applied to their understanding, ought, with no great difficulty, to be comprehensible by those internal powers and external senses which they possess. Not that improvement should be rendered quite easy to them, if such a plan were possible. For all difficulties, which are not really or apparently insuperable, heighten the charms and enhance the value of those acquisitions which they seem to retard. But, care should be taken that these difficulties be not magnified or exaggerated by imagination; for it has before been mentioned, that the blind have a painful sense of their own incapacity, and consequently a strong propensity to despair continually awake in their minds. For this reason, parents and relations ought never to be too ready in offering their assistance to the blind in any office which they can perform, or in any acquisition which they can procure for themselves, whether they are prompted by amusement or necessity. Let a blind boy be permitted to walk through the neighborhood without a guide, not only though he should run some hazard, but even though he should suffer some pain.

If he has a mechanical turn, let him not be denied the use of edge-tools; for it is better that he should lose a little blood, or even break a bone, than be perpetually confined to the same place, debilitated in his frame, and depressed in his mind. Such a being can have no employment but to feel his own weakness, and become his own tormentor; or to transfer to others all the malignity and peevishness arising from the natural, adventitious, or imaginary, evils which he feels. Scars, fractures, and dislocations, in his body, are trivial misfortunes compared with imbecility, timidity, or fretfulness of mind. Besides the sensible and dreadful effects which inactivity must have in relaxing the nerves and consequently in depressing the spirits, nothing can be more productive of jealousy, envy, peevishness, and every passion that corrodes the soul to agony, than a painful impression of dependence on others, and of our insufficiency for our own happiness. This impression, which, even in his most improved state, will be too deeply felt by every blind man, is redoubled by that utter incapacity of action which must result from the officious humanity of those who would anticipate or supply all his wants, who would prevent all his motions, who would do or procure every thing for him without his own interposition. It is the course of nature, that blind people, as well as others, should survive their parents; or it may happen that they should likewise survive those who, by the ties of blood and nature, are more immediately interested in their happiness than the rest of mankind. When, therefore, they fall into the hands of the world in general, such exigences as they themselves cannot redress will be but coldly and languidly supplied by others. Their expectations will be high and frequent, their disappointments many and sensible; their petitions will often be refused, seldom fully gratified; and, even when granted, the concession will be so ungraceful, as to render its want infinitely more tolerable than its fruition. For all these reasons, we repeat it once more (because it can never be too frequently reiterated), that, in the formation of a blind man, it is infinitely better to direct than supercede his own exertions. From the time that he can move and feel, let him be taught to supply his own exigences; to dress and feed himself; to run from place to place, either for exercise, or in pursuit of his own toys or necessaries. In these excursions, however, it will be highly proper for his parent or tutor to superintend his motions at a distance, without seeming to watch over him. A vigilance too apparent may impress him with a notion that malignity or some other selfish motive may have produced it. When dangers are obvious and great, such as we incur by rivers, precipices, &c., those who are entrusted with the blind will find it neither necessary nor expedient to make their vigilance a secret. They ought then to acquaint their pupil, that they are present with him; and to interpose for his preservation, whenever his temerity renders it necessary. But objects of a nature less noxious, which may give him some pain without any permanent injury or mutilation, may with design be thrown in his way, providing, however, that this design be always indubitably concealed. For his own experience of their bad effects will be an infinitely more eloquent and sensible monitor, than the abstract and frigid counsels of any adviser whatever.

When the volatile season of juvenile amusement is expired, and the impetuous hurry of animal-spirits subsides, through the whole demeanour of his pupil the tutor will probably observe a more sensible degree of timidity and precaution, and his activity will then require to be stimulated more than restrained. In this crisis, exercise will be found requisite, rather to preserve health, and facilitate the vital functions, than merely for recreation. Of all the different kinds of exercise, riding, not in a machine, but on horseback, is by far the most eligible, and most productive of its end. On these occasions, however, care must be taken that the horses employed may neither be capricious nor unmanageable; for on the conduct of the creature which he rides, not only his safety, but his confidence, will entirely depend. In these expeditions, whether long or short, his companion or attendant ought constantly to be with him; and the horse should always either be taught implicitly to follow its guide, or be conducted by a leading rein besides the bridle which he himself holds. Next to this mode of exercise, is walking. If the constitution of the blind boy betogether robust, let him be taught to endure every vicissitude of weather which the human species can bear with impunity. For if he has been bred with too much delicacy, particular accidents may supersede all his former scruples, and subject him to the necessity of suffering what will not only be severe in its immediate sensation, but dangerous in its future consequences. Yet, when the cold is so intense, or the elements so tempestuous, as to render air and exercise abroad impracticable, there are methods of domestic exercise, which, though not equally salutary, may still be eligible; such as dumb-bells, or the bath-chair. The first of these are made of lead, consisting of a cylinder, the middle of which may either be rectilinear or arcuated for the convenience of holding, and terminates at each end in a hemispherical mass. Their weight should be conformable to the strength and age of the person who uses them. The method of employing them is to take one in each hand, and swing them backwards and forwards over his head, describing a figure somewhat like a parabola. This not only strengthens the arms, and opens the chest, but promotes the circulation of the fluids. The bath-chair is a deal of 12 feet in length, as free from knots and as elastic as possible, supported by a fulcrum at each end, upon which may be placed two rolling cylinders to give it greater play; when seated upon this, by alternately depressing it with his own weight, and suffering it to return to its natural situation, he gives himself a motion though not equal in its energy, yet somewhat resembling the trot of a horse. There are other elastic seats of the same kind constructed with steel springs, but one of this simple fabrication may answer the purpose.

His meals should be temperate, his diet light and easy digestion. If the tone of his stomach be vigorous, vegetables should be preferred to animal-food, particularly those vegetables which are most farinaceous and least acetic. Fermented liquors and ardent spirits should never be given him but to gratify the real demands of exhausted nature. For though they exhilarate the spirits, they at the same time corrode the vessels and relax the nerves, a misfortune doubly pernicious to sedentary life. The safest and most wholesome beverages are milk and water. If he should be tired with these, he may be indulged with the variety of chocolate, balm, sage, or ground-ivy. Coffee may sometimes be taken with impunity; but tea should be interdicted with inflexible severity; for no vegetable juice under heaven is more noxious to sedentary people*. Let him also, for similar reasons, be prohibited the use of tobacco in all its forms. In the observations of diet and exercise, let him neither be mechanically regular, nor entirely eccentric. In the one case, he will be a slave to habit, which may create some inconvenience; in the other, he will form no habits at all, which may fill be productive of greater.

The natural curiosity of children renders them extremely indefatigably inquisitive. This disposition rivalry to be often peculiarly prevalent in the blind. Parents and guardians, therefore, should gratify it whenever their answers can be intelligible to the pupil; when it is otherwise, let them candidly confess the impossibility or impropriety of answering his questions. At this period, given if their hearts be tender and their powers inventive, they may render his amusements the vehicles, and his toys the instruments, of improvement: why, for instance, may not the centrifugal and centripetal forces be illustrated from the motion of a top, or the nature and power of elasticity by the rebound of a ball. These hints may lead to others, which, if happily improved and applied, may wonderfully facilitate the progress of knowledge. Nor will the violence of exercise, and the tumult of play, be productive of such perils and accidents as may be apprehended.

For the encouragement of such parents as choose to take these advices with regard to exercise, let us inform them, that though, till the age of twenty, some blind persons were on most occasions permitted to walk, to run, to play at large, they have yet escaped without any corporeal injury from these excursions.

Parents of middle, or of higher rank, who are unfortunate as to have blind children, ought, by all means to employ suitable means, to keep them out of vulgar company. The herd of mankind have a wanton malignity, which our consciences impel them to impose upon the blind, and palsy to enjoy the painful situations in which these impertinences place them. This is a stricture upon the humanity of our species, which nothing but the love of truth and the dictates of benevolence could have extorted. ed from us. But we (r) have known some who have suffered so much from this diabolical mirth in their own persons, that it is natural for us, by all the means in our power, to prevent others from becoming its victims.

Blind people have infinitely more to fear from the levity and ignorance, than from the selfishness and ill-nature, of mankind. In serious and important negotiations, pride and compassion suspend the efforts of knavery or spleen; and that very infirmity, which so frequently renders the blind defenceless to the arts of the insidious, or to the attempts of malice, is a powerful incentive to pity, which is capable of disarming fury itself. Villainy, which frequently piques itself more upon the arts by which it prevails, than upon the advantages which it obtains, may often with contempt reject the blind, as subjects beneath the dignity of its operation; but the ill-natured buffoon considers the most malicious effects of his merriment as a mere jest, without reflecting on the shame or indignation which they inspire when inflicted on a sensible temper.

But vulgar credulity and ignorance are no less dangerous to those who want sight, than the false and mechanical wit so universally practised in common life. We know, we sympathetically feel, the strong propensity of every illiterate mind, to relate or to believe whatever is marvellous and dreadful. These impressions, when early imbibed, can scarcely be eradicated by all the conspiring efforts of mature reason, and confirmed experience. Those philosophers who have attempted to break the alliance between darkness and spectres, were certainly inspired by laudable motives. But they must give us leave to assert, that there is a natural and essential connection betwixt night and orbs. Were we endowed with senses to advertize us of every noxious object before its contiguity could render it formidable, our panics would probably be less frequent and sensible than we really feel them. Darkness and silence, therefore, have something dreadful in them, because they supersede the vigilance of those senses which give us the earliest notices of things. If you talk to a blind boy of invisible beings, let benevolence be an inseparable ingredient in their character. You may, if you please, tell him of departed spirits, anxious for the welfare of their surviving friends; of ministering angels, who descend with pleasure from heaven to execute the purposes of their Maker's benignity; you may even regale his imagination with the sportive gambols and innocent frolics of fairies; but let him hear as seldom as possible, even in stories which he knows to be fabulous, of plaintive ghosts, vindictive fiends, or avenging furies. They seize and pre-occupy every avenue of terror which is open in the soul; nor are they easily dispelled. Sooner should we hope to excite a ghost, or appease a fury, than to obliterate their images in a warm and susceptible imagination, where they have been habitually impressed, and where their feelings cannot be dissipated by external phenomena. If horrors of this kind should agitate the heart of a blind boy, (which may happen notwithstanding the most strenuous endeavours to prevent it), the stories which he has heard will be most effectually discredited by ridicule. This, however, must be cautiously applied, by gentle and delicate gradations. If he is inspired with terror by effects upon his senses, the causes of which he cannot investigate, indefatigable pains must be taken to explain these phenomena, and to confirm that explanation, whenever it can be done, by the testimony of his own senses and his own experience. The exertion of his locomotive and mechanical powers (the rights of which we have formerly endeavoured to assert) will sensibly contribute to dispel these terrors.

His inventive faculties ought likewise to be indulged with the same freedom. The data which they explore may be presented in such a manner, as to render discoveries easy; but still let invention be allowed to cooperate. The internal triumph and exultation which the mind feels from the attainment and conviction of new truths, heightens their charms, impresses them deep on the memory, and gives them an influence in practice of which they could not otherwise have boasted.

There are a fort of people in the world, whose views and education have been strictly confined to one province, and whose conversation is of consequence limited and technical. These, in literary intercourse, or fashionable life, are treated with universal contempt, and branded with the odious name of mere men of business. Nor is it any wonder, that the conversation of such should prove nauseous and disgusting. It would be arrogance in them to expect, that indifferent persons should either enter into their private interests, or the peculiarities of their craft, with a warmth equal to their own. We have known the intrusion of such a person involve a numerous company in gloom, and terminate the freedom and vivacity of agreeable discourse in lazy yawning and discontented silence. Of all innocent characters, this ought to be avoided by the blind; because, of all others, it is the character which they run the greatest hazard of adopting. The limitation of their powers naturally contracts their views and pursuits, and, as it were, concentrates their whole intellectual faculties in one, or at best in few objects. Care should therefore be taken to afford the mind a theatre for its exertions, as extensive as possible, without diverting it from one great end, which, in order to excel, it ought for ever to have in prospect.

There are few sciences in which the blind have not distinguished themselves: even those whose acquisition seemed essentially to depend upon vision, have at last yielded to genius and industry, tho' deprived of that advantage. Mr Sanderson, whom we formerly mentioned, has left behind him the most striking evidences of astonishing proficiency in those retired and abstract branches of mathematics which appeared least accessible to persons of his infirmity. Sculpture (g) and painting are not, perhaps, the most practicable arts for a blind man; yet is he not excluded from the pleasing creation and extensive regions of fancy. However unaccountable it may appear to the abstract philosopher, yet nothing is more certain in fact, than that a blind man may, by the inspiration of the muses, or, to strip the

(r) The author of these observations, though he chuses to express himself in this manner, is blind.

(g) Yet there are instances of persons who have been enabled to take the figure and idea of a face by the touch, and mould it in wax with the utmost exactness; as was the case of the blind sculptor mentioned by De Piles, who thus took the likeness of the duke de Bracciano in a dark cellar, and made a marble statue of king Charles I. with great elegance and justness. Vid. De Piles Cours de Peint. p. 329, and Wolf, Psychol. Rat. § 162. the figure of its mythological drefs, may, by the ef- forts of a cultivated genius, exhibit in poetry the most natural images and animated descriptions, even of visible objects, without either incurring or deferring the im- putation of plagiarism.

In the fitter art of music, there are, at prefent, living and noble instances how far the blind may proceed.

If we look into former periods, we fhall find illuf- trious and pregnant examples, how amply nature has capacitated the blind to excel both in the scientific and practical departments of music. In the 16th century, when the progres of improvement both in melody and harmony was rapid and confpicuous, Franciscus Salis- nus was eminently diftinguifhed. He was born A.D. 1513, at Burgos in Spain; and was fon to the treafurer of that city. Tho' afflicted with incurable blindness, he was profoundly skilled both in the theory and prac- tice of music. As a performer, he is celebrated by his cotemporaries with the highest encomiums. As a theo- rist, his book, if we may believe Sir John Hawkins, is equal in value to any now extant in any language. Tho' he was deprived of light in his earliest infancy, he does not content himfelf to delineate the various phenomena in music, but the principles from whence they refult, the relations of found, the nature of arithmetical, geometrical, and harmonical ratios, which at that pe- riod were deemed effential to the theory of music, with a degree of intelligence which would have de- ferved admiration tho' he had been in full possession of every fene requisite for thefe disquisitions. He was taken to Rome in the retinue of Petrus Sarmentus archbishop of Compaftella; and having pafled twenty years in Italy, he returned to Salamanca, where he ob- tained the profefion of music, an office at that time equally respectable and lucrative. Having discharged it with reputation and fucces for fome time, he died at the venerable age of 77.

In the fame period flourifhed Cafpar Krummbhorn, blind from the third year of his age: yet he com- posed feveral pieces in many parts with fo much fuccefs, and performed both upon the flute and violin fo exqui- fitely, that he was diftinguifhed by Augustus elector of Saxony. But preferring his native Silefia to every other country, he returned thither, and was appointed organift of the church of St Peter and Paul in the city of Lignitz, where he likewife had often the direction of the musical college, and died June 11th 1621.

To thefe might be added Martini Pefenti of Venice, a composer of vocal and instrumental music almost of all kinds, tho' blind from his nativity; with other ex- amples equally worthy of public attention. But if vulgar prejudice is capable of blufhing at its own con- temptible character, or of yielding to conviction, thofe already quoted are more than fufficient to fhew the musical jugglers of our time, who are generally as absolute strangers to learning and taste as to virtue, that their art is no monopoly with which thofe alone who fee are invested by the irreversible decree of heaven.

For Sanderton's method of calculation, both in a- rithmetic and algebra, fee the account prefixed to his own treatife on that fubject. But there is a much ful- ler and more circumftantial detail both of its nature and its various ufe, given by Mr Diderot in his " Let- ter concerning the Blind, for the ufe of thofe who "fee," which we fhall here tranflate.

Vol. II.

"It is much easier (says that author) to use signs already invented, than to become their inventor; as one is forced to do, when engaged in circumstances Sande- for which he is not provided. Of what advantage might not this be to Sanderton to find a palpable arith- metic already prepared for him at five years of age, which he might otherwise have felt the neceffity of in- venting for himself at the advanced period of twenty- five? This Sanderton, Madam, is an author deprived of fight, with whom it may not be foreign to our pur- pofe to amufe you. They relate prodigies of him; and of thefe prodigies there is not one, which his pro- gres in the belles lettres, and his mathematical at- tainments, do not render credible.

"The fame instrument ferved him for algebraical calculations, and for the construction of rectilineal fi- gures. You would not, perhaps, be forry that I fhould give you an explication of it, if you thought your mind previously qualified to underftand it: and you fhall foon perceive that it presupposes no intellec- tual preparations of which you are not already mi- fref: and that it would be extremely useful to you if you fhould ever be feized with the inclination of making long calculations by touch.

"Imagine to yourself a square, fuch as you fee, fig. 1. n° 1. divided into four equal parts by perpen- Plate LVI. dicular lines at the fides, in fuch a manner, that it may prefent you the nine points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Suppofe this square pierced with nine holes capable of receiving pins of two kinds, all of equal length and thicknefs, but fome with heads a little larger than the others.

"The pins with large heads are never placed any where elfe but in the centre of the square; tho' fome with smaller heads never but at the fides, except in one fingle case, which is that of making the figure 1, where none are placed at the fides. The sign of nothing is made by placing a pin with a large head in the centre of the little square, without putting any other pin at the fides*. The number 1 is reprefented by a pin with a small head placed in the centre of the square, without put- ting any other pin at the fides: the number 2 by a pin with a large head placed in the centre of the square, and by a pin with a small head placed on one of the fides at the point 1: the number 3 by a pin with a large head placed in the centre of the square, and by a pin with a small head placed on one of the fides at the point 2: the number 4 by a pin with a large head placed in the centre of the square, and by a pin with a small head placed on one of the fides at the point 3: the number 5 by a pin with a large head placed in the centre of the square, and by a pin with a small head placed on one of the fides at the point 4: the number 6 by a pin with a large head placed in the centre of the square, and by a pin with a small head placed on one of the fides at the point 5: the number 7 by a pin with a large head placed in the centre of the square, and by a pin with a small head placed on one of the fides at the point 6: the number 8 by a pin with a large head placed in the centre of the square, and by a pin with a small head placed on one of the fides at the point 7. The number 9 by a pin with a large head placed in the centre of the square, and by a pin with a small head placed on one of the fides at the point 8.

*See Fig. 1. "Here are plainly ten different expressions obvious to the touch, of which every one answers to one of our ten arithmetical characters. Imagine now a table as large as you please, divided into small squares, horizontally ranged, and separated one from the other at similar distances, as you see it in No. 3. Thus you will have the instrument of Sanderson.

"You may easily conceive that there is not any number which one cannot express upon this table; and, by consequence, no arithmetical operation which one cannot execute upon it.

"Let it be proposed, for instance, to find the sum, or to work the addition, of the nine numbers following:

\[ \begin{array}{cccc} 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 \\ 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 \\ 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 \\ 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 \\ 6 & 7 & 8 & 9 \\ 7 & 8 & 9 & 0 \\ 8 & 9 & 0 & 1 \\ 9 & 0 & 1 & 2 \\ 0 & 1 & 2 & 3 \\ \end{array} \]

"I express them on the table in the order as they are dictated to me; the first figure at the left of the first number, upon the first square to the left of the first line; the second figure, to the left of the first number, upon the second square to the left of the same line; and so of the rest.

"I place the second number upon the second row of squares, units beneath units, and tens beneath tens, &c.

"I place the third number upon the third row of squares, and so of the rest. Then with my fingers running over each of the rows vertically from the bottom to the top, beginning with that which is nearest to my right, I work the addition of the numbers which are expressed, and mark the surplus of the tens at the foot of that column. I then pass to the second column, advancing towards the left; upon which I operate in the same manner; from thence to the third; and thus in succession I finish my addition.

"We shall now see how the same table served him for demonstrating the properties of rectilineal figures. Let us suppose this proposition to be demonstrated. That parallelograms which have the same basis and the same height are equal in their surfaces. He placed his pins as may be seen fig. 1. No. 4. He gave names to the angular points, and finished his demonstration with his fingers.

"If we suppose that Sanderson only employed pins with large heads, to mark the limits of his figures, around these he might arrange his pins with small heads in nine different manners, all of which were familiar to him. Thus he scarcely found any embarrassment but in those cases where the great number of angular points which he was under a necessity of naming in his demonstration obliged him to recur to the letters of the alphabet. We are not informed how he employed them.

"We only know, that his fingers ran over the board with astonishing agility; that he undertook with success the longest calculations; that he could interrupt the series, and discover his mistakes; that he proved them with the greatest ease; and that his labours required infinitely less time than one could have imagined, by the exactness and promptitude with which he prepared his instruments and disposed his table.

"This preparation consisted in placing pins with large heads in the centres of all the squares: having done this, no more remained to him but to fix their values by pins of smaller heads, except in cases where it was necessary to mark an unit; then he placed in the centre of a square a pin with a small head, in the place of a pin with a large head with which it had been occupied.

"Sometimes, instead of forming an entire line with these pins, he contented himself with placing some of them at all the angular points, or points of intersection; around which he tied silk threads, which finished the formation of the limits of his figures."

It may be added by way of improvement, that for the division of one series of numbers from another, a thin piece of timber in the form of a ruler with which lines are drawn, having a pin at each end for the holes in the squares, might be interposed between the two series to be distinguished.

This geometrician left other instruments behind him; but as we do not know their uses, we need not add their descriptions.

In the higher parts of mathematics, such as conic sections, the same solid figures which are mediums of perception to those who see, may perform the same useful office to the blind. But, for the structure of superficial figures, we should imagine, that a kind of matter might be found, soft enough to be easily susceptible of impressions, yet hard enough to retain them till effaced by an equal pressure. Suppose, for instance, a table were formed, four feet broad and eight in length; for the figures, that they may be the more sensible to the touch, ought to be larger than ordinary. Suppose this table had brims, or a moulding round it, rising an inch above the surface: let the whole expanse, then, be filled with beeswax, and the surface above prefled extremely even with a polished board, formed exactly to fit the space within the mouldings. This board will always be necessary to efface the figures employed in former propositions, and prepare the surface for new ones. We think we have pondered the minutest inconvenience that can arise from this method of delineating and conceiving geometrical truths; and, after all, the table appears to us the best and the least troublesome apparatus which a blind man can use. We can see no reason, why general ideas of geography or topography might not be conveyed to him in the same posited manner, by spheres composed of or covered with the like same impresible matter. The knowledge of astronomy might likewise be of infinite use, both by enlarging his ideas of the universe, and by giving him higher and more confirmed impressions of that energy by which the stars are moved, and of that design by which their motions are regulated. But these objects are too vast; their distances, their magnitudes, their periods of revolution, are too complex to be comprehended in the mind, or impressed on the memory, without sensible mediums. For this purpose, an orrery, or some machine of a similar construction, will be indispensably requisite.

The science of causes and effects might likewise yield Of nature him the most sublime and rational entertainment of philosophy, which which an intelligent being, in his present state, is susceptible. By this he might enter into the laws, the vicissitudes, the economy, of nature. Nor is it absolutely necessary that he should be an ocular witness of the experiments by which these laws are detected and explained. He may safely take them for granted; and if, at any time, a particular experiment should prove fallacious, he may, from general principles, be able to discover its fallacy, whether in the nature of the subject, the inaptitude of the instruments, or the process of the execution. The laws of motion, the various ratios or proportions of forces whether simple or compound, he may calculate and ascertain by the same means, and in the same method, so happily used by Sanderson.

Moral and theological knowledge he may easily obtain, either from books, or instructions delivered vivaciously. The last, if communicated by one who understands and feels the subject, with a proper degree of perspicuity and sensibility, are infinitely the most eligible. By morals, we would not merely be understood to mean a regular and inculcable series of action, but the proper exertion and habitual arrangement of the whole internal economy, of which external actions are no more than mere expressions, and from which the highest and most permanent happiness alone can proceed. By theology, we do not mean that systematic or scholastic jargon, which too frequently usurps its venerable name; but those sublime and liberal ideas of the nature and government of a Supreme Being, whether discoverable by nature, or revealed in scripture, which infuse every moral obligation, which teach us what is the ultimate good of our nature, which determine our efforts, and animate our hopes in pursuing this most important of all objects.

What Cicero says of the arts and sciences may, with great propriety, be applied to religion: Nam cetera neque temporum sunt, neque statum omnium, neque locorum; et haec studia adolescentiam alant, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfigurant ac solatium praebent: deliciant domi, non impediant foris; perspicant nobiscum, perigrinantur, sufficiant. Translated thus:

For other studies are not suited to every time, to every age, and to every place: but these give strength in youth, and joy in old age; adorn prosperity, and are the support and consolation of adversity; at home they are delightful, and abroad they are easy; at night they are company to us; when we travel, they attend us; and in our rural retirements, they do not forsake us.

To this may be added, that the joys of religion are forever adequate to the largest capacity of a finite and progressive intelligence; and as they are boundless in extent, so they are endless in duration. We have already, more than once, observed, that the soul of a blind man is extremely obnoxious to melancholy and dejection. Where, therefore, can he find a more copious, intimate, permanent, and efficacious source of comfort than in religion? Let this then be inculcated with the utmost care and assiduity. Let the whole force of the soul be exerted in shewing him that it is reasonable. Let all the noblest affections of the heart be employed in recommending it as amiable; for we will venture to assert, that the votary of religion alone is the man,— of any substance, or merely attributed to them. Living and percipient substances have immediate sensations of pain or pleasure, which likewise are productive of desire and aversion. To these sentiments particular sounds are adapted, whether immediately inspired by nature, or resulting from association and tacit convention.

Thus we have a foundation for all the different parts of speech; and from their natures and offices their forms and arrangements may be deduced, according to the analogy of every language.

The art of reasoning, the knowledge of history, and a taste for the belles lettres, are easily attainable by the blind; and as they are copious funds of entertainment, they should be inculcated, tho' at the expense of care and labour.

The relations of persons subjected to this misfortune, if in easy circumstances, will find it highly conducive to the improvement of their charge, to select some one among his coevals, of a sound understanding, a sweet and patient temper, a docile mind, a warm heart, and a communicative disposition. These two should be taught to find their interest and happiness in their connection one with another. Their bed, their board, their walks, their entertainments, their lessons, should be common. These are the best eyes with which art can endow a blind man; and, if properly selected, they will on some occasions yield very little, in utility and perfection, to those of nature; nay, at some junctures they may be preferable.

If the blind must depend upon the exercise of their own powers for bread, we have already pointed out music as their easiest and most obvious province; but let it at the same time be remembered, that mediocrity in this art may prove the bitterest and most effectual curse which a parent can inflict upon his offspring, as it subjects them to every vicious impression or habit which may be imbibed or contracted from the lowest and most abandoned of mankind. If your pupil, therefore, be not endowed with natural talents exquisitely proper both for the theory and practice of this art, suffer him by no means to be initiated in it. If his natural genius favours your attempts, the spinet, harp, or organ, are the most proper instruments for him to begin; because, by these instruments, he may be made more easily acquainted with the extent of musical scales, with the powers of harmony, with the relations of which it is constituted, and of course with the theory of his art. It would be not only unnecessary, but impracticable, to carry him deep into the theory, before he has attained some facility in the practice. Let, therefore, his head and his hands, (if we may use the expression), be taught to go pari passu. Let the one be instructed in the simplest elements, and the others conducted in the easiest operations, first: contemplation and exercise will produce light in the one and promptitude in the other. But, as his capacity of speculative and powers of action become more and more mature, discoveries more abstract and retired, tasks more arduous and difficult, may be assigned him. He should be taught the names and gradations of the diatonic scale, the nature and use of time, the diversity of its modes whether simple or mixed. He should be taught the quantity or value of notes, not only with respect to their pitch, but to their duration. Yet, let him be instructed not to consider these durations as absolutely fixed, but variable according to the velocity of the movements in which they are placed. Thus we reckon a semibreve equal to 4 vibrations of a pendulum; a minim to 2; a crotchet to 1, &c. But, if the number of aliquot parts, into which a semibreve is divided, be great, and consequently the value of each particular part small, the minim, crotchet, quaver, &c. will increase in their intrinsic durations, though they must always preserve the same proportions relatively one to another. He should never be habituated to take a piece of music, either from the sound of a voice or an instrument. His companion ought to read the music by the names and values of its characters, with the same exactness as the words in any other language. When he becomes a considerable adept in the art, tangible signs may be invented, by which he may not only be enabled to read, but even to set, music for himself. Such exercises will render him infinitely more accurate, both in his principles and practice, than he would otherwise be.

There is a hint of such tangible signs given in Tartini's musical grammar, p. 93. and which, tho' (like the rest of the book) obscure and indigested, may be improved and applied with advantage.

For the sake of those in whose hands it may not be, we quote the passage at length.

"As it is the pleasure of the Almighty, that some persons are destitute of eye-sight; in like manner it is his infinite goodness to make them a double amends another way, by giving them a greater share of memory, &c. whereby they become very dexterous in playing on musical instruments, mathematics, &c. as we may observe by Dr Stanley, organist of St Andrews, Holborn, in London; and the blind professor of mathematics in the university of Cambridge; and many others, too tedious here to mention, who were born blind, and never saw the least glance of light; yet God gave them such a light in knowledge, that they became the wonder of all such as had the benefit of seeing, &c.

"And as blind persons, at first, cannot possibly have so clear an idea of notes, and musical characters, as they that see them, until they are taught by a master or tutor; I have (for the good-will I bear to such unfortunate persons) contrived the following table; that, by feeling, they may understand notes, and learn any tune that shall be set them, in their master's absence." A New Music-Table for such as are Blind.

Explanation.

Let A—B be a smooth board, 3 or 4 feet long, 1 inch thick, and 9 inches wide, with 5 square ledges glued thereon, each being half an inch asunder, half an inch wide, and half an inch high; which rising ledges represent our 5 lines of music, and their spaces; and the two outward lines, being made a little lower, may serve as ledger lines, on occasion. The cyphers represent so many holes bored into every line and space, half an inch asunder; wherein pegs of different shapes are to be set, to represent the several sorts of notes and characters of the tune: which peggs the blind person may know by feeling, as well as he does his keys of the organ or harpsichord: so that, by keeping his fingers on the 5 lines, he feels the several peggs as they come on, and are set to represent the several sorts of notes, on both line and space; whilst his right hand strikes the respective key, &c. he first knowing the names of all his keys, his lines, spaces, and the mark of every peg. Let each peg be about half an inch high, when let in very flat.

N.B. The blind person must first be taught the names of the above lines and spaces in both the treble and bass cliffs; and that he must feel his treble with his right hand, and his bass with the left hand; each being contrary, as you may see by the letters of the above table, A and B; and must learn each part separate.

Of Peggs for Notes, &c.

Of peggs, he must have a great number of every sort, to set his tune with, which he may mark as follows:

For a Semibreve, 4 top-notches. Minim, 2 top-notches, Crotchet, 1 top-notch. Quaver, one corner cut off. Semiquaver, 2 corners cut off. Demisemiquaver, all 4 corners cut off. Rest, a notch in the corner. A Flat, 1 notch on the side. Sharp, 2 notches on the side. Point, 3 notches on the side. Bar, a flat thin top. Repeat, a sharp-pointed top, &c. &c. &c.

But it is best for every performer to make and mark his own peggs; and deliver them one by one as they are called for by the person that sets his tune.

Thus far our author. It is certain, that when playing concertos, or, if you please, when performing in score, the blind must depend upon memory, and upon memory alone: but happily their retentive powers are remarkably strong; and there are few pieces in music which will be found either too intricate to be acquired, or too long to be remembered, by a person deprived of sight. Mr Stanley, the gentleman formerly mentioned by Tanfure, performs what is still more astonishing. If our information, which we cannot doubt, be true, he accompanies any lesson with a thorough bass, tho' he never has heard it before. We have never yet heard of any person, though blest with the full use of sight, and with all the advantages accruing from it, who could thus anticipate harmony before the chords were founded, and accompany it in a manner suitable to its nature.

When he becomes a more profound theorist, if he has adopted the notion that music and geometry are congenial and inseparable, (which, however, in our judgment is frivolous), he may peruse Malcolm's essay on music, and Trevedy's theory and practice of music. But, if he chuses to hear the same principles delivered without that unnecessary parade and ostentation of profundity, let him be instructed by D'Alembert, (see the article Music, in this Dictionary); by Rameau, in his principles of composition; and by Rouffau's musical dictionary, (the substance of which is engrossed in the present Work, either under the respective detached articles, or in the notes added to the article Music). It is true, that the forms and proportions of instruments, the thickness, length, and tension of musical strings, may be mathematically adjusted; their relations one to another may be determined by the coincidence of their vibrations, or by the number and velocity of these vibrations when distant; but experience and a good ear are amply sufficient for these purposes. Yet, if the necessity of geometry in music should still remain an indelible article in his creed, he may peruse Dr Smith's philosophical principles of harmony. There has also lately been published an explication of Tartini's theory, entitled, The principles and power of harmony; which, after he has made considerable progress, may be read to him with sensible improvement.

Thus we have endeavoured to form an estimate of the Apollonian inconveniences suffered, and the advantages possessed, to the poor by the blind; we have attempted to show, of what kind of culture their remaining faculties are susceptible, and what appeared to us the safest and properest means of their improvement. We have illustrated not only its possibility, but its certainty, by incontestable facts, which which demonstrate, even in the eyes of scepticism and incredulity, to what degrees of eminence, both in the mechanical and liberal arts, the blind may be carried. It now remains to demand a categorical answer from society, whether it is more humane and eligible, that such unhappy persons should be suffered to languish out their lives in torpid and miserable obscurity, wretched in themselves and burdensome to others; or to cultivate and improve their powers in such a manner, as that they may be qualified for internal enjoyment and public utility? Surely there is not a human being, who does not disgrace the works of God, that can be at any loss in answering this question. Have we not then a right to call the world to an account? have we not a right to demand, why rational beings susceptible of felicity in themselves, and capable of transmuting happiness through the societies with whom they are connected, should be abandoned to a state of insignificance and misery? Is it possible that men who are every moment subjected to the same contingencies with which they behold their fellow-creatures afflicted, should not with all their souls endeavour to alleviate the misfortunes of their suffering brethren? Is the native and hereditary portion of human wo so light and supportable in itself, that we should neglect and despise those to whom it is embittered by accidental circumstances of horror and distress? You who are parents, who feel the strong and powerful pleadings of nature, do not, by a brutal negligence and insensibility, render the existence which you have given a curse to its possessors. Do not give them reason to upbraid your memory; and to answer those who ask what patrimony you have left them, that their sole inheritance was ignorance, incapacity, and indigence. You men of wealth and eminence, you whom Providence has rendered conspicuous on the theatre of nature, to whom it has given the noblest opportunities of participating the divine beatitude by the exercise of universal benevolence and genuine patriotism, yours is the glorious province of bringing neglected merit from obscurity, of healing the wounds inflicted by adverse fortune, and of cultivating these talents which may be exerted for your own advantage and the honour of your species. Thus you shall rise in the heraldry of heaven, and your names diffuse a lustre through the extent of space and the archives of eternity. Otherwise the temporary glare and parade of your situation can produce nothing else but a deplorable mimicry of real and intrinsic greatness, and are no more than a splendid mask to cover what in itself is infamous or detestable.

By way of appendix to the preceding article, we shall add one or two very singular histories, with which it is hoped our readers will not be displeased.

An account of some remarkable particulars that happened to a lady after having had the confluent kind of small-pox. In the course of this disease, during which the lady was attended by the late Sir Hans Sloane, several threatening symptoms appeared, which however were at length overcome; and the patient being thought out of danger, took several doses of such purgative medicines as are usually administered in the decline of the disease, without any bad consequence.

But in the evening of the day on which she had taken the last dose that was intended to be given her on that occasion, she was suddenly seized with pains and convulsions in the bowels; the pain and other symptoms became gradually less violent as the force of the medicine abated, and by such remedies as were thought best adapted to the case they seemed at length to be entirely subdued.

They were, however, subdued only in appearance; for at eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the next day they returned with great violence, and continued some hours: when they went off, they left the muscles of the lower jaw so much relaxed, that it fell down, and the chin was supported on the breast. The strength of the patient was so much exhausted during this paroxysm, that she lay near two hours with no other signs of life than a very feeble respiration, which was often so difficult to be discerned, that those about her concluded she was dead.

From this time the fits returned periodically every day, at about the same hour. At first they seemed to affect her nearly in the same degree; but at length all the symptoms were aggravated, the convulsions became more general, and her arms were sometimes convulsed alternately; it also frequently happened, that the arm which was last convulsed remained extended and inflexible some hours after the struggles were over. Her neck was often twisted with such violence, that the face looked directly backwards, and the back part of the head was over the breast; the muscles of the countenance were also so contracted and writhed by the spasms, that the features were totally changed, and it was impossible to find any resemblance of her natural aspect by which she could be known. Her feet were not less distorted than her head; for they were twisted almost to dislocation at the instep, so that she could not walk but upon her ankles.

To remove or mitigate these deplorable symptoms, many remedies were tried; and, among others, the cold bath: but either by the natural effect of the bath, or by some mismanagement in the bathing, the unhappy patient first became blind, and soon afterwards deaf and dumb. It is not easy to conceive what could increase the misery of deafness, dumbness, blindness, and frequent paroxysms of excruciating pain: yet a very considerable aggravation was added; for the loss of her sight, her hearing, and her speech, was followed by such a stricture of the muscles of her throat, that she could not swallow any kind of aliment either solid or liquid. It might reasonably be supposed that this circumstance, though it added to the degree of her misery, would have shortened its duration: yet in this condition she continued near three quarters of a year; and during that time was supported in a very uncommon manner, by chewing her food only; which having turned often, and kept long in her mouth, she was obliged at last to spit out. Liquors were likewise gargled about in her mouth for some time; and then returned in the same manner, no part of them having passed the throat by an act of deglutition: so that whatever was conveyed into the stomach, either of the juices of the solid food, or of liquids, was either gradually imbibed by the spongeguts of the parts, which they moistened, or trickled down in a very small quantity along the sides of the vessels.

But there were other peculiarities in the case of this lady, yet more extraordinary. During the privation tion of her sight and hearing, her touch and her smell became so exquisite, that she could distinguish the different colours of silk and flowers, and was sensible when any stranger was in the room with her.

"After she became blind, and deaf, and dumb, it was not easy to contrive any method by which a question could be asked her, and an answer received. This however was at last effected, by talking with the fingers, at which she was uncommonly ready. But those who conversed with her in this manner, were obliged to express themselves by touching her hand and fingers instead of their own.

"A lady who was nearly related to her, having an apron on, that was embroidered with silk of different colours, asked her, in the manner which has been described, if she could tell what colour it was? and after applying her fingers attentively to the figures of the embroidery, she replied, that it was red, and blue, and green; which was true. The same lady having a pink coloured ribbon on her head, and being willing still further to satisfy her curiosity and her doubts, asked what colour that was? her cousin, after feeling some time, answered that it was pink colour: this answer was yet more astonishing, because it shewed not only a power of distinguishing different colours, but different kinds of the same colour; the ribbon was not only discovered to be red, but the red was discovered to be of the pale kind called a pink.

"This unhappy lady, conscious of her own uncommon infirmities, was extremely unwilling to be seen by strangers, and therefore generally retired to her chamber, where none but those of the family were likely to come. The same relation, who had by the experiment of the apron and ribbon discovered the exquisite sensibility of her touch, was soon after convinced by an accident, that her power of smelling was acute and refined in the same astonishing degree.

"Being one day visiting the family, she went up to her cousin's chamber, and after making herself known, she intreated her to go down, and sit with her among the rest of the family, assuring her, that there was no other person present: to this she at length consented, and went down to the parlour door; but the moment the door was opened, she turned back, and retired to her own chamber much displeased; alleging, that there were strangers in the room, and that an attempt had been made to deceive her: it happened indeed that there were strangers in the room; but they had come in while the lady was above stairs, so that she did not know they were there. When she had satisfied her cousin of this particular, she was pacified; and being afterwards asked how she knew there were strangers in the room, she answered, by the smell.

"But though she could by this sense distinguish in general between persons with whom she was well acquainted, and strangers, yet she could not so easily distinguish one of her acquaintance from another without other assistance. She generally distinguished her friends by feeling their hands; and when they came in, they used to present their hands to her, as a mean of making themselves known: the make and warmth of the hand produced in general the differences that she distinguished; but sometimes she used to span the wrist, and measure the fingers. A lady, with whom she was very well acquainted, coming in one very hot day, after having walked a mile, presented her hand, as usual; she felt it longer than ordinary, and seemed to doubt whose it was; but after spanning the wrist, and measuring the fingers, she said, 'It is Mrs M. but she is warmer today than ever I felt her before.'

"To amuse herself in the mournful and perpetual solitude and darkness to which her disorder had reduced her, she used to work much at her needle; and it is remarkable, that her needle-work was uncommonly neat and exact: among many other pieces of her work that are preserved in the family, is a pin-cushion, which can scarce be equalled. She used also sometimes to write; and her writing was yet more extraordinary than her needle-work: it was executed with the same regularity and exactness; the character was very pretty, the lines were all even, and the letters placed at equal distances from each other: but the most astonishing particular of all, with respect to her writing, is, that she could by some means discover when a letter had by some mistake been omitted, and would place it over that part of the word where it should have been inserted, with a caret under it. It was her custom to fit up in bed at any hour of the night, either to write or to work, when her pain or any other cause kept her awake.

"These circumstances were so very extraordinary, that it was long doubted whether she had not some faint remains both of hearing and sight; and many experiments were made to ascertain the matter; some of these experiments she accidentally discovered, and the discovery always threw her into violent convulsions. The thought of being suspected of insincerity, or supposed capable of acting so wicked a part as to feign infirmities that were not inflicted, was an addition to her misery which she could not bear, and which never failed to produce an agony of mind not less visible than those of her body. A clergyman who found her one evening at work by a table with a candle upon it, put his hat between her eyes and the candle, in such a manner that it was impossible she could receive any benefit from the light of it if she had not been blind. She continued still at her work, with great tranquillity; till, putting up her hand suddenly to rub her forehead, she struck it against the hat, and discovered what was doing; upon which she was thrown into violent convulsions, and was not without great difficulty recovered. The family were, by these experiments, and by several accidental circumstances, fully convinced that she was totally deaf and blind; particularly by fitting unconcerned at her work, during a dreadful storm of thunder and lightening, though she was then facing the window, and always used to be much terrified in such circumstances. But Sir Hans Sloane, her physician, being still doubtful of the truth of facts which were scarce less than miraculous, he was permitted to satisfy himself by such experiments and observations as he thought proper; the issue of which was, that he pronounced her to be absolutely deaf and blind.

"She was at length sent to Bath, where she was in some measure relieved; her convulsions being less frequent, and her pains less acute: but she never recovered her speech, her sight, or her hearing in the least degree.

"Many of the letters dated at Bath, in some of which there are instances of interlineations with a caret, the writer of this narrative hath seen, and they are now in the custody of the widow of one of her brothers, who, with many other persons, can support the facts here related, however wonderful, with such evidence as it would not only be injurious, but folly, to disbelieve."

An account of a French lady, blind from her infancy, who can read, write, and play at cards, &c.] "A young gentlewoman of a good family in France, now in her 18th year, lost her sight when only two years old; her mother having been advised to lay some pigeons blood on her eyes, to preserve them in the small-pox; whereas, so far from answering the end, it eat into them. Nature, however, may be said to have compensated for the unhappy mistake, by beauty of person, sweetness of temper, vivacity of genius, quickness of conception, and many talents which certainly much alleviate her misfortune.

"She plays at cards with the same readiness as others of the party. She first prepares the packs allotted to her, by pricking them in several parts; yet so imperceptibly, that the closest inspection can scarce discern her indexes. She sorts the suits, and arranges the cards in their proper sequence, with the same precision, and nearly the same facility, as they who have their sight. All she requires of those who play with her, is to name every card as it is played; and these she retains so exactly, that she frequently performs some notable strokes such as shew a great combination and strong memory.

"The most wonderful circumstance is, that she should have learned to read and write; but even this is readily believed on knowing her method. In writing to her, no ink is used, but the letters are pricked down on the paper; and by the delicacy of her touch, feeling each letter she follows them successively, and reads every word with her fingers ends. She herself in writing makes use of a pencil, as she could not know when her pen was dry; her guide on the paper is a small thin ruler and of the breadth of her writing. On finishing a letter, she wets it, so as to fix the traces of her pencil, that they are not obscured or effaced; then proceeds to fold and seal it, and write the direction: all by her own address, and without the assistance of any other person. Her writing is very straight, well cut, and the spelling no less correct. To reach this singular mechanism, the indefatigable cares of her affectionate mother were long employed, who accustomed her daughter to feel letters cut in cards or paste-board, brought her to distinguish an A from a B, and thus the whole alphabet, and afterwards to spell words; then, by the remembrance of the shape of the letters, to delineate them on paper; and, lastly, to arrange them so as to form words and sentences.

"She has learned to play on the guitar, and has even contrived a way of pricking down the tunes as an assistance to her memory. So delicate are her organs, that in singing a tune, though new to her, she is able to name the notes.

"In figured dances she acquires herself extremely well, and in a minute with inimitable ease and gracefulness. As for the works of her sex, she has a masterly hand; she sews and hemstitch perfectly well; and in all her works she threads the needles for herself however small.

"By the watch her touch never fails telling her exactly the hour and minute."

From this account, however, it would appear, that except reading and writing, the French lady has nothing to boast of in which she is not excelled by Mr Stanley already mentioned, if we may credit all that is reported of him. The works peculiar to her sex are gained mechanically; but the distinguishing colours, telling the precise time by a watch, naming the notes in music, and many other things depending upon the ear and touch, are said to be so familiar to him, that his friends cease to think them extraordinary. Attainments still more wonderful are ascribed to him; as, the naming the number of persons in a room on entering it; the directing his voice to each person in particular, even to strangers when they have once spoken; the missing any person absent, and telling who that person is; and lastly, his being able to form just conceptions of youth, beauty, symmetry, and shape.

Pore-Blind, or Pur-blind. A person who is very short-sighted is said to be pur-blind.

Moon-Blind, denotes horses that lose their sight at certain times of the moon.

BLIND-Worm. See Anguis.

BLINDS, or Blinders, in the art of war, a sort of defence commonly made of ooziers, or branches interwoven, and laid across between two rows of stakes, about the height of a man, and four or five feet apart, used particularly at the heads of trenches, when they are extended in front towards the glacis; serving to shelter the workmen, and prevent their being overlooked by the enemy.