OCR Text |
Show 86 SIGHT. the senses are flood-O'ates, in which there are always currents when they ~re open, and if new knowledge does not flow in, time will flow out, and bear off our old knowledO'e on its tide. There is no means of avoiding· the la::;t of these but hy pursuin.g the first ; and thus observation is really our guardian, as well as our guide. In our business or profession, ~ow much soever we are occupied with it, it is impossible to get as much observation as will keep all the senses up to their proper t~ne; and therefore the observation of nature comes 111, not to draw us away from our callings, but really to work along with us and encourage us, as a most ready-handed and gay-hearted auxiliary. . There remains only one sense to be noticed, and that is the sense of sight-a sense, the organf:; of which in their structure more resemble contrivances that we can mr~ke than those of any of the other senses. On that account we can assist and improve our eyes more hy artificial helps t_han we clln any of our other sens~l organs. If the s1ght is too short, we can lengthen tt by spectacles hollow in the middle; and if it be too long, we can shorten it by spectacles of the opposite form ; . so (llso we can make distant objects appear near wtth the telescope awl small ones appear large with the microscope: These are very useful contrivances ; but the nse of them is limited to a small number of people, and not a great number of occasions. VVhen we _go out to recruit ourselves by the popular observatiOn of nature, we are not to carry spectacles, telescopes, and microscopes with us, but to use our own eyes; and to nine hundred and ninety-nine in every thousand of us, well-educated eyes, l~se<l to. goo?- purpose, are superior to all t~e phllosophtcal mstruments in the world. Those mstruments are valuable to such as require them, just as the tools of every trade are useful to those who follow that trade; and improving the tool is the best and most certam way A PAINTER'S EYE. 87 of improving the t_rarle itself; but the eye is a tool l111 every trade, a ~n.Ivers~l tool; and therefore everybody should be diligent 111 its improvement. The eye can W?rk to a greater distance than any other organ, and It works much faster. When you come. over. the. last height, and look down upon a fine city, wit~ Its _domes, and spires, and pinnacles, a!ld surrou~dmg VI1las, and gardens, and groves, and r~ch ,?elds, 1f your eye has been duly exercised, the City IS taken and your own at a glance; and we very _frequently find that a keen-eyed visitant who remams bu~ for an hour, will discover in a ,place !Jlany.beaubes that were unknown to the whole of its 111habitants, but. w~ich have been afterward found worthy of a.dr:rurahon, and admired by them, and have been VI~Ited and admired by others, and the place has thnven and grown from a small village to a goo~ly t_own, simply because one man, who had eyes 111 .his hea~ and .could use them, happened to look at. It, ~ossibly without any intention but that of fea~tm~ ~I.s hungry eyes at the moment. A disqmsibon on the anatomical structure of the ~y.e forms no part of the eye's education ; because It IS no.t .the matter of the eye that wants to be ta~g~t, 1t ~s th.e mode of its action; and all that can be said Is, give It plenty of exercise ; keep it always ~ungry for knowledge of whatever can come before It, an~ d~ no~ fatigue it either by excess or monotony rThe mv1tatwn of all nature to the eye is "Co....,lo. and see.') ' ·• |