"On rising ground, the prospect to command, Here wave a wood, and there a river flow." "Oft on the glassy stream, with raptured eyes, "Oft while the sun Darts boundless glory through the expanse of heaven, A gloom of congregated vapors rise; Than night more dreadful in his blackest shroul Portending tempest; till the source of day Again asserts the empire of the sky, And o'er the blotted scene of nature throws The idiosyncrasies of the blind, or those traits of the mind which the want of sight from birth has uniformly developed, have long furnished the seeing with curious subjects of metaphysical speculation. Many strange conjectures have been hazarded, and some very happy conclusions arrived at; but as yet, we think they have not received sufficient attention from the blind themselves. In view of this fact, we have ventured to offer, in this connection, a few remarks, as the result of our united experience. Not that we fancy ourselves equal to the task of explaining to the seeing what, to ourselves, is mysterious, but we are persuaded that many of the manifestations of mind that seem peculiar only to our class, may be accounted for, on as strictly philosophical principles as though they had been developed by a full use of all the senses. Our first inquiry is, then, by what means are those faculties of the mind which perceive physical objects, and contemplate and retain facts concerning them, developed? We answer, by the very impression which those objects produce upon the mind through the external senses. The conversion of these impressions or shadows of the external world, into its own nature, not only affords it healthful exercise, but increases its capacity for the reception of facts. Knowledge is its aliment; and the senses are so many mouths through which it receives its food. But, it may be asked, what if sight, that medium through which the mind can take cognizance of so large a field of objects at the same time, be obstructed from birth; will not the powers of the mind lie dormant? Certainly not, for every essential fact relative to the nature or properties of outward objects, would reach the mind through the other senses or channels of communication, although they might not come robed in such gorgeous colors. A pill may possess medicinal properties, whether it is sugared or not. Delicious fruits are as inviting to the blind man's taste, as gratifying to his appetite, and quite as salutary in their effect upon the system, as though he could behold the bright, rich colors with which nature has painted them. Color, it should be remembered, is nature's dress, and not nature's self. No one will contend that beautiful colors are essential to the existence of bod ies. Correct ideas of every terrestrial object might have been presented to the mind without them. To illustrate this more clearly: a certain quantity of nutritious food is requisite to the support of our animal nature. Now, this aliment may be introduced directly into the stomach without the ordinary process of mastication, and produce the same salutary effect. Indeed, all food might be prepared for the immediate action of this organ, by artificial means. But, in order to afford us greater enjoyments than those of simply answering nature's demand, the God of nature has given us the sense of taste. Yet, had he denied us this source of pleasure, we can conceive how life might have been perpetuated, and all the physical powers naturally developed. We come now briefly to notice the superior advantages which some of the senses possess over sight, the degree of cultivation of which they are susceptible, and the manner in which they can be made to perform nearly all the functions of the visual organ. This is a large subject, and so thickly enveloped in the mist of metaphysical science, that scarce a ray from our feeble light can be expected to reach it. But darkness to the blind has no terrors. In the first place, then, we remark that, to the eye alone, the common properties of bodies, namely, hardness, density, elasticity, etc., are not cognizable. To the sense of touch, only, are they appreciable. For example: Glass is a hard, dense and brittle body, but independent of the sense of touch, the eye could never have perceived this fact. Indeed, our knowledge of the physical world must have been very limited and superficial, had the Creator endowed us with no other organ of sense than this. Shadows would have been thought as real as the objects by which they were cast. Images reflected from polished surfaces, would have lived and moved, and in short, life would have been even less than a shadowy dream, a beautiful panorama, with neither soul nor substance. Of all the senses, that of sight is the most liable to delusive impressions. Ocular illusions are common, but who ever heard of a tactual illusion. Spectres, hobgoblins, and every chimera of the imagination of which it is possible to conceive, have frightened and deceived the timid, in every age of the world. But who was ever terrified at the sudden appearance of a tangible ghost? An untutored infant reaches after its toy, while the object desired is, perhaps, some feet from it. It grasps at a sunbeam, or its own image in a mirror, and cries with vexation and disappointment because it cannot possess itself of the beautiful objects. We confess it might be difficult to determine whether these deceptive appearances are attributable to the infant's undisciplined vision, or to the undeveloped state of its mental perceptions, were it not that numerous instances are recorded of persons having been restored to sight, at a mature age, who had lost all recollection of objects as they appear to the eye. To several of these persons, all objects at first appeared at a uniform dis tance from the eye, although differing greatly in form and magnitude. But what is most surprising, they were wholly unable to recognize familiar objects, until they had first been submitted to the sense of touch, when the eye immediately became satisfied as to their identity. Hence, we are led to infer that to the child, all bodies at first appear at a uniform distance, and perhaps inverted, but that this delusion vanishes when it comes to examine them by the sense of touch; that it learns to calculate relative distance by comparative magnitude; that there is nothing in the nature of reflected light, or in the images which it forms upon the retina, by which the mind can determine absolute distance or magnitude; and that these facts, like most others, can only be reached through the efficient aid of the other organs of sense. But how, then, it may be asked, does the blind child, whose means of perception do not seem to extend much beyond the reach of his arms, gain any adequate idea of figure, extent, elevation or magnitude? By modes, of course, somewhat differing from those used by the seeing, yet always productive of the same results. But, as these modes may not, at first, appear to the reader, we shall notice a few of them, as the result of the experience of one of the present writers, who, it will be remembered, has been deprived of sight from birth: I fancy that the entire form or contour of bodies, may be discovered by the eye at a single glance, by the contrast of light and shade, or in other words, |