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and it will feel to the touch as strait. Take it from the water-it appears again strait to the eye. Here the appearance of deception by one sense is at once corrected by another; but even this correction is not wanted. For by the laws of vision, the crookedness of the stick in the water is a true representation of the fact; and were it to

very niuch on our metaphysical conversations. Your extraordinary line

'There never was a time, when time was not,'

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at first seems useless and a mere identical proposition, that when time was, it was. But I think it will be found to involve very material considerations. I like your idea that a fluent line, to use your own expression, if measured by computation, is time the idea of immeasurable space is equal to infinity of co-existent extension the idea of immeasurable succession is equal to eternity. The original solar year, and the original lunar, seem to have been probably coincident: each being of 360 days divided into 12 months of 30 days each. This would readily give 30 days to a sign, and 30 x 2 for a degree. And hence, I apprehend, our sexagesimal division of the circle into its minor parts, which on the whole is one of the most advantageous we could have taken. Would the quater-centenary, or the sex-centenary be preferable? It is no small advantage that, estimating the diurnal progression, we have even now a degree for each day: so that we may thus for common purposes reckon how many degrees from such a point, having but one degree to deduct for 70 days. I believe you and I shall not doubt, independently of the reasons from the connection and analogy of the two motions, that the rotatory and circumpolar or helioperiodic motions of the earth synchronized in their outset. And I think there can be no question that, suppose an earth with its axis either perpendicular to its equator, or in the plane

appear strait, the representation would be false. The deception is here said to be corrected by the judgment. But this is not the precise fact. It is corrected either by another sense, or, more properly, by a knowledge of those laws, which govern the representation of sense. A second case, in which there is an appearance of deception,

of the equator, and without rotatory or periodic motion, the only idea of measured time, that the inhabitants of such an earth would have, must be from the lunar revolutions. If this had been the case, a very ill-manageable portion of time to our present faculties would have been our minimum of measure; a lunar phase, and the 12 lunar revolutions, at the distance, and in the time supposed, would have constituted our year, which would have only 48 marked intervals in the whole of it. The diurnal motion without a rotatory would have at once suggested a portion of time nearly equal to our present day, and the portion taken for the apparent advance of the sun over one degree out of 360. But without the striking phænomenon of equal motion, and uniform periodic phænomena to the same point, (for all which purpose the brightness and distinctness of the points, which form the celestial horology, and the evenness of the movements, the clearness, variety, concurrence, and separation of the intervals have such great advantages,) we could have had no idea of time; months and years would have been nothing to us; a day, or even an hour, would only have been a vague portion of indefinite, indeterminable duration of eternity, according to your just and acute distinction, which seems to me to lead to such just and sublime consequences. Now, when we already are aware of such periods as the cometary of 75, and of 575 years, the equinoctial of 25,920, to say nothing of minor cycles, this chronometric opposition connected with our little planet, will not be believed to exist for nothing. And Dr. Herschel seems already to have detected cyclical or ellip

is where the organ, through which the object is perceived, is in a different state, whether at different times in the same person, or in different persons at the same time. There is a certain state of the eye, in which vision is clear and distinct in every deviation from this state it becomes imperfect or confused. In order to distinct vision, it is

tic progressions in the fixed stars, to which as novel revolutions this great equinoctial year of ours, arguing from the recession of the earth's nodes, is probably but a day. The measure of time by our ideas, either with reference to the succession now passing, or to remote periods, is obviously most variable and unequal. There was an idea of time in the Monthly Magazine some years back, which supposed it to be to each individual in a continued decremental ratio to the time passed; that a year to a boy of 5, 10, and then going to 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 45, 55, 60, would be expressed by taking units for the numerator, and the years passed for the denominator, 5,01. 015, &c. So that a year to a man of 60 would seem less than a week. But we neither have, nor can have, such a measure of time. The elapsed portions of it, be they great or small, lose all measure of any certainty or proportion in our minds, like the deficient part of an avenue of trees; but much more so for co-existent processions have still some ratio, though with proportional decrement: time, which has no coexistent parts, but vanishes in procession, is capable to us of only artificial measurement by the idea of spaces passed over at a known measurable rate from a given point. I am happy to say that a year does not appear a week to me that it does not appear shorter than it used to do, nor on the other hand do I complain of its length. If the hypothesis had been founded, the first day, every minute of the life of an infant must be equal to that individual to infinite duration. I have been so long on this, that I have not room for other matters. I cannot

necessary that the rays point within the eye.

of light meet in a focus at a certain When the eye is round and full, and its coats are distended by too large a quantity of the humours, the rays, that fall upon the external eye, are too much refracted, and meet too soon, for distinct vision. On the other hand, when the eye is flattened, the hu

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find my Watts, and I remember Watts' Essays to have been the first book, which at nine or thereabout turned my ideas strongly to metaphysics. Time, space, matter, and motion appear to me all modifications of perception, nothing more. fore I was six years old, I used to wonder how my mind could be carried upon wheels from London to Hoddesdon. And, were I a materialist, I might cease to wonder now; but as I am not, and cannot be, the problem is still insolvable; for I see no relation between mind and space, if space be anything real, and if mind be immaterial or a reality, which has no common property either with space or matter. But if mind, pure, intellectual, percipient being, be all, then all contradictions vanish."

The friend, to whom Mr. Lofft addressed these Letters writes thus to me in a Letter dated Sept. 20, 1828.: — " The line quoted by Mr. Lofft was my own. He found it in my preceding Letter. There is something very remarkable in the history of it. I had not even looked into Cicero's treatise De Natura Deorum for more than 20 years, when, falling one evening into reverie on the subject of time, (for I was then, and too long had been enamoured of metaphysics,) the thought occurred to me in the very form, that Mr. Lofft has quoted. I had occasion, about three years after, to read over again that treatise, when, (judge, if you can, of my surprise,) I found that the line was nearly a literal translation of the following passage: Ne in cogitationem quidem cadit, ut fuerit tempus aliquod, nullum cum tempus esset, p. 21. ed. 1718. I was, when I first G

VOL. II.

mours scanty, and the coats less distended, the refraction is less, and the rays meet not soon enough. Both these defects are remedied by glasses of different construction; in the first instance by concave glasses, where the rays are made to diverge, before they reach the eye; in the other, by convex glasses, by which they are made to converge.

thought of it, and ever since have been, utterly unconscious of deriving it from any source but that of my own mind. You have now reminded me of the happiest part of my whole life, when at Ipswich I enjoyed diurnal communication or intercourse with two such persons as Mr. Capel Lofft and Mrs. Cobbold. I sincerely and unreservedly loved and respected them both. Oh! my dear Sir, Mr. Capel Lofft was a most interesting character, in which there was as little fault, as perhaps ever could be found in any. I shall never think of him without feeling some of the purest and holiest emotions of my soul. I had not been much more than a year acquainted with him, when I passed a day or two with him and his family at Troston, in a manner more delightful than I recollect to have passed anywhere else in my whole life. Immediately after I came hither, he went with his family to the Continent, our correspondence was interrupted, and alas! he died. But I have not forgotten him, I never can forget him; I cherish the memory of him more tenderly than I have ever yet done that of any other human being. I hope yet, ere I die, to draw and send you his whole character; for it would at any time bear the most rigorous examination. He was pre-eminently ingenious, amiable, and learned, without ever, even in a single instance, assuming the appearance of any one of those qualities. He was an excellent scholar in both the Greek and Roman languages, and had read nearly every classick author; but still I will not compare him with Parr, but to him in metaphysical attainment he was equal, if not superior. I hope soon to resume this subject.” E. H. B.]

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