Elements of Mental Philosophy Enbracing the Two Departments of the Intellect and the Sensibilities (Volume 1) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841. Excerpt: ... make this further remark, that a change in the purity of the air will perplex, in some measure, those ideas of distance which we receive from sight. Bishop Berkeley remarks, while travelling in Italy and Sicily, he noticed that cities and palaces, seen at a great distance, appeared nearer to him by several miles than they actually were. The cause of this he very correctly supposed to be the purity of the Italian and Sicilian air, which gave to objects at a distance a degree of brightness and distinctness which, in the less clear and pure atmosphere of his native country, could be observed only in those towns and separate edifices which were near. At home he had learned to estimate the distances of objects by their appearance; but his conclusions failed him when they came to be applied to objects in countries where the air was so much clearer.--And the same thing has been noticed by other travellers who have been placed in the like circumstances. $ 86. Supposed feelings of a being called into existence in the full possession of his powers. In illustration of the principles which have been brought forward in the successive consideration of the senses, we are tempted to introduce in this place a favourite passage of the celebrated Buffon. In the Natural History of that learned writer we have an account of the process by which the full use of the sight and of the other external senses is acquired. He invents a delightful recital, and puts it in the mouth of our first parent; and thus instructs us in the most abstruse subjects by an appeal to the imagination. "Let us suppose," says he, "a man newly brought into existence, whose body and organs are already perfectly formed, but who, awaking amid the productions of Nature, is an utter stranger to everything he p...