An Essay on Blindness (Letter on the Blind)

the philoſopher's keen eye, he performed the operation in private; but, at the ſame time, was willing to make 8 (che honour of it as public as poſſible. a On this, the philoſopher determined to lay open the fraud, which he did very FE ingeniouſſy i in this letter ; a letter ſtored with ſuch refined ideas, and ſuch profound inveſtigations, that it may well be accounted the ſtandard of human wit and penetration. The impoſtor ſtoutly maintained his point, * in which he was ſo ſeconded by the Ek monaſtick Phalanx, that, as proves but Wow commonly the caſe, he got the better, and the philoſopher was ſent to Vincennes -caſtle, OF that his preſence would, to be ſure, 5 * LETTER ON nothing fine, unleſs it be likewiſe gocd⸗ How many admirable things are loſt to them? The only compenſation is, their having ideas of the beautiful, which, if leſs extenſive, are more clear than thoſe of many keen - ſighted philoſophers, who have compoſed prolix diſſertations on it. He is continually talking of looking- _ glaſſes. . You are ſenſible that he does not know what the word looking-glaſs means, yet is he never known to put a glaſs in a wrong light.…