I say the Ideas
we receive from Statues, Descriptions, or such like Occasions, are the
same that were once actually in our View, it must not be understood that
we had once see the very Place, Action, or Person which are carved or
described. It is sufficient, that we have seen Places, Persons, or
Actions, in general, which bear a Resemblance, or at least some remote
Analogy with what we find represented. Since it is in the Power of the
Imagination, when it is once Stocked with particular Ideas, to enlarge,
compound, and vary them at her own Pleasure.

Among the different Kinds of Representation, Statuary is the most
natural, and shews us something likest the Object that is represented.
To make use of a common Instance, let one who is born Blind take an
Image in his Hands, and trace out with his Fingers the different Furrows
and Impressions of the Chissel, and he will easily conceive how the
Shape of a Man, or Beast, may be represented by it; but should he draw
his Hand over a Picture, where all is smooth and uniform, he would never
be able to imagine how the several Prominencies and Depressions of a
human Body could be shewn on a plain Piece of Canvas, that has in it no
Unevenness or Irregularity. Description runs yet further from the Things
it represents than Painting; for a Picture bears a real Resemblance to
its Original, which Letters and Syllables are wholly void of. Colours
speak of Languages, but Words are understood only by such a People or
Nation. For this Reason, tho' Men's Necessities quickly put them on
finding out Speech, Writing is probably of a later invention than
Painting; particularly we are told, that in America when the Spaniards
first arrived there Expresses were sent to the Emperor of Mexico in
Paint, and the News of his Country delineated by the Strokes of a
Pencil, which was a more natural Way than that of Writing, tho' at the
same time much more imperfect, because it is impossible to draw the
little Connexions of Speech, or to give the Picture of a Conjunction or
an Adverb. It would be yet more strange, to represent visible Objects by
Sounds that have no Ideas annexed to them, and to make something like
Description in Musick. Yet it is certain, there may be confused,
imperfect Notions of this Nature raised in the Imagination by an
Artificial Composition of Notes; and we find that great Masters in the
Art are able, sometimes, to set their Hearers in the Heat and Hurry of a
Battel, to overcast thei