e eye close to the glass, hence it will follow
by the rule that the distance of the distinct base behind the eye is double
the true distance of the object before the eye. If therefore Mr. Molyneux's
conjecture held good, it would follow that the eye should see the object
twice as far off as it really is; and in other cases at three or four times
its due distance, or more. But this manifestly contradicts experience, the
object never appearing, at farthest, beyond its due distance. Whatever,
therefore, is built on this supposition (VID. COROL. I. PROP. 57, IBID.)
comes to the ground along with it.

41. From what hath been premised it is a manifest consequence that a man
born blind, being made to see, would, at first, have no idea of distance
by sight; the sun and stars, the remotest objects as well as the nearer,
would all seem to be in his eye, or rather in his mind. The objects
intromitted by sight would seem to him (as in truth they are) no other
than a new set of thoughts or sensations, each whereof is as near to him
as the perceptions of pain or pleasure, or the most inward passions of
his soul. For our judging objects provided by sight to be at any
distance, or without the mind, is (VID. sect. 28) entirely the effect of
experience, which one in those circumstances could not yet have attained
to.

42. It is indeed otherwise upon the common supposition that men judge of
distance by the angle of the optic axes, just as one in the dark, or a
blind-man by the angle comprehended by two sticks, one whereof he held in
each hand. For if this were true, it would follow that one blind from his
birth being made to see, should stand in need of no new experience in
order to perceive distance by sight. But that this is false has, I think,
been sufficiently demonstrated.

43. And perhaps upon a strict inquiry we shall not find that even those
who from their birth have grown up in a continued habit of seeing are
irrecoverably prejudiced on the other side, to wit, in thinking what they
see to be at a distance from them. For at this time it seems agreed on
all hands, by those who have had any thoughts of that matter, that
colours, which are the proper and immediate object of sight, are not
without the mind. But then it will be said, by sight we have also the
ideas of extension, and figure, and motion; all which may well be thought
without, and at some distance from the mind, though colour should not. In
answer to this I appeal to an