"I carried my hand to my head, I touched my forehead, I felt my whole frame. Then I found my hand to be the principal organ of my existence. All its informations were so distinct, so perfect, and so superior to what I had experienced from the other senses, that I employed myself for some time in repeating its enjoyments. Every part of my body, which I touched with my hand, seemed to touch my hand in turn, and actually gave back sensation for sensation. "It was not long before I perceived that this faculty of feeling was expanded over my whole frame, and I began to discover the limits of my existence, which at first I had supposed of an immense extent, and diffused over all the objects I saw. "Upon casting my eyes upon my body, I conceived it to be of a size so enormous, that all other objects seemed to be, in comparison, as so many luminous particles. I gazed upon my person with pleasure. I examined the formation of my hand, and all its motions; and my hand appeared to be more or less large, in proportion as it was more or less distant from my eyes. On bringing it very near, it concealed, I found, almost every other object from my sight. "I began to suspect there was some fallacy in the sensation I experienced from the eye, because as I perceived my hand was only a small part, I could not conceive how it should appear so large; I therefore resolved to depend for information upon the touch, which as yet had never deceived me. This precaution was highly serviceable. I renewed my motions, and walked with my face turned toward the heavens. Happening to strike lightly against a palm-tree, I was dismayed, and laid my hand, though not without fear, upon this object, and found it to be a being distinct from myself, because it did not return double sensation as my own body had done. Now it was that, for the first time, I perceived there was something external, something which did not form an actual part of my own existence. "From this new discovery I concluded that I ought to form my opinion with respect to external objects, in the same manner as I had done with respect to the parts of my body. I resolved, therefore, to feel whatever I saw, and vainly attempted to touch the sun, I stretched forth my arm and found nothing but an airy vacuum. Every effort I made, as each object appeared to me equally near, led me from one fit of surprize into another, nor was it till after an infinite number of trials that I was enabled to use the eye as a guide to the hand, and that I perceived there were some objects more remote from me than others.