The eye is the instrument by which we perceive the beautiful and multifarious effects of this universal agent. Its delicate and complicated structure, its diversified muscles, its coats and membranes, its different humours possessed of different refractive powers, and the various contrivances for performing and regulating its external and internal motions, so as to accomplish the ends intended--clearly demonstrate this organ to be a master-piece of Divine mechanism--the workmanship of Him whose intelligence surpasses conception, and whose Wisdom is unsearchable. ‘Our sight (says Addison) is the most perfect and delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action, without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter the eye, except colours; but at the same time it is very much strained, and confined in its operation to the number, bulk and distance of its particular objects. Our sight seems designed to supply all these defects, and may be considered as a more delicate and diffusive kind of touch that spreads itself over an infinite multitude of bodies, comprehends the largest figures, and brings into our reach some of the more remote parts of the universe.’ Could we suppose an order of beings endued with every human faculty but that of sight, it would appear incredible to such beings--accustomed only to the slow information of touch--that by the addition of an organ consisting of a ball and socket, of an inch diameter, they might be enabled, in an instant of time, without changing their place, to perceive the disposition of a whole army, the order of a battle, the figure of a magnificent palace, or all the variety of a landscape. If a man were by feeling to find out the figure of the Peak of Teneriffe, or even of St. Peter’s church at Rome, it would be the work of a lifetime. It would appear still more incredible to such beings as we have supposed, if they were informed of the discoveries which may be made by this little organ in things far beyond the reach of any other sense--that, by means of it we can find our way in the pathless ocean--that we can traverse the globe of the earth, determine its figure and dimensions, and delineate every region of it--yea, that we can measure the planetary orbs, and make discoveries in the sphere of the fixed stars. And, if they were farther informed that, by means of this same organ, we can perceive the tempers and dispositions, the passions and affections of our fellow-creatures, even when they want most to conceal them--that when the tongue is taught most artfully to lie and dissemble, the hypocrisy should appear in the countenance to a discerning eye--and that by this organ we can often perceive what is straight and what is crooked in the mind as well as in the body--would