110.  Hence it follows that a man born blind and afterwards, when grown up, made to see, would not in the first act of vision parcel out the ideas of sight into the same distinct collections that others do, who have experienced which do regularly coexist and are proper to be bundled up together under one name.  He would not, for example, make into one complex idea, and thereby esteem an unit, all those particular ideas which constitute the visible head or foot.  For there can be no reason assigned why he should do so, barely upon his seeing a man stand upright before him.  There crowd into his mind the ideas which compose the visible man, in company with all the other ideas of sight perceived at the same time:  but all these ideas offered at once to his view, he would not distribute into sundry distinct combinations till such time as by observing the motion of the parts of the man and other experiences he comes to know which are to be separated and which to be collected together.

111.  From what hath been premised it is plain the objects of sight and touch make, if I may so say, two sets of ideas which are widely different from each other.  To objects of either kind we indifferently attribute the terms high and low, right and left, and suchlike, denoting the position or situation of things:  but then we must well observe that the position of any object is determined with respect only to objects of the same sense.  We say any object of touch is high or low, according as it is more or less distant from the tangible earth:  and in like manner we denominate any object of sight high or low in proportion as it is more or less distant from the visible earth:  but to define the situation of visible things with relation to the distance they bear from any tangible thing, or Vice versa, this were absurd and perfectly unintelligible.  For all visible things are equally in the mind, and take up no part of the external space:  and consequently are equidistant from any tangible thing which exists without the mind.

112.  Or rather, to speak truly, the proper objects of sight are at no distance, neither near nor far, from any tangible thing.  For if we inquire narrowly into the matter we shall find that those things only are compared together in respect of distance which exist after the same manner, or appertain unto the same sense.  For by the distance between any two points nothing more is meant than the number of intermediate points:  if the given points are visible the distance between them is marked out by the number of the interjacent visible points:  if they are tangible, the distance between them is a line consisting of tangible points; but if they are one tangible and the other visible, the distance between them doth neither consist of points perceivable by sight nor by touch, i.e. it is utterly inconceivable.  This, perhaps, will not find an easy admission into all men’s understanding:  however, I should gladly be informed whether it be not true by anyone who will be at the pains to reflect a little and apply it home to his thoughts.