sibly have been owing to a set of
idle stories, or to any cause of a nature so trivial, and of an
operation so precarious.

SECTION XV.

DARKNESS TERRIBLE IN ITS OWN NATURE.

Perhaps it may appear on inquiry, that blackness and darkness are in
some degree painful by their natural operation, independent of any
associations whatsoever. I must observe, that the ideas of darkness and
blackness are much the same; and they differ only in this, that
blackness is a more confined idea. Mr. Cheselden has given us a very
curious story of a boy who had been born blind, and continued so until
he was thirteen or fourteen years old; he was then couched for a
cataract, by which operation he received his sight. Among many
remarkable particulars that attended his first perceptions and judgments
on visual objects, Cheselden tells us, that the first time the boy saw
a black object, it gave him great uneasiness; and that some time after,
upon accidentally seeing a negro woman, he was struck with great horror
at the sight. The horror, in this case, can scarcely be supposed to
arise from any association. The boy appears by the account to have been
particularly observing and sensible for one of his age; and therefore it
is probable, if the great uneasiness he felt at the first sight of black
had arisen from its connection with any other disagreeable ideas, he
would have observed and mentioned it. For an idea, disagreeable only by
association, has the cause of its ill effect on the passions evident
enough at the first impression; in ordinary cases, it is indeed
frequently lost; but this is because the original association was made
very early, and the consequent impression repeated often. In our
instance, there was no time for such a habit; and there is no reason to
think that the ill effects of black on his imagination were more owing
to its connection with any disagreeable ideas, than that the good
effects of more cheerful colors were derived from their connection with
pleasing ones. They had both probably their effects from their natural
operation.

SECTION XVI.

WHY DARKNESS IS TERRIBLE.

It may be worth while to examine how darkness can operate in such a
manner as to cause pain. It is observable, that still as we recede from
the light, nature has so contrived it, that the pupil is enlarged by the
retiring of the iris, in proportion to our recess. Now, instead of
declining from it but a little, suppose that we withdraw entirely f