with a multiplicity of colours depicted upon it, we maintain that
we cannot stop here, and that we never do stop here. We invariably go on
(such is the inevitable law of our nature) to complete the picture--that
is to say, we fill in our own eye as a colour within the very picture
which our eye contains--we fill it in as a sensation within the other
sensations which occupy the rest of the field; and in doing so, we of
necessity, by the same law, turn these sensations out of the eye; and they
thus, by the same necessity, assume the rank of independent objective
existences. We describe the circumference infinitely within the
circumference; and hence all that lies on the outside of the intaken
circle comes before us stamped with the impress of real objective truth.
We fill in the eye greatly within the sphere of light, (or within the eye
itself; if we insist on calling the primary sphere by this name,) and the
eye thus filled in is the only eye we know any thing at all about, either
from the experience of sight or of touch. _How_ this operation is
accomplished, is a subject of but secondary moment; whether it be brought
about by the touch, by the eye itself, or by the imagination, is a
question which might admit of much discussion; but it is one of very
subordinate interest. The _fact_ is the main thing--the fact that the
operation _is_ accomplished in one way or another--the fact that the sense
comes before itself (if not directly, yet virtually) as _one_ of its own
sensations--_that_ is the principal point to be attended to; and we
apprehend that this fact is now placed beyond the reach of controversy.

To put the case in another light. The following considerations may serve
to remove certain untoward difficulties in metaphysics and optics, which
beset the path, not only of the uninitiated, but even of the professors of
these sciences.

We are assured by optical metaphysicians, or metaphysical opticians, that,
in the operations of vision, we never get beyond the eye itself, or the
representations that are depicted therein. We see nothing, they tell us,
but what is delineated within the eye. Now, the way in which a plain man
should meet this statement, is this--he should ask the metaphysician
_what_ eye he refers to. Do you allude, sir, to an eye which belongs to my
visible body, and forms a small part of the same; or do you allude to an
eye which does not belong to my visible body, and which constitutes no
portion thereo