the Sun.  The Sight travels yet farther to the fixed Stars, and furnishes the Understanding with solid Reasons to prove, that each of them is a Sun moving on its own Axis in the Centre of its own Vortex or Turbillion, and performing the same Offices to its dependant Planets, that our glorious Sun does to this.  But the Enquiries of the Sight will not be stopped here, but make their Progress through the immense Expanse to the Milky Way, and there divide the blended Fires of the Galaxy into infinite and different Worlds, made up of distinct Suns, and their peculiar Equipages of Planets, till unable to pursue this Track any farther, it deputes the Imagination to go on to new Discoveries, till it fill the unbounded Space with endless Worlds.

The Sight informs the Statuary’s Chizel with Power to give Breath to lifeless Brass and Marble, and the Painter’s Pencil to swell the flat Canvas with moving Figures actuated by imaginary Souls.  Musick indeed may plead another Original, since Jubal, by the different Falls of his Hammer on the Anvil, discovered by the Ear the first rude Musick that pleasd the Antediluvian Fathers; but then the Sight has not only reduced those wilder Sounds into artful Order and Harmony, but conveys that Harmony to the most distant Parts of the World without the Help of Sound.  To the Sight we owe not only all the Discoveries of Philosophy, but all the Divine Imagery of Poetry that transports the intelligent Reader of Homer, Milton, and Virgil.

As the Sight has polished the World, so does it supply us with the most grateful and lasting Pleasure.  Let Love, let Friendship, paternal Affection, filial Piety, and conjugal Duty, declare the Joys the Sight bestows on a Meeting after Absence.  But it would be endless to enumerate all the Pleasures and Advantages of Sight; every one that has it, every Hour he makes use of it, finds them, feels them, enjoys them.

Thus as our greatest Pleasures and Knowledge are derived from the Sight, so has Providence been more curious in the Formation of its Seat, the Eye, than of the Organs of the other Senses.  That stupendous Machine is compos’d in a wonderful Manner of Muscles, Membranes, and Humours.  Its Motions are admirably directed by the Muscles; the Perspicuity of the Humours transmit the Rays of Light; the Rays are regularly refracted by their Figure, the black Lining of the Sclerotes effectually prevents their being confounded by Reflection.  It is wonderful indeed to consider how many Objects the Eye is fitted to take in at once, and successively in an Instant, and at the same time to make a Judgment of their Position, Figure, or Colour.  It watches against our Dangers, guides our Steps, and lets in all the visible Objects, whose Beauty and Variety instruct and delight.

The Pleasures and Advantages of Sight being so great, the Loss must be very grievous; of which Milton, from Experience, gives the most sensible Idea, both in the third Book of his Paradise Lost, and in his Sampson Agonistes.

To Light in the former.