Volume Volume1\Perspective of Disappearance
Entry# 224.
Contents: Vol. 1 | Vol. 2
An illustration by experiment.
Every visible body, in so far as it affects the eye, includes three
attributes; that is to say: mass, form and colour; and the mass is
recognisable at a greater distance from the place of its actual
existence than either colour or form. Again, colour is discernible
at a greater distance than form, but this law does not apply to
luminous bodies.
The above proposition is plainly shown and proved by experiment;
because: if you see a man close to you, you discern the exact
appearance of the mass and of the form and also of the colouring; if
he goes to some distance you will not recognise who he is, because
the character of the details will disappear, if he goes still
farther you will not be able to distinguish his colouring, but he
will appear as a dark object, and still farther he will appear as a
very small dark rounded object. It appears rounded because distance
so greatly diminishes the various details that nothing remains
visible but the larger mass. And the reason is this: We know very
well that all the images of objects reach the senses by a small
aperture in the eye; hence, if the whole horizon _a d_ is admitted
through such an aperture, the object _b c_ being but a very small
fraction of this horizon what space can it fill in that minute image
of so vast a hemisphere? And because luminous bodies have more power
in darkness than any others, it is evident that, as the chamber of
the eye is very dark, as is the nature of all colored cavities, the
images of distant objects are confused and lost in the great light
of the sky; and if they are visible at all, appear dark and black,
as every small body must when seen in the diffused light of the
atmosphere.
Footnote: The diagram belonging to this passage is placed between
lines 5 and 6; it is No. 4 on Pl. VI.
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