Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/114

 the vault of the sky: that is to say, for its appearing to have greater horizontal than vertical extension. Both phenomena therefore are purely intellectual or cerebral, not optical. If it be objected, that even when at its zenith, the moon occasionally has a hazy appearance without seeming to be larger, we answer, that neither does it in that case appear red; for its haziness proceeds from a greater density of vapours, and is therefore of a different kind from that which proceeds from atmospheric perspective. To this may be added what I have already said: that we only apply this mode of estimating distances in a horizontal, not in a perpendicular, direction; besides, in this case, other correctives come into play. It is related of Saussure that, when on the Mont Blanc, he saw so enormous a moon rise, that, not recognising what it was, he fainted with terror.

The properties of the telescope and magnifying glass, on the other hand, depend upon a separate estimate according to the visual angle alone: i.e., that of size by distance, and of distance by size; because here the four other supplementary means of estimating distances are excluded. The telescope in reality magnifies objects, while it only seems to bring them nearer; because their size being known to us empirically, we here account for its apparent increase by a diminution of their distance from us. A house seen through a telescope, for instance, seems to be ten times nearer, not ten times larger, than seen with the naked eye. The magnifying glass, on the contrary, does not really magnify, but merely enables us to bring the object nearer to our eyes than would otherwise be possible; so that it only appears as large as it would at that distance even without the magnifying glass. In fact, we are prevented from seeing objects distinctly at less than from eight to ten inches' distance from our eyes, by the insufficient convexity of the ocular