Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/239

 cially: For no Man makes himself ridiculous if he can help it; and now, that Mankind are satisfied by ocular Demonstration that the Brain is the Original of the Nerves, and the Principle of Sense and Motion, he would be thought out of his Wits that should doubt of this Primary use of the Brain, though formerly when things had not been so experimentally proved, Men might talk in the dark, and assign such Reasons as they could think of, without the Suspicion of being ignorant or impertinent.

The Eye is so very remarkable a Member, and has so many Parts peculiar to its self, that the Ancients took great Notice of it. They found its Humours, the watry, crystalline, and glassy, and all its Tunicles, and gave a good Description of them; but the Optick Nerve, the aqueous Ducts which supply the watry Humour, and the Vessels which carry Tears were not enough examined. The first was done by Dr. Briggs (e), who has found that in the Tunica Retiformis, which is contiguous to the glassy Humour, the Filaments of the Optick Nerve there expanded, lie in a most exact and regular Order, all parallel one to another, which when they are united afterwards in the Nerve are not shuffled confusedly toge-