A Treatise on Painting/Chapter 100
Chap. C.—That it is impossible for any Memory to retain the Aspects and Changes of the Members.
It is impossible that any memory can be able to retain all the aspects or motions of any member of any animal whatever. This case we shall exemplify by the appearance of the hand. And because any continued quantity is divisible ad infinitum, the motion of the eye which looks at the hand, and moves from A to B, moves by a space A B, which is also a continued quantity, and consequently divisible ad infinitum, and in every part of the motion varies to its view the aspect and figure of the hand; and so it will do if it move round the whole circle. The same will the hand do which is raised in its motion, that is, it will pass over a space, which is a continued quantity[1].
- ↑ The eyeball moving up and down to look at the hand, describes a part of a circle, from every point of which it sees it in an infinite variety of aspects. The hand also is moveable ad infinitum (for it can go round the whole circle—see chap. lxxxvii.), and consequently shew itself in an infinite variety of aspects, which it is impossible for any memory to retain.