a sculptor, as was the case, for instance, with the famous Joseph Kleinhaus, who died in Tyrol, 1853, having been a sculptor from his fifth year.[1] For, no matter from what cause it may have derived its data, perception is invariably an operation of the Understanding.
But just as a single ball seems to me double, if I touch it with my fingers crossed—since my Understanding, at once reverting to the cause and constructing it according to the laws of Space, takes for granted that the fingers are in their normal position and of course cannot do otherwise than attribute two spherical surfaces, which come in contact with the outer sides of the first and middle fingers, to two different balls—just so also does an object seem double, if my eyes, instead of converging symmetrically and enclosing the optic angle at a single point of the object, each view it at a different inclination—in other words, if I squint. For the rays, which in this case emanate from one point of the object, no longer impinge upon those symmetrically corresponding points in both retinas with which my mind has grown familiar by long experience, but upon other, quite different ones which, in a symmetrical position of the eyes, could only be affected in this way by different
- ↑ The Frankfort "Konversationsblatt," July 22, 1853, gives the following account of this sculptor:—"The blind sculptor, Joseph Kleinhaus, died at Nauders, in Tyrol, on the 10th inst. Having lost his eyesight through small-pox when he was five years old, he began to amuse himself with carving and modelling, as a pastime. Prugg gave him some instructions, and supplied him with models, and at the age of twelve he carved a Christ in life-size. During a short stay in Nissl's workshop at Fügen, his progress was so rapid, that, thanks to his good capacities and talents, his fame as the blind sculptor soon spread far and wide. His works are numerous and of various kinds. His Christs alone, of which there are about four hundred, bear special witness to his proficiency, particularly if his blindness is taken into consideration. He sculptured many other objects besides, and, but two months ago, he modelled a bust of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria which has been sent to Vienna."
