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Curiosities Respecting Man (While some persons are noted)

While some persons are noted for their extrao dinary and wonderful faculties, others are remarkable for defects in natural capacities. The reader will feel interested in the following CURIOUS ACCOUNT OF INCAPACITY OF DISTINGUISHING COLOURS.

Of this extraordinary defect in vision, we have the following instances in the Philosophical Transactions for 1777. One of the persons lived at Maryport in Cumberland. The account was communicated by Mr. Huddart to Dr. Priestly; and is as follows:-"His name was Harris; by trade a shoe-maker. I had often heard from others that he could discern the form and magnitude of all objects very distinctly, but could not distinguish colours. This report had excited my curiosity; I conversed with him frequently on the subject. The account he gave was this: That he had reason to believe other persons saw something in objects which he could not see; that their language seemed to mark qualities with precision and confidence, which he could only guess at with hesitation, and frequently with error. His first suspicion of this arose when he was abour four years old. Having by accident found in the street a child's stocking, he carried it to a neighbouring house to inquire for the owner; he observed the people called it a red stocking, though he did not understand why they gave it that denomination, as he himself thought it completely described by being called a stocking. This circumstance, however, remained in his memory, and together with subsequent observations, led him to the knowledge of this defect. He also observed, that when young, other children could discern cherries on a tree by some pretended difference of colour, though he could only distinguish them from the leaves, by the difference of their size and shape. He observed also, that by means of this difference of colour they could see the cherries at a greater distance than he could, though he could see other objects at as great a distance as they, that is, where the sight was not assisted by the colour. Large objects he could see as well as other persons; and even the smaller ones, if they were not enveloped in other things, as in the case of cherries among the leaves. I believe he could never do more than guess the name of any colour; yet he could distinguish white from black, or black from any light or bright colour. Dove or straw colour he called white, and different colours he frequently called by the same name; yet he could discern a dif ference between them when placed together. In general, colours of an equal degree of brightness, however they might otherwise differ, he confounded together. Yet a striped ribbon he could distinguish from a plain one; but he could not tell what the colours were with any tolerable exactness. Dark colours, in general, he often mistook for black; but