tangible magnitude, so neither can any visible figure be inseparably
connected with its corresponding tangible figure: so as of itself and in
a way prior to experience, it might suggest it to the understanding. This
will be farther evident if we consider that what seems smooth and round
to the touch may to sight, if viewed through a microscope, seem quite
otherwise.

106. From all which laid together and duly considered, we may clearly
deduce this inference. In the first act of vision no idea entering by the
eye would have a perceivable connexion with the ideas to which the names
EARTH, MAN, HEAD, FOOT, etc., were annexed in the understanding of a
person blind from his birth; so as in any sort to introduce them into his
mind, or make themselves be called by the same names, and reputed the
same things with them, as afterwards they come to be.

107. There doth, nevertheless, remain one difficulty, which perhaps may
seem to press hard on our opinion, and deserve not to be passed over: for
though it be granted that neither the colour, size, nor figure of the
visible feet have any necessary connexion with the ideas that compose the
tangible feet, so as to bring them at first sight into my mind, or make
me in danger of confounding them before I had been used to, and for some
time experienced their connexion: yet thus much seems undeniable, namely,
that the number of the visible feet being the same with that of the
tangible feet, I may from hence without any experience of sight
reasonably conclude that they represent or are connected with the feet
rather than the head. I say, it seems the idea of two visible feet will
sooner suggest to the mind the idea of two tangible feet than of one
head; so that the blind man upon first reception of the visive faculty
might know which were the feet or two, and which the head or one.