Herein lies the difficulty, which vanishes if we express the thing more
clearly and free from ambiguity, thus: how comes it that to the eye the
visible head which is nearest the tangible earth seems farthest from the
earth, and the visible feet, which are farthest from the tangible earth
seem nearest the earth? The question being thus proposed, who sees not
the difficulty is founded on a supposition that the eye, or visive
faculty, or rather the soul by means thereof, should judge of the
situation of visible objects with reference to their distance from the
tangible earth? Whereas it is evident the tangible earth is not perceived
by sight: and it hath been shown in the two last preceding sections that
the location of visible objects is determined only by the distance they
bear from one another; and that it is nonsense to talk of distance, far
or near, between a visible and tangible thing.

114. If we confine our thoughts to the proper objects of sight, the whole
is plain and easy. The head is painted farthest from, and the feet
nearest to, the visible earth; and so they appear to be. What is there
strange or unaccountable in this? Let us suppose the pictures in the fund
of the eye to be the immediate objects of the sight. The consequence is
that things should appear in the same posture they are painted in; and is
it not so? The head which is seen seems farthest from the earth which is
seen; and the feet which are seen seem nearest to the earth, which is
seen; and just so they are painted.

115. But, say you, the picture of the man is inverted, and yet the
appearance is erect: I ask, what mean you by the picture of the man, or,
which is the same thing, the visible man's being inverted? You tell me it
is inverted, because the heels are uppermost and the head undermost?
Explain me this. You say that by the head's being undermost you mean that
it is nearest to the earth; and by the heels being uppermost that they