University of Virginia Library

The following pages originated in the supposed want of a concise treatise
on Perspective, adapted to the system of education established in the University
of Cambridge. Perhaps no subject, within the whole range of mathematical
enquiry, is in itself more attractive. . . . It is not so readily conceived
how the business of delineation can be reduced to a science, certain and demonstrable
as that of arithmetic. The principles, by means of which this is effected,
although few, and plain, and familiar to the studious, lie beyond the
limits of common observation; neither is such an application of them very
likely to occur to those who know them best. The bare enunciation, therefore,
of the problem, so to represent an object upon a given surface, that the picture
and its original shall excite the same sensations, is sufficient to stimulate the
curiosity of a young and ingenuous mind. Whether, indeed, the doctrine of
Perspective be considered only as a remarkable instance of ingenious speculation,
or as forming the basis of correct design, and instructing the judgement
of the connoisseur in painting, it comes sufficiently recommended to the man
of liberal education. [Pp. iii-iv]

They who wish to copy accurately and expeditiously the scenery of nature,
will probably have recourse to mechanical means; and the Camera
Lucida, the recent invention of Dr. Wollaston, will be found well suited to
their purpose. Still, whoever employs himself in drawing will find his advantage
in learning the principles of Perspective. [P. vii]

If the investigations here offered to the University should appear difficult
to any student of the second year, . . . it can only be attributed to one, or
both, of these two causes; the newness of the terms employed, and the want of
a familiar acquaintance with the first principles of the geometry of solids.
[P. ix]

It only remains formally to acknowledge, what would doubtless be inferred
from the history of Perspective, that the following is chiefly to be considered
as a new work in what regards its language, the formation and
connexion of its propositions, and its general arrangement. They who have
read the admirable essay of Dr. Brook Taylor [see No. 63], will no more expect
any thing which really deserves the name of originality here, than they
would in a treatise on Optics, written after that of Sir Isaac Newton: And this
is a subject the utmost limits of which are discovered at a first view. [P. ix-x]