" It must, however, be held
impossible that blind people can thus distinguish colors in any
proper sense of the words. Different colored yarns, for example,
may have other differences of texture, etc., that would be
manifest to the sense of touch. We know of one case in which the
different colors were accurately distinguished by a blind girl,
but only when located in customary and definite positions. Le Cat
speaks of a blind organist, a native of Holland, who still played
the organ as well as ever. He could distinguish money by touch,
and it is also said that he made himself familiar with colors. He
was fond of playing cards, but became such a dangerous opponent,
because in shuffling he could tell what cards and hands had been
dealt, that he was never allowed to handle any but his own cards.
It is not only in those who are congenitally deficient in any of
the senses that the remarkable examples of compensation are seen,
but sometimes late in life these are developed. The celebrated
sculptor, Daniel de Volterre, became blind after he had obtained
fame, and notwithstanding the deprivation of his chief sense he
could, by touch alone, make a statue in clay after a model. Le
Cat also mentions a woman, perfectly deaf, who without any
instruction had learned to comprehend anything said to her by the
movements of the lips alone.
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