Explore "The Stereoscope" by David Brewster on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Every experiment in science, and every instrument depending on scientific principles, when employed for the purpose of amusement, must necessarily be instructive. "Philosophy in sport" never fails to become "Science in earnest. " The toy which amuses the child will instruct the sage, and many an eminent discoverer and inventor can trace the pursuits which immortalize them to some experiment or instrument which amused them at school. The soap bubble, the kite, the balloon, the water wheel, the sun-dial, the burning-glass, the magnet, &c., have all been valuable incentives to the study of the sciences.
In a list of about 150 binocular pictures issued by the London Stereoscopic Company, under the title of "Miscellaneous Subjects of the ‘Wilkie' character," there are many of an amusing kind, in which scenes in common life are admirably represented. Following out the same idea, the most interesting scenes in our best comedies and tragedies might be represented with the same distinctness and relief as if the actors were on the stage. Events and scenes in ancient and modern history might be similarly exhibited, and in our day, binocular pictures of trials, congresses, political, legislative, and religious assemblies, in which the leading actors were represented, might be provided for the stereoscope.