The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1901-09-19

~ UR class book on human
nature gave me quite an
~ awakening, as it opened my
eyes to some facts that l had
never before given any serious attention
to. The first fact, and probably the
one that fixed itself most firmly upon
my mind, was that which gave me to
understand that the eye with all its
wonderful facilities for receiving i'm
pressions did not see in itself, but only
perceives the Photographic impression
of surface surroundings, and that it is
the knowledge behind the eye" that
gives to it its marvellous power of
observation. The eye is one of
the most delicate attributes of the
human body and is perhaps the express
sion of MANS greatest sense-that of
vision, if it is possible to give more
Importance to one of our five senses
than to another. For together they
form one ideal whole and separately are
very insufficient for the needs of man.
Science informs us that those animal
forms not possessed of eyes have an
instructive power of feeling that
supplies the sense of sight which warns
its possessor of safety or danger; and
we have OH record in the present day
cases of people enjoying lite and health
with numbers of their senses gone. A
remarkable case of which is Miss
Kellar, the young lady who is deaf,
dumb and blind, yet with her sense of
feeling so fully developed that she can
read and write and appreciate the
beauties of art by simply passing her
hands over sculpture and the like.
Darwin and other very learned men
have demonstrated how the optic nerve
in the lower animal forms, through
evolution, managed to penetrate to the
outer portions of the body, and there
formed a receptacle, or eye, to receive
visual impressions to be communicated
by the nerve to the seat of power, that
mysterious storage battery of knowl-
edge, the brain, which receiving i'm
pressions from our five senses and
combining them constitutes the "knowl-
edge behind the eye" All, now, in
colIoquial parlance, we are cup against
it," What is that nerve that communi-
Gates the impressions to the brain
Our nature book informs us that our
nerves are very minute filaments,
millions in number, penetrating our
whole body and so joined together as
to form continuous connection with
two collections of grayish matter in the
upper and lower part of the back of
the head; which gray matter upon
examination is found to be completely
intersected with these little systems
of nerves, and reminds one of the
central Offices of telegraph or tele-
phone system to which all. wires
converge, bringing in messages from a
Thousand different points.
All, but here again, we are up against
it! What is the power that stores these
messages and digests and concentrates
them for immediate or future usep At
present that is beyond our ken, for the
knowledge behind the eye" does not
seem capable of making us understand
itself. We know that every living
animal begins in single cell, and
around the cell grows the shape and
form it is to represent, which in the
case of a human being grows to be a
man. And man, the finished product,
is not nearly so wonderful as the power
that systematically concentrates the
elements about the first infinitesimal
cell and combining them forms the
man. OF that power in our materialism
we are vastly ignorant.