The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-11-05
ERRORS OF TIE EYE.

An A41usbrb60Q paper by Archibald
Hobson in the November st. Nicholas
explains some ''queer errors of the
eyes"
We all cherish the notion that our
eyes can make no mistake. "Seeing
is believing" is an old and respected
maxim. We depend on our sight
more than on any of our other
senses. Civilization has duIled for
us our smell and hearing, and our
taste and touch play but small parts
In our life. The average person does
not pride himself on his keenness of
smell, hearing, touch, or taste, but
he would be loath to admit that he
could not "believe his own eyes -
Notwithstanding, there are many
cases, as we shall see, in which the
eye shows itself to be but a poor
judge of facts, incapable of telling
to the mind a truthful story of what
1t sees.
We Q everything, in short, by
the light of experience alone. New
born babies, while they have eyes,
see not. The eye is a camera pure
and simple, and, until its Impressions
can be developed in the conscious
ness, what it secs means nothing.
The baby first learns to distinguish
light from darkness then it learns to
recognize its mother, then it's father :;
then it learns, perhaps, TO distin-
guish some bright color, red it may
be then il learns TO discriminate be-
tween near and far objects. 1t looks
at the nearest house down the street,
and takes it TO be of about the size
Of it's NOah's ark, for so it appears
to be. Later it goes to that house
and discovers that it is as big as it's
own house, which now, at distance,
in turn, looks smaller. Gradually it
makes it's way from the known to
the unknown, using it's own expert
ences as stepping-stones The eye
knows no such thing as size or dis
tance in the abstract and apart from
reasoning, but knowing one by ex-
p~erience, is can make a sure esti-
mate of the other.
The average woman cannot judge
how much a foot is within several
inches, but she can estimate a yard
very closely, while with the average
man the case is reversed. If some
one asked you which was the longer,
horses head from the tip of his
ears to the end of his nose, or an
ordinary -four barrel, you would
naturally say the barrel, though
the horses head is the longer. The
eye is very easily deceived if it is
called on to pass Judgment on some
thing that has not been brought
home TO it by experience. The land
lubber at sea greatly underestimates
the distance of passing ships, having
no familiar landmarks with which TO
make comparisons. Truthful men
under oath in court often disagree
widely as TO observed facts, and no
doubt with perfect honesty. We
will not distrust our eyes, though
no doubt they deceive us oftener
than we realize.
There should be an element OF
illusion in every picture, and the
true artist is one who knows how to
make allowance for this. So also in
architecture. Measurements of the
finest buildings left US by the an
clients show us conclusively that the
skillful architects of those old times
understood perfectly about the illu
siye effects of lines on the eye, for
they so designed their buildings as
TO counteraot such defects of vision.
The walls, instead of being vertical,
lean in; tall windows are wider at
the top than at the bottom columns
swell in the middle instead OF being
straight the top lines of the build
ings. instead of being strictly horl-
zontal, are considerably higher in the
middle. and so on. Without doubt
much of the beauty of these classic
buildings was due to the recognition
of suoh principles in their construc-
tion. Modern architects generally
ignore everything of this kind and
bnild strictly by the square, level,
and numb line. There are fine
buildings in every city that have
been made to suffer in this way, for,
+boneh really we'll built, their walls