one object; so direct is the act of causal apprehension in the Understanding.
We have not space enough here to refute one by one the physiological explanations of single vision which have been attempted; but their fallacy is shown by the following considerations:—
1°. If seeing single were dependent upon an organic connection, the corresponding points in both retinas, on which this phenomenon is shown to depend, would correspond organically, whereas they do so in a merely geometrical sense, as has already been said. For, organically speaking, the two inner and two outer corners of the eyes are those which correspond, and so it is with the other parts also; whereas for the purpose of single vision, it is the right side of the right retina which corresponds to the right side of the left retina, and so on, as the phenomena just described irrefutably show. It is also precisely on account of the intellectual character of the process, that only the most intelligent animals, such as the higher mammalia and birds of prey—more especially owls—have their eyes placed so as to enable them to direct both optic axes to the same point.
2°. The hypothesis of a confluence or partial intersection of the optic nerves before entering the brain, originated by Newton,[1] is false, simply because it would then be impossible to see double by squinting. Vesalius and Cæsalpinus besides have already brought forward anatomical instances in which subjects saw single, although neither fusion nor even contact of the optic nerves had taken place. A final argument against the hypothesis of a mixed impression is supplied by the fact, that on closing our right eye firmly and looking at the sun with our left, the bright image which persists for a time is always in the left, never in the right, eye: and vice versa.
- ↑ Newton, "Optics." Query 15.
