The best method of observing this deception is to view the engraved seal of a watch with the eyepiece of an achromatic telescope, or with a compound microscope, or any combination of lenses which inverts the objects that are viewed through it.[11] The depression in the seal will immediately appear an elevation, like the wax impression which is taken from it; and though we know it to be hollow, and feel its concavity with the point of our finger, the illusion is so strong that it continues to appear a protuberance. The cause of this will be understood from Fig. 14, where S is the window of the apartment, or the light which illuminates the hollow seal LR, whose shaded side is of course on the same side L with the light. If we now invert the seal, with one or more lenses, so that it may look in the opposite direction, it will appear to the eye as in Fig. 15, with the shaded side L farthest from the window. But as we know that the window is still on our left hand, and that the light falls in the direction RL, and as everybody with its shaded side farthest from the light must necessarily be convex or protuberant, we immediately believe that the hollow seal is now a cameo or bas-relief. The proof which the eye thus receives of the seal being raised, overcomes the evidence of its being hollow, derived from our actual knowledge, and from the sense of touch. In this experiment the deception takes place from our knowing the real direction of the light which falls upon the seal; for if the place of the window, with respect to the seal, had been inverted as well as the seal itself, the illusion could not have taken place.
Fig. 15.
Fig. 16.
In order to explain this better, let us suppose the seal LR, Fig. 14, to be illuminated with a candle S, the place of which we can change at pleasure. If we invert LR, it will rise into a cameo, as in Fig. 15; and if we then place another candle S on the other side of it, as in Fig. 16, the hollow seal will be equally illuminated on all sides, and it will sink down into a cavity or intaglio. If the two candles do not illuminate the seal equally, or if any accidental circumstance produces a belief that the light is wholly or principally on one side, the mind will entertain a corresponding opinion respecting the state of the seal, regarding it as a hollow if it believes the light to come wholly or principally from the right hand, and as a cameo if it believes the light to come from the left hand.
If we use a small telescope to invert the seal, and if we cover up all the candle but the flame, and arrange the experiment so that the candle may be inverted along with the image, the seal will still retain its concavity, because the shadow is still on the same side with the illuminating body.
If we make the same experiments with the raised impression of the seal taken upon wax, we shall observe the very same phenomena, the seal being depressed when it alone is inverted, and retaining its convexity when the light is inverted along with it.
The illusion, therefore, under our consideration is the result of an operation of our own minds, whereby we judge of the forms of bodies by the knowledge we have acquired of light and shadow. Hence the illusion depends on the accuracy and extent of our knowledge on this subject; and while some persons are under its influence, others are entirely insensible to it. When the seal or hollow cavity is not polished, but ground, and the surface round it of uniform colour and smoothness, almost every person, whether young or old, learned or ignorant, will be subject to the illusion; because the youngest and the most careless observers cannot but know that the shadow of a hollow is always on the side next the light, and the shadow of a protuberance on the side opposite to the light; but if the object is the raised impression of a seal upon wax, I have found that, when inverted, it still seemed raised to the three youngest of six persons, while the three eldest were subject to the deception.
Fig. 17.