Zoonomia; Or, the Laws of Organic Life, Vol. I

by Erasmus Darwin

Whence it is reasonable to conclude, that the light of the day must be much too weak in its dilute state to make any mechanical impression on so tenacious a substance as the retina of the eye.—Add to this, that as the retina is nearly transparent, it could therefore make less resistance to the mechanical impulse of light; which, according, to the observations related by Mr. Melvil in the Edinburgh Literary Essays, only communicates heat, and should therefore only communicate momentum, where it is obstructed, reflected, or refracted.—From whence also may be collected the final cause of this degree of transparency of the retina, viz. left by the focus of stronger lights, heat and pain should have been produced in the retina, instead of that stimulus which excites it into animal motion.

[2]. On looking long on an area of scarlet silk of about an inch in diameter laid on white paper, as in Plate I. the scarlet colour becomes fainter, till at length it entirely vanishes, though the eye is kept uniformly and steadily upon it. Now if the change or motion of the retina was a mechanical impression, or a chemical tinge of coloured light, the perception would every minute become stronger and stronger,—whereas in this experiment it becomes every instant weaker and weaker. The same circumstance obtains in the continued application of sound, or of sapid bodies, or of odorous ones, or of tangible ones, to their adapted organs of sense.

Thus when a circular coin, as a shilling, is pressed on the palm of the hand, the sense of touch is mechanically compressed; but it is the stimulus of this pressure that excites the organ of touch into animal action, which constitutes the perception of hardness and of figure; for in some minutes the perception ceases, though the mechanical pressure of the object remains.

[3]. Make with ink on white paper a very black spot about half an inch in diameter, with a tail about an inch in length, so as to resemble a tadpole, as in Plate II.; look steadfastly for a minute on the center of this spot, and, on moving the eye a little, the figure of the tadpole will be seen on the white part of the paper; which figure of the tadpole will appear more luminous than the other part of the white paper; which can only be explained by supposing that a part of the retina, on which the tadpole was delineated, to have become more sensible to light than the other parts of it, which were exposed to the white paper; and not from any idea of mechanical impression or chemical combination of light with the retina.

[4]. When any one turns round rapidly, till he becomes dizzy, and falls upon the ground, the spectra of the ambient objects continue to present themselves in rotation, and he seems to behold the objects still in motion. Now if these spectra were impressions on a passive organ, they either must continue as they were received last, or not continue at all.

[5]. Place a piece of red silk about an inch in diameter on a sheet of white paper in a strong light, as in Plate I; look steadily upon it from the distance of about half a yard for a minute; then closing your eye-lids, cover them with your hands and handkerchief, and a green spectrum will be seen in your eyes resembling in form the piece of red silk. After some seconds of time the spectrum will disappear, and in a few more seconds will reappear; and thus alternately three or four times, if the experiment be well made, till at length it vanishes entirely.

[6]. Place a circular piece of white paper, about four inches in diameter, in the sunshine, cover the center of this with a circular piece of black silk, about three inches in diameter; and the center of the black silk with a circle of pink silk, about two inches in diameter; and the center of the pink silk with a circle of yellow silk, about one inch in diameter; and the center of this with a circle of blue silk, about half an inch in diameter; make a small spot with ink in the center of the blue silk, as in Plate III.; look steadily for a minute on this central spot, and then closing your eyes, and applying your hand at about an inch distance before them, so as to prevent too much or too little light from passing through the eye-lids, and you will see the most beautiful circles of colours that imagination can conceive; which are most resembled by the colours occasioned by pouring a drop or two of oil on a still lake in a bright day. But these circular irises of colours are not only different from the colours of the silks above mentioned, but are at the same time perpetually changing as long as they exist.

From all these experiments it appears, that these spectra in the eye are not owing to the mechanical impulse of light impressed on the retina; nor to its chemical combination with that organ; nor to the absorption and emission of light, as is supposed, perhaps erroneously, to take place in calcined shells and other phosphorescent bodies, after having been exposed to the light: for in all these cases the spectra in the eye should either remain of the same colour, or gradually decay, when the object is withdrawn; and neither their evanescence during the presence of their object, as in the second experiment, nor their change from dark to luminous, as in the third experiment, nor their rotation, as in the fourth experiment, nor the alternate presence and evanescence of them, as in the fifth experiment, nor the perpetual change of colours of them, as in the last experiment, could exist.