History of scientific ideas

by William Whewell

We learn from the theory of sound that concords occur when the times of vibration of the notes have exact simple ratios; an octave has these times as 1 to [306] 2; a fifth, as 2 to 3. According to the undulatory theory of light, such ratios occur in colours, yet the eye is not affected by them in any peculiar way. The times of the undulations of certain red and certain violet rays are as 2 to 3, but we do not perceive any peculiar harmony or connexion between those colours.

5. Chords.—Again, the ear has this prerogative, that it can apprehend two notes together, yet distinct. If two notes, distant by a fifth from each other, are sounded on two wind instruments, both they and their musical relation are clearly perceived. There is not a mixture, but a concord, a musical interval. In colours, the case is otherwise. If blue and yellow fall on the same spot, they form green; the colour is simple to the eye; it can no more be decomposed by the vision than if it were the simple green of the prismatic spectrum: it is impossible for us, by sight, to tell whether it is so or not.

These are very remarkable differences of the two senses: two colours can be compounded into an apparently simple one; two sounds cannot: colours pass into each other by gradations and intermediate tints; sounds pass from one concord to another by no gradations: the most intolerable discord is that which is near a concord. We shall hereafter see how these differences affect the scales of sound and of colour.

6. Rhythm.—We might remark, that as we see objects in space, we hear sounds in time; and that we thus introduce an arrangement among sounds which has several analogies with the arrangement of objects in space. But the conception of time does not seem to be peculiarly connected with the sense of hearing; a faculty of apprehending tone and time, or in musical phraseology tune and rhythm, are certainly very distinct. I shall not, therefore, here dwell upon such analogies.

The other Senses have not any peculiar prerogatives, at least none which bear on the formation of science. I may, however, notice, in the feeling of heat, this circumstance; that it presents us with two opposites, heat and cold, which graduate into each other. This [307] is not quite peculiar, for vision also exhibits to us white and black, which are clearly opposites, and which pass into each other by the shades of gray.

Sect. III.—The Paradoxes of Vision.

7. First Paradox of Vision. Upright Vision.—All our senses appear to have this in common; That they act by means of organs, in which a bundle of nerves receives the impression of the appropriate medium of the sense. In the construction of these organs there are great differences and peculiarities, corresponding, in part at least, to the differences in the information given. Moreover, in some cases, as we have noted in the case of audible position and visible distance, that which seems to be a perception is really a judgment founded on perceptions of which we are not directly aware. It will be seen, therefore, that with respect to the peculiar powers of each sense, it may be asked;—whether they can be explained by the construction of the peculiar organ;—whether they are acquired judgments and not direct perceptions;—or whether they are inexplicable in either of these ways, and cannot, at present at least, be resolved into anything but conditions of the intellectual act of perception.

Two of these questions with regard to vision, have been much discussed by psychological writers: the cause of our seeing objects upright by inverted images on the retina; and of our seeing single with two such images.

Physiologists have very completely explained the exquisitely beautiful mechanism of the eye, considered as analogous to an optical instrument; and it is indisputable that by means of certain transparent lenses and humours, an inverted image of the objects which are looked at is formed upon the retina, or fine net-work of nerve, with which the back of the eye is lined. We cannot doubt that the impression thus produced on these nerves is essential to the act of vision; and so far as we consider the nerves [308] themselves to feel or perceive by contact, we may say that they perceive this image, or the affections of light which it indicates. But we cannot with any propriety say that we perceive, or that our mind perceives, this image; for we are not conscious of it, and none but anatomists are aware of its existence: we perceive by means of it.

A difficulty has been raised, and dwelt upon in a most unaccountable manner, arising from the neglect of this obvious distinction. It has been asked, how is it that we see an object, a man for instance, upright, when the immediate object of our sensation, the image of the man on our retina, is inverted? To this we must answer, that we see him upright because the image is inverted; that the inverted image is the necessary means of seeing an upright object. This is granted, and where then is the difficulty? Perhaps it may be put thus: How is it that we do not judge the man to be inverted, since the sensible image is so? To this we may reply, that we have no notion of upright or inverted, except that which is founded on experience, and that all our experience, without exception, must have taught us that such a sensible image belongs to a man who is in an upright position. Indeed, the contrary judgment is not conceivable; a man is upright whose head is upwards and his feet downwards. But what are the sensible images of upwards and downwards? Whatever be our standard of up and down, the sensible representation of up will be an image moving on the retina towards the lower side, and the sensible representation of down will be a motion towards the upper side. The head of the man’s image is towards the image of the sky, its feet are towards the image of the ground; how then should it appear otherwise than upright? Do we expect that the whole world should appear inverted? Be it so: but if the whole be inverted, how is the relation of the parts altered? Do we expect that we should think our own persons in particular? This cannot be, for we look at them as we do at other objects. Do we expect that things should appear to fall [309] upwards? Surely not. For what do we know of upwards, except that it is the direction in which bodies do not fall? In short, the whole of this difficulty, though it has in no small degree embarrassed metaphysicians, appears to result from a very palpable confusion of ideas; from an attempt at comparison of what we see, with that which the retina feels, as if they were separately presentable. It is a sufficient explanation to say, that we do not see the image on the retina, but see by means of it. The perplexity does not require much more skill to disentangle, than it does to see that a word written in black ink, may signify white[8].