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Leader (1850-1860), 25th June 1853, Edition 1 of 1, Page 620, Untitled Article

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      is scarcely possible to see any fact quite truly . A few illustrations of the extreme distortions arising from the one cause and the extreme inaccuracy consequent upon the other , will justify this seeming paradox . Nearly every one is familiar with the myth prevalent on our sea-coasts , respecting the Baraaele Goose . The popular belief wfts , and indeed is still in some places , that the fruit of trees whose branches hang into the sea becomes changed into certain shell-covered creatures , called barnacles , which are found incrusting these submerged branches ; and further that these barnacles are in process of time transformed into the

      birds known as barnacle geese . This belief was not confined to the vulgar ; it was a received doctrine amongst naturalists . Nor was it with them simply an adopted rumour . It was based on observations that werd recorded and approved by the highest scientific authorities , and publishee with their countenance . In a paper contained in the Philosophical Transactions , Sir Robert Moray , describing these barnacles , says : " In every shell that I opened I found a perfect sea-fowl ; the little bill like that of a goose , the eyes marked , the head , neck , breast , wings , tail , and feet formed , the and the feet

      feathers everywhere perfectly shaped and blackish coloured , like those of other water-fowl , to the best of my remembrance . " This myth respecting the barnacle goose has been exploded for some century and a half . To a modern zoologist who examines one of these cirripedes as the barnacles are called , it seems scarcely credible that it could ever have been thought a chick ; and what Sir Robert Moray could have taken for " head , neck , breast , wings , tail , feet , and feathers , " he cannot imagine . Under the influence of a pre-conception , here is a man of education describing as " n perfect sea-fowl" what is now seen to be a modified crustacean—a creature belonging to a remote part of the animal kingdom .

      A still more remarkable instance of perverted observation is presented injin old book entitled Metamorphosis Naturalis , &c , published at Middleburgh in 1662 . This work , in which is attempted for the first time a detailed description of insect-transformation , contains numerous illustrative plates , in which are represented the various stages of evolution—larva , pupa , and imago . Those who have even but a smattering of Entomology will recollect that the chrysalises of all our common butterflies exhibit at the anterior end a number of pointed projections , producing an irregular outline . Have they ever observed in this outline a resemblance to a man ' s face ? For myself , I can say that though in early days I kept brood after brood of butterfly larvse through all their changes , I never perceived any such like ness , nor can I see it now . Nevertheless , in the plates of this

      Metamorphosis Naturalis , each of these ch ^ salises projections so modified as to produce a burlesque human head—the respective species having distinctive profiles given them . " Whether the author was a believer in metempsychosis , and thought he saw in the chrysalis a disguised humanity , ov whether , swayed by the false analogy which Butler makes bo much of , between the change from chrysalis to butterfly and that from mortality to immortality , he considered the chrysalis as typical of man—I cannot say . Here , however , is the fact—that influenced by some preconception or other , he Las shown the forms to be quite different from what they are . It is not that he simply thinks this resemblance existsit is not that lie merely says he can sec it—but his pre -conception so possesses him as to swerve his pencil , and make him produce representations laughably unlike the realities .

      These , which are extreme cases of distorted observation , differ only in degree from the distorted observations of daily life ; and so strong is the distorting influence , that oven the coolest man of science cannot escape its effects . Every mieroscopist knows that if they have conflicting theories respecting its nature , two observers shall look through the same instrument at the same object , and give quite different descriptions of its appearance . From the dangers of hypothesis let us now turn to the dangers of no hypothesis . Little recognised us is the fact , it is nevertheless true that we cannot make the commonest observations correctly without beforehand having some notion of what we are to observe . You are asked to listen to a faint sound , and you find that without a pre-conception of the

      kind of sound you are to listen for , you cannot hear it . Provided that it is not strong , nn unusual flavour in your food may pass quite uuperceived unless some one draws attention to it , when you taste it distinctly . After knowing him for years , you shall suddenly discover that your friend ' s nose is slightly awry , and wonder that yon never remarked it before . Still more striking becomes this inability when the facts to be observed are complex . () f u hundred people who listen to the dying vibrations of n church bell , almost nil will fail to perceive the harmonics , and will assert the sound to be si simple one . Scarcely any one who has not been taught to draw , sees , when in the street , that all the horizontal lines in the walls , windows , shutters , roofs , seem to converge to one point in the distance ; a fact which , after a few lessons in perspective , becomes visible enough .

      Perhaps I cannot more clearly illustrate this necessity for hypothesis as a menus to accurate perception , than by narrating a portion of my own experience relative to the colours of shadows . Indian ink was the pigment which , during boyhood , I invariably used for shading . * Ask any one who has received no culture in art , or who has given no thought to it , of what Colour a shadow is , and the unhesitating repl y will be—blaek . This is uniformly the Creed of the uninitiated ; and in thm creed I undoubtingly remained till about eighteen . Happening , at that age , to come tnuch in contact with an amateur artist , I was told , to

      my extreme surprise , that shadows are not black , but of a neutral tint . This , to me , novel doctrine , I strenuously resisted . I have a pretty distinct recollection of denying it point blank , and quoting all my experience in support of the denial . I remember , too , that the controversy lasted over a considerable period ; and that it was only after my friend had repeatedly drawn my attention to instances in nature , pointing out one shadow after another , and asking me whether I did not see its bluish-grey colour , that I finally gave in . Though I must previously have seen myriads of shadows , yet in consequence of the fact that in the majority of cases the tint approaches very nearly to black , I had been unable , in the absence of hypd ^ thesisto perceive that in the other cases it is distinctly not black .

      , I continued to hold this amended doctrine for some five or six years . It is true that from time to time I observed that the tone of the neutral tint varied very considerably in different shadows ; but still the divergencies were not such as to shake my faith in the dogma . By-and-bye , however * in a popular work on Optics , I met with the statement , that the colour of a shadow is always the complement of the colour of the light casting it ; Not seeing the wherefore of this alleged law , which seemed moreover to conflict with my established belief , I was led to study the matter as a ques * tion of causation . Why are shadows coloured ? and what determines the colour ? were the queries ' that suggested themselves . In seeking answers ,

      it soon became manifest , that as a space in shadow is a space from which the direct light only is excluded , and into which the indirect light ( namely that reflected by surrounding objects , by the clouds and the sky ) continues to fall , the colour of a shadow must partake of the colour of everything that can either radiate or reflect light into it . It follows that the colour of a shadow must in all cases be the average colour of the diffused light , and must vary as that varies with the colours of all surrounding things . Thus was at once explained the inconstancy I had already noticed ; and I was soon led to recognise , in fact , " that which the theory implies—namely ,

      that a shadow may have any colour whatever , according to circumstances . Under a clear sky , and with no trees , hedges , houses , or other objects at hand , shadows are of a pure blue . During a red sunset , the mixture of the yellow light from the upper part of the western sky , with the blue light from the eastern sky , produces green shadows . Go near to a gas lamp on a moonlight night , and a pencil-case placed at right angles to a piece of paper will be found to cast a purple-blue shadow , and a yellowgrey shadow , produced by the gas and the moon respectively . And there are conditions it would take too long here to describe , under which two parts of the same shadow are differently coloured . All which facts becama obvious to me as soon as I knew that they must exist .

      Here , then , respecting certain simple phenomena that are hourly visible , are three successive convictions ; each of them based on years of observation ; each , of them held with unhesitating confidence ; and yet only one —as I now believe—true . But for the help of an hypothesis , I should probably have remained in the common belief that shadows are black . And , but for the help of another hypothesis , I should probably have remained in the half-true belief that they are neutral tint . Is it not clear , therefore , that to observe correctly is by no means easy ? On the one hand , if we have a pre-conception , we are liable to see things not quite as they are , but as we think them . On the other hand , without a pre-conception , we are liable to pass over much that we ought to see . Yet we must have either a pre-conception or no pre-conception .

      Evidently , then , all our observations , save those guided by true theories already known , are in danger either of distortion or incompleteness . It remains but to remark , that if this be so with statical phenomena , how much more must it be so with dynamical ones . If our observations are imperfect , in cases like the foregoing , where the things seen are persistent , and may be again and again looked at , or continuously contemplated , how much more imperfect must they be where the things seen are complex

      processes , changes , or actions , each of them presenting successive phases , which , if not correctly seen at the moments they severally occur , can never be correctly seen at all . Here the chances of error become immensely multiplied . And when , in additibn , there exists some moral excitement , — when , as in these Spirit-rapping and Table-moving experiments , the intellect is partially paralysed , by fear or wonder—correct observation becomes next to nn impossibility .

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      Untitled Article

      CHARLES KHAN AND HARDANAPALTJS . To redeem my promise , I will try to express with moderation what really was tin- ofloot of SardanapaluH on the Chat Jluant und myself , as we Hat out its lengthened splendour , its weary pomp "Got up" with splendour and with cftro the piece undoubtedly is . All I iat nreliiooW could do has bMn done . WIiolW the nwilt was worth question . I will suppose the . pe . ! L ° W weansomo ; I will suppose the winged bulls ( in flftta ) to ^ had a trufy muBBive grandiose effect ; . 1 will suppose ihn < . ™ fl " " " lu II l ™ rjr bo HomeSiing more than a rival ofX < runf L , nJXatlo » a * tho end «*> the Surrey £ oo GardoiiB-Bom « UiinTmoS ? than fl ? , VoB y ™ . ' 1 im - ^ Bm BBycHi bano ? uA ^^ ^ r ' " £ « ollapBmg Lantern on a lar . o U P WaH ^^ . ^^ . " S ^^

      Untitled Article

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  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 25, 1853, page 620, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1992/page/20/