Eye contact

“ It stimulates the peripheral sense organ, the eye, the retina, the physiological processes aroused in the rods and cones are transmitted by the optic nerve and by the optic tracts to the visual centres of the occipital lobes, the functioning of which is accompanied by sensations of sight. ”

“ Eyelids, also moved by muscles, and fringed by the eyelashes, serve to guard the eyes from dust, and to screen them from the access of too intense a light.
So much for the anatomy of the eye; let us now consider its functions. As already observed, the eye may be compared to a camera obscura, for the rays of light from any object entering the pupil form an image on the retina, just as the picture is painted on the ground glass of the camera. The various humours of the eye form a wonderful compound lens, far excelling the achromatic lenses of the opticians. ”

“ Nervous movements of the eyelids may also be noted, either by ordinary inspection, or by lightly touching the lid of one eye while the other regards an object either at the near point or the distance. The visual axes are never parallel, and the deviation from the normal may become so marked as to constitute the condition of squint. ”

“ A second set of impressions, of use in preserving equilibrial status, come through the eye, or rather habitually through the eyes, because the consensual impressions arising out of double vision and the co-ordinate movements of the two fields of sight have, as is well known, much to do in this matter. ”

“ The eye, too, forms the centre of emotional expression, and reveals to our fellow-men the subtile variations in mood and passion, as it is to the physician a delicate index of our well-being. There are reasons for believing that it was the function of sight as a distance-sense that led to its supremacy in the lives of our primitive ancestors. ”

“ The trouble is that the possessor of the normal eye [Pg 205] does not take into consideration that in all near work, as in reading, writing, sewing, etc., the eye is actively engaged as well as the hands and brain, and that the eye only is at rest when looking into space or when closed. ”

“ Attention to an object in the hand is shown by "feeling of it", to a substance in the mouth by tasting movements, to an odor by sniffing movements, to a sound by cocking the head and turning the eyes towards the source of sound. The most instructive of this type of attention-reactions are those of the eyes. The eye is focused on the object that arouses attention, the lens being accommodated for its distance by the action of the little ciliary muscle inside the {250} eyeball; the two eyes are converged upon the object, so that the light from it strikes the fovea or best part of each retina ”

“ We are so accustomed to merely play with children, that we are easily blinded to the full seriousness of such requests.
We cannot break off these reflections on the image of the retina without making mention of a remarkable spot in the background of the eye—the yellow spot marking the entrance of the optic nerve. All perception whatever is arrested within the bounds of this spot—it is a blind point in our field of view. ”

“ First, the sight of the distorted eye might gradually decay by the hurt; so the appearances presented by that eye would gradually vanish. Secondly, a small and unperceived change in the manner of directing the eyes, might occasion his not seeing the object with the distorted eye, as appears from sect. I 5. art. io. Thirdly, by acquiring the habit of directing one and the same eye always to the object, the faint and oblique appearance, presented by the other eye, might be so little attended to when it became familiar, as not to be perceived. ”

“ Our attention to the page of the book brings with it our lack of attention to everything else. We may add a third factor. We feel that our body adjusts itself to the perception. Our head enters into the movement of listening for the sound, our eyes are fixating the point in the outer world. We hold all our muscles in tension in order to receive the fullest possible impression with our sense organs. The lens in our eye is accommodated exactly to the correct distance. In short our bodily personality works toward the fullest possible impression. ”

“ No matter whether the object regarded is strange or familiar, whether the light is good or imperfect, whether the surroundings are pleasant or disagreeable, even under conditions of nerve strain or bodily disease, the normal eye is expected to have normal refraction and normal sight all the time. ”

“ The lens of the eye acts just like a glass lens. It makes a picture of everything we see, upon the ends of the nerves of sight which are spread out at the back of the eyeball. The nerves of sight tell their nerves in the brain about the picture, just as the nerves of feeling tell their cells when they are touched with a pin ”

“ With this absolute knowledge of how each eye is made he knows what is wrong, exactly at what angle light enters the eye, whether objects are focused too soon or too late, exactly what kind of eyeglasses or what operation upon the eye is needed to enable it to do its work without undue straining or accommodation. ”

“ Every eye probably contains muscæ volitantes, so called; these are fibres, granules, etc., floating in the vitreous humor, throwing their shadows on the retina, and appearing in the field of vision as little dark moving spots. They are most easily detected by looking attentively at a broad, bright, blank surface like the sky. Most persons who have not had their attention expressly called to the existence of these figures are apt to notice them for the first time when some ailment befalls their eyes and attracts their attention to the subjective state of these organs. ”

“ It can be taken as a fact, which the theory of the action of the eye implies, that for each external impression, that is, for each image produced upon the retina, the ends of the visual nerves, concerned in the conveyance of the impression to the mind, must be under a peculiar stress or in a vibratory state. ”

“ All those operations, therefore, which proceed from direct irritation of the nervous part of the visual organ, without the medium of the eye and of light, under the term subjective vision, are opposed to those phenomena produced by the media of eye and light, and known as objective vision. ”

“ The same method has proved successful with other patients.
Some patients do not know whether they are looking straight at an object or not. These may be helped by watching the deviating eye and directing them to look more nearly in the proper direction. ”

“ Working consciously, I have tightened some muscle or other, some muscles or other, so that the eye has now the wrong shape for seeing at that distance. Moral: Let your eye alone, and it does the right thing. ”

“ A great part of the importance of the eye as an organ of expression depends on the same fact; for the movements of the eyeball—its glances—are among the most direct signs of the movement of the attention, of the movements of the mind, of the person who is looking at us. ”

“ These facts show the indeterminateness of the space-import of various retinal impressions. Take now the eye's movements, and we find a similar vacillation. When we follow a moving object with our gaze, the motion is 'voluntary'; when our eyes oscillate to and fro after we have made ourselves dizzy by spinning around, it is 'reflex'; and when the eyeball is pushed with the finger, it is 'passive.' Now, in all three of these cases we get a feeling from the movement as it effects itself. But the objective perceptions to which the feeling assists us are by no means the same. ”

“ Some principles may be alleged,—for instance, where there is strong understanding, the look is pleasing, whilst the eye moves calmly, passing in curves, the pupil is contracted, the brows are bent downward, and the ball is prominent; whereas, when the feelings predominate, the eye performs its motions more actively, and is fluctuating and flickering, indicating the emotions of the mind, the pupil is dilated, the iris appears soft, and oft riding in a charmed sea of crystal drops. ”

“ In visual perception the sweep of the glance, that is the adjustment of the muscles of the inner eye, the outer eye and of the head, is susceptible of being either interrupted or continuous like any other muscular process; and its continuity is what unites the mere successive sensations of colour and light into a unity of extension, so that the same successive colour-and-light-sensations can be experienced either as one extension, or as two or more, according as the glance is continuous or interrupted ”

“ The pupil of the eye opens into a little, round room where the nerve of sight is. This is a safe place for this delicate nerve, which can not bear too much light. It carries to the brain an account of every thing we see. ”

“ Nor is it at all difficult to understand how this general condition comes to be associated with the eye, and how the particular visual sensations come to be associated with something distant from the eye: and further, how this association of the condition with one thing, and of the sensations with another thing, (an association established by the touch and not by the sight,) dissolves the primary synthesis of seeing and colours. ”

“ A first difficulty presents itself: consider a red color sensation affecting a certain point of the retina; and on the other hand a blue color sensation affecting the same point of the retina. It is necessary that we have some means of recognizing that these two sensations, qualitatively different, have something in common. Now, according to the considerations expounded in the preceding paragraph, we have been able to recognize this only by the movements of the eye and the observations to which they have given rise. ”

“ This mechanism of the iris in diminishing or enlarging the pupil can be neatly observed by looking into a mirror placed on one side of a window. If the hand is put up in such a way as to screen the eye from the light, the pupil will be seen to enlarge ”

“ We regard the organ and its dispositions merely as a general condition regulating the apprehension of the visual sensations, and no more.
Thus, by attending to the two associations that occur,—the association (in place) of visual sensations with tangible bodies that are not the eye; and the association (in place) of vision with a small tangible body that is the eye—the eye regarded as the condition on which the apprehension of these sensations depends; by attending to these, we can understand how a protensive interval comes to be recognised between the organ and its objects. ”

“ How long will it take for my eyes to become young again, if that is possible? G. H. A. 1. The test card is for everybody.
2. Yes, the swing would help you. The normal eye is constantly shifting, and thus an apparent movement of objects regarded is produced. By consciously imitating this unconscious shifting of the normal eye and realizing this apparent movement which it produces, imperfect sight is always improved.
3. You should discard your glasses permanently. They are never a benefit and always an injury to the eyes. ”

“ This part, indeed, is not a spot of definite size and form, for it appears that proceeding from a certain point of the retina, the distinct sensibility diminishes on every side by degrees. And the searching motion of the eye arises from the desire which we instinctively feel of receiving upon the sensible spot the image of the object to which the attention is directed. We are uneasy and impatient till the eye is turned so that this is effected. ”

“ When a patient has consciously lowered his vision and produced discomfort and even pain by trying to see the big C, or a whole line of letters, equally well at one time, he becomes better able to correct the unconscious effort of the eye to see all parts of a smaller area equally well at one time... ”

“ The organ of language—ask the little child—is not the eye: it is the ear. The eye is made for colours, and not for sounds and words.... This tension, continuous and contrary to nature, of the organ of sight, the forced precipitancy of the visual act, produced what it was bound to produce, a disease of the eyesight. ”

“ If what is seen is to be seen accurately there is automatic resort to the confirmatory aid of the sense of touch, which apprehends what the eye has missed. Hence we find many people touching things, whose vision is not altogether reliable—i.e., people of considerable age, children unpracticed in seeing, an uneducated people who have never learned to see quickly and comprehensively. Moreover, certain things can be determined only by touching, i.e., the fineness of papers, cloth, etc., the sharpness or pointedness of instruments, or the rawness of objects. ”

“ The reason of this is, that all the parts of the eye have evidently a distinct nature, a separate use, a greater mutual dependence on one another than on those of the ear; at the same time that there is a considerable connexion between the eye and the ear, as parts of the same body and organs of the same mind. ”

“ EXPRESSIONS OF THE EYE.—The mere expression of the eye conveys precise ideas of the existing and predominant states of the mentality and physiology. As long as the constitution remains unimpaired, the eye is clear and bright, but becomes languid and soulless in proportion as the brain has been enfeebled. ”

“ By increased sensibility and excitability in their remaining senses. The ears, the nose, and the fingers, afford a surface for impressions in blind people, which frequently overbalances the loss of their eye-sight. ”