Eyewitness

“ Can you be deceived by the eye? You can, you have proved this; you all know that there are men who can deceive the sight of the eye, no matter how closely you observe their movements. Can you be deceived in hearing? ”

“ On the one hand, we have seven witnesses—to be perfectly exact, we have six and a half pairs of eyes, and one undeniable fact; and on the other we have—what is it?—prejudice, common sense, the inertia of opinion. Never were there seven more honest-seeming witnesses; never was there a more undeniable fact than the inversion of Gottfried Plattner’s anatomical structure, and—never was there a more preposterous story than the one they have to tell! ”

“ This investigation, almost at one stroke, throws a blinding light upon the entire field of the phenomena; accounting in large part for the vast aggregate of testimony in favor of miracles by actual witnesses, demonstrating the readiness with which we may unwittingly deceive ourselves by false observation and others by lapses of [156] memory, as to what we actually witnessed; and again presenting the nature of these fallible characteristics of sense-perception and memory, of inference and judgment, so strikingly and tangibly as to serve as a classic illustration for the psychologist. ”

“ Its aim is to teach the unscientific observer how to make use of his eye,—'how to look, and what to look at;' and to show him how much of wonder and beauty lies everywhere around him, if he could only recognise it. ”

“ Such evidence for the cast and character of any period is as much to be relied upon as the testimony of a living witness about the men, the movements, the looks, the bustle of Wall street or the Stock Exchange. ”

“ It was as if some one whom they had known all their lives, quite familiar in their daily life, should suddenly have stood up and declared himself to have been an eye-witness to most marvellous proceedings. ”

“ This belief, and the many foolish notions which it breeds, presents one of the greatest difficulties to be met, and, if possible, overcome, by the blind man or woman obliged to earn a livelihood. So potent is eyesight considered that, without it, some people think it impossible to perform even the simplest duties, and the person obliged to substitute fingers for eyes, and memory for pad and pencil is regarded as a marvel of intelligence and skill, and as possessing a sixth sense. ”

“ Learn to observe and you will have gone far toward mastering the art of news getting and news writing. Casual observation is nearly always faulty. Take for example the conflicting statements of persons on the witness stand. One man, telling his version of an automobile accident, swears the car was going fully thirty miles an hour, another is certain the speed was only eight miles; one heard the driver sound a warning “honk,” another is equally positive no warning was given. Each witness is a reputable citizen and each thinks his version is the truth. ”

“ Like a secret atmosphere, it surrounds and bathes his spirit as he goes on with the external work. And have not you too, my friends, an Auditor—it may be a "great cloud of witnesses,"—but at least one all-glorious Witness and Listener ever present, ever watchful, as the discourse of life proceeds? ”

“ Clairvoyance was proved by one of the patients repeatedly reading and naming cards while four of the commissioners successively held his eyes closed with their fingers—a test, the absolute conclusiveness of which each one may satisfy himself of."
The term clairvoyance means literally clear sight. But everybody with good eyes has clear sight; the alleged vision is, therefore, not of the ordinary kind. ”

“ Though apparently surveying the world with a sick and careless eye, he occasionally penetrated into the depths of the human heart, and marked its secrets, with an accuracy that made the practised and systematic observer's survey seem but a superficial glance. ”

“ IN the course of some recent inquiries into visual memory, I was greatly struck by the frequency of the replies in which my informants described themselves as subject to "visions." Those of whom I speak were sane and healthy, but were subject notwithstanding to visual presentations, for which they could not often account, and which in a few cases reached the level of hallucinations. This unexpected prevalence of a visionary tendency, among persons who form a part of ordinary society, seems to me suggestive and worthy of being put on record. ”

“ He strikes a close observer as one who could not easily be overlooked in any gathering. His face would remain in the memory—a face of one born to direct the thought and work of others, to lead and command. ”

“ But more than form and colour and that enchanting variability was the look of intelligence, which at the same time seemed complementary to and one with the all-seeing, all-hearing alertness appearing in her face; the alertness one remarks in a wild creature, even when in repose and fearing nothing; but seldom in man, never perhaps in intellectual or studious man. ”

“ Eye-witness account is to true story what realism is to fiction. Exactness is the aim of the narrator. He endeavors to tell precisely what he saw and heard. A great deal of our newspaper "copy" is supposed to be of this type, and likewise much court testimony. The attorneys try to separate distinctly fact from fancy. What a man really must have seen and what he thought he saw are often very different. ”

“ Touch is no doubt wanting in a prerogative of hearing and sight which we shall presently see to be important, namely, that being acted on by objects at a distance they admit of a simultaneous perception by a number of persons—as indeed even the sense of smell does in a measure. This is probably the chief reason why, according to certain testimony, the blind receive but little aesthetic enjoyment from tactual experience. ”

“ Neither calculation nor hearsay,—be it the most subtle of calculations, or the wisest of sayings,—may be allowed to come between the universe, and the witness which art bears to its visible nature. The whole value of that witness depends on its being eye-witness; the whole genuineness, acceptableness, and dominion of it depend on the personal assurance of the man who utters it. ”

“ In several books and newspapers I happened to read lately, I have noticed a certain tone touching the uneducated witness; phrases like "the vagueness characteristic of their class," or "easily confused, as such witnesses are." Now such vagueness is simple truthfulness. Nine times out of ten, it is the confusion any man would show at any given instant about the complications which crowd human life. ”

“ Sight and hearing then exercise themselves more perfectly than in the condition called waking, and possibly without the aid of those organs which are the sheaths for those luminous swords called sight and hearing! ”

“ You speak now—as an educated man—with equal contempt of clairvoyance; but a half-hour's ride down Madison or Halsted Street, with an eye open to the signs in the second-story windows, will show you how widespread to-day is the belief in clairvoyance, since so many persons gain a living by it. ”

“ It teaches, for example, that colors to which particular attention has not been given are especially ill remembered; that times of a few minutes are almost always considerably over-estimated; that the main outlines of an event, if they have been followed with attention and if the witness has not shared especially in the emotions involved, are commonly correctly reproduced; that on the contrary, things observed without attention are very liable to distortion. ”

“ The eye examines the human countenance with such rapidity and such accuracy that no one will ever succeed in giving in words a picture of the minute details and fugitive traits which we see appear and disappear on the face during emotion. ”

“ But notice: you can keep your attention fixed on only a portion of the field at a time. The rest of the field is always lost in a dim haze. You must be receiving impressions all the time from all points of the field. But all of these, except the few to which you pay attention, nearly or quite disappear in the dim thickets that seem to surround the little forest-clearing made by our attentive consciousness. A like experiment can be tried with the sense of hearing, when you are in a large room full of people who are talking all around you in many independent groups. ”

“ Ah no! dark and empty and lonely as the world may be to us, no intelligent blind person could be found who would exchange hearing, and its attendant gift of speech, for a pair of the brightest eyes in the world ”

“ We learn, moreover, from this handling how far the man may be objective. His perception as witness means to him only an experience, and the human mind may not collect experiences without, at the same time, weaving its speculations into them. But though everyone does this, he does it according to his nature and nurture. There is little that is as significant as the manner, the intensity, and the direction in and with which a witness introduces his speculation into the story of his experience. Whole sweeps of human character may show themselves up with one such little explanation. ”

“ The active, observing eye is the sign of intelligence; while the vacant, listless stare of indifference betokens an empty brain. The eyes are placed in an elevated position that they may better observe all that comes within their range. These highways to the soul should always stand wide open, ready to carry inward all such impressions as will add to our knowledge. ”

“ But there are, of course, also the two ways of volitional vision. We can see with the endless modern critical sight, analytic, and at last deliberately ugly. Or we can see as the hawk sees the one concentrated spot where beats the life-heart of our prey.
In the four modes of sight we have some choice. We have some choice to refuse tastes or smells or touch. In hearing we have the minimum of choice. ”

“ How else is he to know false gods from true except by doubting both? One of the most pernicious of folk-sayings is, ‘I could scarcely believe my eyes?’ Why should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your feelings if you like—but not your eyes unaided by any of these inter [Pg 61] preters. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual scenery. Your eyes will tell you nothing exists but matter—” “Not my eyes only, but my boss.” ”

“ You have wilfully introduced a witness into your life, the scene of these defeats, and can no longer close the mind’s eye upon uncomely passages, but must stand up straight and put a name upon your actions. ”

“ We observe however, that the blind have a more delicate and accurate touch than we, because, not having sight to guide them, they depend upon touch for the judgments we form with the aid of sight. Why then do we not train ourselves to walk, like them, in the dark, to recognize by the touch all bodies we can reach, to judge of objects around us, in short, to do by night and in the dark all they do in daytime without eyesight? ”

“ Some of them I can touch, some smell, some speak with, some see, some discern otherwise than by sight. But if you cannot trust your eyes, why should you trust your nose or your fingers? There's my difficulty in talking about reality. ”

“ An account of an extraordinary occurrence given by an honest witness is, of course, generally preferable to a statement of the same occurrence merely obtained from hearsay; and the evidence of the witness deserves all the greater attention if he shows himself to be an intelligent and keen observer. ”

“ I observe a series of visual impressions, and at the same time a series of auditory impressions; if there is a certain agreement between them, I irresistibly unite these two series by my act of attention into one series, and refer them to a common cause. And so in the other cases. Attention seems to defeat, in part, its own object. Bringing something into the field of knowledge seems to be a modifying, if not a transforming, process. ”

“ Contrary to the opinions of some writers, I find hearing, and not the group of tactual-motor sensations, to be the chief sense with the blind, both in waking and in dreams. That hearing owes very much of this supremacy to its being the vehicle of conversation, goes without saying. ”

“ Better Eyesight, December 1921 A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF IMPERFECT SIGHT WITHOUT GLASSES
THINK RIGHT "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," is a saying which is invariably true when the sight is concerned. ”

“ If attention be the reproduction of the sensation from within, the habit of reading not merely with the eye, and of listening not merely with the ear, but of articulating to one's self the words seen or heard, ought to deepen one's attention to the latter. ”

“ If you look for a minute, not much caring whether you see anything or not, and then turn away, and get your eye dazzled with all those vulgar, crude, high colours round about you here on earth, it is very little that you will see of ‘the things that are not seen.’ Concentrated attention, and a steadfast look, are wanted to make the invisible visible. ”

“ The looking-glass still more distinctly proves how deceptive is sight when unverified by touch. And the frequent cases in which we misinterpret the impressions made on our eyes, and think we see something which we do not see, further shake our faith in vision. ”

“ As I said before, the man is a gallant soldier, and does gallant things. But to return to the present question--may I depend on you to-morrow? For we must have a witness, and our witness must be both discreet and silent. ”

“ Who can say where the mouth leaves off and where the smile begins? In order to give a just opinion, both the observer and the object of observation must be in a state of rest. But who can be quiet near a Parisian, and what Parisian woman is ever quiet? ”

“ Also, human beings shut off sight with peculiar case, by closing their eyes or by the calamity of blindness. The information provided by mere sight is peculiarly barren — namely, external regions disclosed as coloured. ”